The WORST Unprofessional Behaviour at Work: Never Do These 7 Unprofessional Things!

So a few weeks ago I did a poll on LinkedIn and I asked people what was the number one behavior that makes somebody unprofessional at work and I gave them four choices. The first one was gossiping about your co-workers, the second was taking credit for someone's work, the third was self-promotion and the fourth was talking about personal things. Now at the time of filming this particular video the poll had reached 18,000 views on LinkedIn and 518 people voted their answers. More interesting though there was one particular behavior that stood out from the rest, one particular behavior that made somebody look really unprofessional in the workplace and I'm going to share that behavior with you in this video. If you like what you're going to learn in this video and you want to help support my channel then make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell below. Every week I share videos on leadership to help you on your leadership journey and I would be honored to have your part of this community. So in this video I'm going to share seven of the most unprofessional behavior that you can use in the workplace. It's going to be a countdown so I'm going to start with number seven then number one which will be the last one I talk about in this video will be the most unprofessional behavior you can do in the workplace. Number seven is monopolizing meetings. You may have experienced this at some stage in one of the meetings you have attended, you may have come across monopolizing Martin, somebody who takes up all of the talking space in the meeting, never lets anyone else talk, it's all about them and their opinions and their ideas. I think you get the idea. Monopolizing Martin forgets that meetings are a team effort, that everyone needs the space to talk in the meeting, that everybody's ideas and everyone's opinions count. He forgets that in order to uncover the best ideas you need diverse opinions and diverse ideas which means you need everyone to share their ideas and opinions in the meeting. So don't be a monopolizing Martin in your next meeting, this is a really unprofessional behavior you want to avoid. The next unprofessional behavior is talking about personal things. So think of drama Diane, she talks about all of her problems, her family problems, her work problems, her health problems, her financial problems, her divorce problems, there is nothing left secret here with drama Diane. Her life is just made up of constant problems and she wants to share them with you. Drama Diane forgets that there are boundaries at work, that her co-workers are just there to do a job, they don't need to know about all her personal problems, they just want to get their work done and she's distracting them or preventing them from being able to do that. Now interesting side note here, I actually included this option talking about personal things in the LinkedIn poll that I talked about at the beginning of this video and only two percent of people who voted said that they thought talking about personal things was unprofessional at work. Now this does surprise me, maybe it's because we are becoming more inclusive in our work environment, maybe it's because we're developing more empathy for our co-workers. Tell me what you think about this in the comments below. The next unprofessional behavior is too much self-promotion, so think of salesy Susan who tells everyone she got a pay rise when she was the only one and who tells everyone she won an amazing lucrative client. Now self-promotion is important in the workplace, it's important to help you gain visibility which is a really important part of developing your professional reputation. It's a major part of what I talk about on this channel, so I'm definitely for self-promotion and for developing visibility, but I do find that there is a fine line between self-promotion that is acceptable and self-promotion that is unprofessional and sometimes people don't quite know where this line is and they can end up offending or just putting off their co-workers by doing too much self-promotion. In the LinkedIn poll that I did, 6% of people felt that self-promotion was unprofessional in the workplace, so it's not a huge number 6% but it is still something to be noted and something to take into account. If self-promotion is something you think you want to work on, then I have two videos to share with you, this one which offers more advice on direct methods of self-promotion and this video which offers advice on more indirect methods for self-promotion. Number four on the list is taking shortcuts, so think of fast freddy who wants everything done as quickly as possible and finished ASAP. He doesn't care if there are any errors, he doesn't want things to be proofread, this is just going to take up more time, he just wants things done. Now I get where fast freddy is coming from, it's important to have things done as quickly as possible, but when you neglect proofreading, when you don't do a proper job, what you produce is mediocre results and you can easily get the reputation of producing shoddy work. This is not something that you want to be associated with especially if you are looking to leadership and another reason this is really bad is because if you get the reputation of being someone who produces mediocre results or shoddy work, people won't want to work with you, they won't want to be associated with somebody who produces shoddy work. Now I didn't include this option in the LinkedIn poll that I did, but I do think it's an important thing that you need to consider and that you need to think about. Number three in the countdown is blaming co-workers for your mistakes. Now this isn't just unprofessional, it's also unethical. Think of blaming Billy, now he just made a mistake in the report he submitted, he's embarrassed about this mistake, he doesn't want anyone to know it was him who made this mistake, so he puts the blame on Salzy Susan because he's so tired of her being such a high achiever all the time. But you shouldn't be like blaming Billy no matter how annoying Salzy Susan is to work with. Blaming other people for your mistakes is unprofessional and unethical. If you make a mistake, own up to it, be honest, don't put the blame on someone else, you'll get the reputation of being a dishonest co-worker, nobody will want to work with you or worse, you might stop getting invited to group lunches. We're getting to the end of our countdown here and number two is gossiping about your co-workers. Think of a gossipy Gillian who can't keep a secret, she has to let everyone know everything that's going on in your life, whether it's your personal life or your professional life. Even things you've told her in secret, she can't keep it to herself, she has to let everybody know. In the LinkedIn poll that I did, gossiping about your co-workers was the second hated unprofessional behavior. 35% of people who voted in that poll believe that gossiping about your co-workers was unprofessional. Nobody likes a gossip, nobody wants to work with gossipy Gillian. It doesn't make people trust you and it doesn't lead to a well-functioning office environment. So don't be like gossipy Gillian. If you want to learn how to deal with gossip in the workplace, then you need to watch this video up here and if you like what you've learned so far in this video, then subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell so you know when I release future videos. Now let's move on to my favorite most unprofessional behavior in the workplace and that is taking credit for someone's work. So think of greedy George. Greedy George works with other people on projects, he makes them do all of the hard work but on the final report he puts his name and only his name on the final report and he never gives any contribution to anyone else. But people have woken up to him, now people refuse to work with him and he's gotten a lot of negative feedback around the office and worse he's not invited to group lunches either. So greedy George is not someone you want to be and as it turns out taking credit for someone else's work on the LinkedIn poll that I did, it was the most unprofessional behavior you can find in the workplace. 57% of people who took that poll voted this taking credit for someone's work as an unprofessional behavior. So it's definitely something that you do not want to do especially if you want people to think that you are professional. If someone has taken credit for your work and you want to know how to handle it, then you need to watch this video right here which will give you a detailed explanation of what you can say exactly what you can say to that person.