Too close for comfort!

In your professional and personal life do you keep a respectful distance from your colleagues and your family? Transparency is the key but ask yourself if you keep people feeling guilty by your actions.

Let me give you an example. Your family member is asking for some space but you are not willing to listen to their needs. Instead you make them feel guilty that they want the space and hover over their decisions. The manner which is most prevalent is by manipulating them. This is often done through their vulnerabilities or their wish to satisfy your needs instead of their own. Their is a huge divide here and again you have people who continuously live their lives in the role of dominator and call this caring. I call it selfish.

In the workplace, the same is true. Employees have supervisors who advise them. Is this advice honest and without subjectivity? Is their workload realistic or is it a dumping ground for the supervisor's idea of workload? If the supervisor has ulterior motives in service of himself or herself, this is subjective.

The issue is how you conduct yourself as a role model and it is pertinent to the behavior of your family and your co-workers.  If you scoff at this message, think seriously about how you appear to those you choose to associate with daily. Meaningful relationships take years to build, but it is not like building a house of cards.

Using offensive language and judging others reminds me of an egocentric, irreverent person who gets attention by claiming to be what he or she is not. Eventually, these individuals will be discovered and discredited for being unreal. All this may take a long time because the influence is often believed over time. It's called manipulation and it is learned behavior that tends to capture the meek, children, and some adults.

What appears to be "close" is often just the opposite. Some clues of this great phenomenon are, gift giving for the sake of being the good guy or girl without true empathy but expecting an applause, being in touch daily just to be in the other person's life without giving a single breathe of fresh air. It's about encroaching in a life that should have some freedom.

Granted some families are close naturally but being so close that one person dominates in service of himself or herself can be most destructive. So the same exists in the working world. It's destructive because it gives only one person the ultimate voice which is verbalized as the only way to think and the only way to believe.
Supporting this behavior is appalling and my suggestion is to BE your own person.

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Gloria M. Reiske is an MSW, LCSW with more than thirty years experience in education, administration, social work, and coaching. She has authored many articles and is published in local media, having written a men and grief manual for training purposes throughout Virginia and an article for children and grief. Email me at gloriareiske@blogspot.com and watch for this article on my business Facebook page.

Morality in Your Professional and Personal Life

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines morality as simply right or wrong behavior. Although this sounds too simple, this involves values, integrity and honesty among other things.

In your professional life do you embrace the values of your company or do you just go along to get along? Are your cultural values in conflict with the real you? Perhaps your salary dictates the path you take. Involved in all this is the expression of your everyday lifestyle. In this time of turmoil, perhaps you stay under the radar just to keep your job. 

That is a helpless feeling and one that often influences and determines your behavior.

Ask yourself if this behavior also creeps into your personal life? If you have a family, are you teaching them to speak the truth honestly and without reservation? Transparency is required to lay your belief system out on the table.

Ignorance is bliss but thinking that you can hide under a rock and let the world drift by is like telling yourself that birds don't fly. Each day is brand new and you need to decide your course and walk that road. Sometimes that is very difficult, but so is blindness to situations around you.

Companies that are successful depend on everyone to join with the honest mission of good faith, good honest heads and hearts. Although I am not an idealist, I have devoted my life to helping others and that is not always pretty, but it works. Changes are made from your dedication to the "right" behavior not the rhetoric of the mindless few who choose to dislodge this behavior by their dark and morbid ideas. This serves no purpose except to energize people and blind them to the truth.

Consider your personal life the most important part of your well being. Walking with those who historically have, through their respectful and daily lives, demonstrated behavior that is not boastful but humble, is the epitome of a life well spent.

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Gloria M. Reiske is an MSW, LCSW with more than thirty years experience in education, administration, social work, and coaching. She has authored many articles and is published in local media, having written a men and grief manual for training purposes throughout Virginia and an article for children and grief. Email me at gloriareiske@blogspot.com and watch for this article on my business Facebook page.

How Do You Define Yourself Professionally?

You can say a professional has many attributes, but what are they? Can you name a few and do you have the qualities that demonstrate them? Perhaps I can list a few for you and then decide if you fit into them.

1. Communication - A true professional can and does communicate with peers and their team with focus. When you think before you talk, you have taken the step that will surely define you as respectful and a good listener. When you have your teams ear and can explain exactly what you mean, the hope is that your communication skills are finely tuned, concise and come from your wisdom and expertise. When you communicate well, you empower others to make good decisions.
2. Customers - Your customers vary from the one who works with you, and for you. Let me explain. Customers come first in any organization and if you do not believe that you need your cohorts to believe in your product, then your are on a slippery slide. When you put the customer first, you can be reassured of a successful business. When you satisfy the needs of those you work with, you definitely rise to the top of the satisfaction scale.
3. Expertise - You measure expertise by experience, and that needs some explanation. Experience is not about the length of time in one position, but it is about your accumulated knowledge over time. Do you have the knowledge necessary to do your job and do you perform to the very best of your abilities? If you cannot respond affirmatively, what are you doing in your position? Experience demands that you always increase your knowledge.
4. Expectations - Professionals have little time off because they are expected to do their job no matter how long it takes. To qualify that statement, a professional has the responsibility to balance work and home whenever possible. To be an obsessive compulsive individual serves only to be so driven that nothing else matters except "the job". If you are living this life, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you want to be that person.
5. Model - Attributes of a professional means also that you may need some repair in your attitude, your performance, your knowledge, and you need to admit to your shortcomings. When you strive ethically, morally and humbly to be your best, no matter what, chances are you are on the right path. Transparency is not just a word but gives you the freedom to honestly be yourself.
6. Empower - Finally, empower yourself and be proud of your professional self. We all need to take stock of how we see ourselves and how others see us.

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Gloria M. Reiske is an MSW, LCSW with more than thirty years experience in education, administration, social work, and coaching. She has authored many articles and is published in local media, having written a men and grief manual for training purposes throughout Virginia and an article for children and grief.
gloriareiske@blogspot.com
View my business Facebook page.

Interviewing and your resume - prepare or dare!

While interviewing is very important you need to ask yourself three questions.

1. Can you sell yourself with confidence and enthusiasm?
2. Have you done your homework and identified the company strengths and how you will fit into the organization?
3. Are you qualified or just want a job?

Let's explain each question:

1.  Do you understand the mission of the company? If you are confident in yourself, and enthusiastic about ethical work requirements, do you drive that message home? You cannot fake what you don't know and if you try you will be relegated to the bottom of the pile.
2. Inquire from within and outside the company just who you will be working with and for what. Get all the information you can about the company before the interview as you most certainly will  be asked what you know about the company. Ask pertinent questions when appropriate as this is not time to be uninformed. Listen and direct your questions and answers after you have enough information to intelligently join the conversation.
3. Qualifications play a major part of the interview. You may believe you are qualified, but what gives you the notion that you can do the job. Interviewers have little time for small talk. Be prepared to sell yourself to a team or interviewer who is attempting to fill the job with a qualified person and one who will fit in with co-workers and colleagues.

Personality, integrity, honesty, capabilities, abilities are some of what you will be questioned about and you must be on your best behavior. Stress related and crisis issues are often on the agenda and you will be asked how you would handle these.

Be honest in your responses as interviewers will most definitely identify your weaknesses in those areas. If you are nervous, let the interviewer know you as a humble soul and real. Now is the time to let your anxiety show. You can only be seen as someone who is direct and honest.

One very strong indicator of your preparedness for the job is a recent resume, one that talks about your work life with enthusiasm. Long tirades about how wonderful you are will draw a yawn and a polite thank you, but you are not the one. Interviewers are looking for a resume that identifies you as a person who needs little coaching and training. Scrutinize your resume and think of it as a sleeper or an active piece of information about you. Remember that most of the time you are among many who applied for this job. The best marketing tool is YOU. Don't wait for interviewers to offer you the job, compete for it.

First impressions are sometimes one of the check marks that interviewers see, so do not show up late or in your latest designer clothing. If you are comfortable and not pretentious, you will score higher than if you pretend to be someone you are not.

Do not dare your interviewers to find the qualities you possess by being unprepared.

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Gloria M. Reiske is an MSW, LCSW with more than thirty years experience in education, Administration, social work, and coaching. She has authored many articles and is published in local media, having written a men and grief manual for training purposes throughout Virginia and an article for children and grief.

Gloriareiskelcswblogspot.com
Read my business Facebook.

Persuasion and Integrity is a Great Marriage!

Nobody can honestly deny that these two are good partners. Persuasion though can be elusive. You can persuade others to view your influence as true or a way to exploit others. Or, you can persuade others by being a trusted model, which encompasses integrity. When we believe in someone our expectation is that they will listen and advise or guide according to the principles of morals, and values.

When we discover that they only want to have you think they understand the situation but are basically giving you two left hands, run the other way. When you are seeking answers, you are vulnerable. In that vulnerability, you hear solutions that are false.

Even though the final word is yours, sift through all rhetoric that you hear and do not be influenced by individuals who get pleasure from your pain.

Now is the time to gather all your thoughts, in the quiet of the night and consider what will be your decision and not the person who gives you false advice. Being too trustworthy only gives you blind faith. Blind faith reminds me of walking into the fog and not finding a way out.

Transparency and saying what you will do and do what you say is true integrity. Some will not like your honesty but stay the course and you will always succeed in my book. Persuasion means influencing others according to good values, but it is also about having the ability to influence others not coerce.

Integrity talks about  consistency, reliability, transparency, and honesty in all your dealings, professionally and personally. Integrity says you admit to your mistakes and process how to resolve the problem.

Coercion is not persuasion. It entails your egotistical nature and is detrimental to your behavior. It does, most definitely, define the person who believes there is only one view, yours. People who coerce instead of honestly persuading, often are seen as bullies and do not manage their teams successfully.

Over the years integrity and persuasion are a great couple and cannot be separated. Like a good marriage, these two are truly a match to envy and repeat over and over again.

To finalize this duo, remember that your reputation is at stake and you have a choice to make, one that will follow you the rest of your life. With so much confusion in today's world, it is a breathe of fresh air to think that you can honestly make changes that will make a difference.