Work It Podcast: Overcoming people pleasing in the workplace

Giving up your needs for others in the office may be detrimental if you are constantly seeking their validation and not drawing clear boundaries. What can people pleasers do to protect themselves?

CNA TODAY reporter Eunice Sng talks through some of the points she gleaned from experts she spoke to on the subject.

Here's an excerpt from the conversation: 

Tiffany Ang, host: 
What's the difference between being a people pleaser and someone who's just nice and easy to work with? When is it clearly a problematic thing?

Eunice Sng, CNA TODAY journalist: 
So the very definition of people pleasing is forgoing your own wants and needs for the benefit of others. You can also be a positive addition to the workplace, your positive work attitude such as being helpful, being a team player, without having to compromise on your boundaries and needs. So I think that's the key difference.

Tiffany:
I came across this self help book, Stop People Pleasing And Find Your Power. This author's name is Hailey Magee, and she was saying that it could be very simple examples like being unwilling to express your needs, like asking for time off, or asking for an extended deadline when there is more work added to your load.

Things like picking up the slack for your colleagues on an assignment or group project. Maybe when I was younger, if my colleagues say: "Oh, actually, I can't handle it. I don't want to do it," then I would be like: "Oh, okay, if I can do it, then why not?"

Another thing which can be quite dangerous that Hailey Magee was saying, is giving into societal pressures, so like code switching as a person of colour, or being soft spoken as a woman.

And I think both of us being women, we do see that like sometimes. There are maybe other women who might take a more deferential attitude when they are talking to men in their teams or even in boardrooms.

Eunice:
I met this financial consultant. She was talking about how she has to meet clients all the time, and they make a lot of requests. And sometimes this would manifest in the form of asking her to schedule meetings as late as like 10pm at night, which is beyond her working hours.

Even though she feels uncomfortable because she has to compromise on her personal time and she has to meet a lot of people in the daytime as well.

So it would tire her a lot, but because she wants to build her clientele base and to maintain the relationship with her clients, so that she can have more business, so she would please them and say yes.

And this happened a lot, especially in her earlier years, like when she was a more junior associate and she had build like her first 100 clients, that's why she felt pressured to do a lot of people pleasing and doing things according to their demands.

But now that she's like a manager, she's trying to learn how to set firmer boundaries for herself.