What is more important for the career: sympathy or competence?
Psychologist Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent more than 15 years researching with colleagues how the first impression we get from one person emerges. It has come out that there are two patterns that people instinctively scan on others:
- Can I trust the person? (What is the social behavior? Sympathy)
- Can I respect this person? (What is his competence?)
Now you might think that above all the competence would be highly valued in the job. But in this case, Amy Cuddy warns against bragging about with talent and brains. Even at work, colleagues and supervisors in the first (unconscious) way trust is most important.
"From an evolutionary standpoint, it is essential for survival to know if a person deserves your trust." At that time, people had to decide if they trusted the others in the cave. The question of whether they slew you in your sleep was more important than the ability to make a good fire.
Therefore, Amy Cuddy advises her students to emphasize their social skills in internships. Anyone who does not ask for help, rejects invitations to after-work or looks cool and unapproachable, does not have to be surprised if he does not get the job or promotion he is looking for.
"If you try to influence someone who does not trust you, you will not get very far, and you may even arouse their suspicions and be considered manipulative," explains the professor. "Only a warm, trustworthy person, who is strong and competent, is admired, but first the foundation of trust must be created, because only then will strength become something positive and not a threat."
