By Dr. Jim Anderson
Forget all that Facebook “like” stuff, there is a much bigger question that you need to be able to answer. Just how likeable are you in real life? You might shrug that question off and say that it doesn’t really matter, it’s what you can use your IT manager skills to accomplish that matters, but you’d be wrong. The people who control your career want to promote people that they like. Do they like you?
What Is Likeability?
I’m pretty sure that for most of us, issues around likeability were things that we last thought of when we were back in school. However, it turns out that they are still relevant and they can play a major role in determining how our career advances. Just exactly how likable you are is going to have a big impact on how your management and you coworkers view you.
One way that your likability may be measured in the workplace is social media. Many firms now have in-house chat services and social networks. It is entirely possible that your management is keeping a close eye on these types of services in order to determine just exactly how likeable you are. If they determine that you have a lot of contacts who listen to you, then there is a good chance that you will be the one that they recruit when they want to get the word out or start to make some changes. Some firms may take things a bit further and your social network standing could have an impact on your ability to be promoted.
Video can be a big problem when it comes to managing your likeability. The reason is because it’s harder to accomplish. We are using more and more video conferencing in the workplace and so this is becoming a much bigger issue. Studies have shown that people who are watching someone on video are much more influenced by how much they like the person that they are watching instead of what the person is saying. All too often we become both stiff and emotionless when we are on video and this harms our likability.
How Can You Boost Your Likeability?
If we can agree that likeability is an important part of our career, then an important question that we are going to have to find the answer to is just exactly how do we go about getting IT manager training to increase our likeability? The good news is that likeability is not something that any of us is born with. Instead, it’s something that we’ve all learned. This means that with some practice, we can all become better at it.
There are a lot of different factors that go into how others determine how likeable we are. The first is authenticity. Do we behave in a way that feels natural to us and makes us feel comfortable or do we behave stiffly and come across as being self-absorbed? Do we show interest in others by making eye contact with them when we are talking with them and do we ask questions about their opinions? Actions like these are the ones that can help to boost our likeability.
If you want to work on your likeability, there are three “big” behaviors that you can spend your time working that will produce the largest results. The first of these is to make sure that you always make eye contact with the people that you are talking with. This shows that you are interested in them and that you have nothing to hide. Next, smile naturally when you talk. When you smile, other people have an instinctive reaction to your smile and they will automatically smile back at you and you will viewed as being more likeable. Finally, when you are speaking, vary the tone of your voice. When you do this you are able to convey both warmth and enthusiasm for what is being discussed. Once again, this will make you more likeable.
What All Of This Means For You
Somewhat amazingly in this era of smartphones and iPads, your ability to be liked by other people still matters no matter how much IT team building you do. The people who will promote you and work with you have to like you before they’ll do anything for you. This means that you need to understand how this likeability stuff works.
It’s just better to be likeable. Studies have shown that likeable people are the ones who are going to be hired, get help from other at work, have any mistakes they make be forgiven, and be able to get useful information from other people. How popular you are in online social networks can be taken by some employers as an indication of your likeability factor. In order to become more likeable you have to focus on the big three behaviors that promote likeability: eye contact, smiling, and varying your tone of voice.
The good news about likeability is that it is not something that any of us were ever born with. Instead, it is a skill that we can all learn. This means that if we apply ourselves we can become more likeable to those around us. Take the time to make yourself more likeable and you’ll discover that life just got a whole lot easier.
