Bringing your emotional baggage into the work place is not effective for all the reasons you may think. Values should be consistent between your personal and professional life, but being human, that is not always so.

The question is how do we handle it? How do you look at your supervisor and not think "No one is going to tell me what to do!" How do we take the personal out of the workplace?

This requires discrimination and distinction. If you are having communication problems at work, look at how you view your manager or boss. Does he or she represent a parent, mate or partner Are your frustrations about what is and is not working in your life manifested on the job?

Many businesses like to say they are a family. Like a family, individuals may manifest characteristics of a personal family. What can happen is that you take on the role as you do in your own family. If you are passive at home and come to work as a manager, how do you act?

When a passive person has to function in a different role on the job, they may revert and act like the aggressive parent. Good management is the ability to handle people well. No one can be fully realized under a schizophrenic and inconsistent boss.

As a manager or business owner, you have to know what your values are, what the values of your company are, as well as the values of the people you manage. The basic rules of respect and acceptance apply. The Golden Rule is: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", not: "Do it to them before they do it to you".

People who bring emotional baggage to the workplace, no matter their title, are thinking more of themselves than of others. They are emotional, not generous and thoughtful. Even more frustrating is that they act out all their pent-up, misplaced emotions on the job without consideration for others. Some react to this, work efforts and results go by the wayside and profit and productivity go down.

Leave your unexpressed feelings at the door, take a break if you become frustrated and know that you are at work to provide results. Heal yourself, first, then you will be a better employee, manager or business owner.

© 2001 Joanne Victoria, All rights reserved.

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