Thursday, April 29, 2010

"Green" youngsters arrogant with dis-respect nowadays in your workplace?

Arrogance in many ways exhibit unacceptable behaviour like offensive display of superiority, self-importance, overbearing pride, haughtiness, behaving in a superior manner as if he is the BOSS.

We all in life probably have encounter or experienced arrogance by others at some time in our working life. An arrogant person may affect you in many ways, and depending on your position you may or may not be able to control or educate such people. For example, an arrogant supervisor, engineer, shopfloor worker, boss or reputed personality can make life hell for his subordinates or those indirectly reporting to him in project execution or at the site where you need to follow his instruction and he or she continues to behave with brazen superiority with everyone.

If you are not able to do anything because such people has been assigned to lead your core necessities like making upto exams, promotions, performance appraisal, direct report to the senior management, etc.

But in some cases you can hit back with all your power at arrogant people. Nevertheless arrogant people in all walks of life will be shortlived as they either cannot last or burn themselves out with their own setback. Behind the back gossip like, "He or she has become arrogant now, but wasn’t like that before" is quite common in most workplaces, amongst friends, colleagues, etc. However it does not mean arrogant people will be boorish with everyone, but they will definitely not miss an opportunity to demonstrate it on someone they can afford to be rude with.

Often the person being branded arrogant may not truly realize they have indeed become arrogant. For example, we rarely think of ourselves as being arrogant as we usually believe it is always someone else who can be arrogant, but not us. But arrogance does exist in various degrees in everyone, including you and me. Now suppose you discover that people who matter to you are calling you arrogant behind your back? Or worse, someone tells you flat on your face that you are indeed arrogant. What will be your reaction? It can rudely jolt you from the grand benevolent image you hold of yourself.

Nobody would like to be branded as arrogant. You could get furious, outraged and vehemently disagree with their opinion. Or, if you can control your senses, you can stop and think of it as a wake up call to mend your ways. Arrogance is like a special body odour that you can’t detect it yourself because you have already feel the "highs" in yourself and everyone else cannot hold up to you.
So what are those likely indicators that can make some youngsters arrogant and feel high and mighty?
It could be his experience and knowledge have built up day by day. He may have gotten all the answers for everything through his subordinates or peers and gaining all the credit, or you believe it so ( see my other blog about gaining credit, it is Ok let others take your credit, do not feel bad !! ). Soon he begin to think and feel he is the so-call “expert” in everything and all others are dependant on him. And these young horns gradually become dismissive of suggestions and recommendations by the older colleagues, except his own, of course. Let’s face it, in big organization, you depend a lot from those seniors and more experience workers to lead the success story of the organization and green horns still have a lot to pick and learn.

Next indicator is probably he has now a new job title that can create an aura of awe. Titles having groovy words like deputy manager, consultant, advisor, deputy project manager, etc., can corrupt the green horn’s ego faster than a person who has gone through years of hardship but with a mediocre title like departmental manager, though both could be doing identical job description.

He also may develop connections with reputed people, top brass, senior management level, etc., and hover around important staff like the director or general manager of the department. He probably has got the blessings of a “godfather” who is quite senior in the office and has laid the ground for the young punk to step on. So the punky now feels like a VIP with the power to crush ordinary mortals or his juniors reporting under or indirectly to him.

Frequent completion of achievements can be a powerful arrogance booster. For example, he or she had a series of tasks completed and the boss has promised of future quick advancement or promotion in the coming annual appraisal review. Everything turns out in his favour and probably he has been very smart and quick in burying his/her failures before anyone notices them. Or somebody is doing the work and producing the results, while he/she are getting the rewards and credits in front of the bosses. During temporary lucky periods in life a feeling of Midas touch can get into people’s head. This is often the reason why many well known film personalities, business owners, etc., become haughty and pushy.

The arrogants now don't provide solutions to questions anymore. Instead they now answer every question with another question. They develop the skill to invent tough and tricky questions on the fly ( because probably they do not have answers at all ) that can make others squirm, chew their head off or make them flee from the scene.

In addition to the above factors, an individual’s personal qualities, or Mother Nature’s temporary gifts to humans like young age, physical strength, beauty, good health, IQ, etc., can also make one arrogant.

Finally the challenge for each one of us is to frequently pause and observe ourselves to see if any of the above factors are making us with high self esteem.

Failures are meant to destroy arrogance and induce humility in a person. One's overbearing pride in himself is manifested in his manners especially towards his inferiors. It is said that if you want to judge a person see how he behaves towards his inferiors. In my 30 years of service, I have seen arrogants but by the time they progress with more pressure the failures subdue them. If you come across any arrogant young punk, then take it that he has not learnt from his failures yet.

Arrogance is a like a deadly disease , Pride is it's ally. Power, wealth, fame brings arrogance into the human being, but final destiny is a great leveller, no one can fight the destiny , The destiny shows one to become humble to correct his ways to reform by various incidences to check his selfness and arrogance,it provides him a chance to reflect but most remain arrogant and return to normal ways once everything is normal , only a transient phase they eat a “humble pie” and when back to normal then it is again power arrogance.

Because humble pies were primarily served to the most humble of servants, a connection developed between the consumption of a dubious but filling dish and a true sense of humility. The word "humble" in the metaphorical "humble pie" comes from the Latin humilis, meaning "from the earth,"

Eating humble pie is meant to be a metaphorical punishment for excessive arrogance or boasting. Few people would ever eat such a dish voluntarily, but others may wish that particularly self-important public figures or abusive employers would take a bite or two, especially when they are proven wrong in a very public way. Eating humble pie should take the offender down a few pegs on a social or professional ladder, at least long enough to feel humbled or properly chastised for their overbearing behavior.

As our Chinese saying, older folks eat “more salt” than the young punk eating rice or drink milk and whether old or young, green or yellow, we all need to eat lots of humble pies and not behave high and almighty as come one day, all of us are going to perish and make sure humility rules our head and not trying to grow with big ego, self-esteem and cut out to be bossy….. unless you own the conglomerate company then no one would stop you from all kinds of unacceptable arrogant behavior but watch your step, as one day you will fall through the gap in no time.

Quotable quotes :

Words That Encourage Darkness and The Adversary: Angry, Antagonistic, Appetites, Arrogant, Confused, Contention, Covetous, Critical, Depressed, Domineering, Doubt, Easily Offended, Evasive, Fear, Frustrated, Harshness, Impatience, Ineffective, Irritable, Jealousy…..

Some people don't give up easily. When they're successful, this is called "perseverance." Before they succeed, or if they fail, it's called "stubborn," "bullheaded," "arrogant," or "foolish."

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.

What is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we are never going to die - an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious than this sense of immortality is what comes with it : the sense that we can engulf this inconcievable universe with our minds.

Early in life, we had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. We chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.

P/s:  This writing has no intent to pin point on any individual or youngster now out there with arrogant or almighty working style but if there is similarity in the writing that describes about any individual of whom then there is need of "self-reflection" and correcting himself or herself to be a betterself....... think this would have done them more good in bringing the message as there is a long way for these people to move in their working life....... :)

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