There’s no denying it:

I was a corporate doormat for an obscenely large chunk of my 20s.

I was afraid of rocking the boat so I said yes to pretty much every request that came my way at work.

As a result, I ended up overworked, overcooked and overwhelmed.

I remember one day in particular. I was out for dinner after work with my department’s leadership team. When dinner was done and everyone decanted to the pub to enjoy a few sherbets, I trotted back to work to knuckle down to a piece of work I’d foolishly agreed to do by 9am the next day.

All I could think about was how I was the mug stuck in the office while everyone else was knocking back a few cold ones.

In my peak doormat phase I’d often peer up from behind my screen and watch with bafflement as another type of colleague pounded the floor:

The corporate destroyer.

These were the human battering rams and get-shit-done merchants who didn’t tiptoe around roadblocks but steamrolled straight through them.

It might sound like I’m poking fun at corporate destroyers.

And I am.

But actually I think most workplaces need both. They need the wet lettuces who’ll do all the donkey work no questions asked. They also need the juggernauts who move projects forward by obliterating anyone standing in the way.

However!

Just because workplaces need their doormats and destroyers doesn’t mean YOU need to be a doormat or a destroyer.

For doormats, burnout is all but inevitable. 

For destroyers, all those gold stars cost respect – and then the results start to unravel too.

So what do I recommend instead?

Well, I remember sitting in a Hilton conference room in Marina Del Rey 16 months ago as American “supercoach” Michael Neill explained that a virtue is the mean between two vices.

(e.g. between self-doubt and arrogance lies confidence – I’m sure you get the idea)

Enter the Corporate Dynamo.

Corporate Dynamos aren’t too soft and they’re not too savage. They’ve got just enough backbone to say no, just enough charm to get a yes, and the good sense to know when to shut up and crack on. They’re respected, not resented. And they somehow leave meetings with less work than they arrived with.

So which do you want to be?

The person doing all the grunt work? 

The person no one likes?

Or the person who quietly runs the show without burning bridges or burning out?

If the latter, check out my coaching:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com