Gordon Brown makes disparaging comments to Gillian Duffy, in Rochdale, after being nice to her face. Forgetting that he was ‘miced up’ this was probably down to the stress he is currently under. He is under pressure and apologised, but those comments were made and broadcast.
He has apologised, but not surprisingly the lady’s opinion of him hasn’t changed.
So many people work in jobs where they need to be a different sort of person to how they really are and it can lead to all sorts of internal conflict, and sometimes ‘leakage’ where you say one thing but your body language is incongruent and so the message doesn’t seem true.
I help my clients to understand more about who they are so that they can do a job that allows them to be the person they are rather than to struggle to do something that is not a great fit.
In the workplace at times we have to say things that we don’t believe in, but it goes with the job. We all need to be careful not to be heard to say something ‘off message’ that may then get back to the client/customer. Remember Gerard Ratner’s comments, about his jewellery being chap and a prawn sandwich would last longer than some of his earrings?
I worked with someone who was overheard making negative comments about an internal client, who was very senior within the organisation. The comments got back to him and he was not only taken off the high profile project but transferred into another part of the organisation in a much less interesting role.
So be careful on what you say, you never know who could be listening.
