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How do you distinguish between a brash boast and a legitimate claim to your hard won wins? I just posed a question on LinkedIn, asking the social networking site's community at large for examples of shameless, over-the-top bragging.
“My favorite,” replies Czarina Walker, the CEO of InfiniEdge Software in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, “are those people who claim they invented the internet because they made two computers talk, ‘back when you were just a kid.’” (Walker is 33.)
Bob McIntosh, a career workshop specialist based in Lowell, Massachusetts, shares a story about a colleague who can’t seem to keep a lid on how her team excels (hey, at least she shares credit with her team!). While the colleague was recently promoted to supervisor, McIntosh says that she deserved it because her leadership yielded great results. “However,” he says, “the manner in which she talks about [those results] sounds more like bragging than healthy self-promotion.”
How do Walker and McIntosh deal with the braggarts? “I am respectful and kind, and generally try to find a way to get out of the conversation politely,” says Walker. McIntosh congratulates the braggart on her success and offers her encouragement (like she needs it!). “When it becomes too much,” he says, “I'll try to change the topic of discussion, or find an excuse to hustle off and find work to do.”
Does your fear that people will hustle off to avoid your brags prevent you from taking credit for your contributions at business meetings, job interviews, and social gatherings? If so, how does that impact your visibility and career advancement?
A series of studies titled “Should I Brag?” asked respondents to rate characters in a boastful, positive, or negative fashion. The researchers found that, “Boasters and positive disclosers were viewed as more competent than negative disclosers.” What’s the difference between bragging and saying positive things about oneself? The research continues, “Although both positive and boastful disclosures involve relaying one’s achievements, boasts may involve more of an explicit or implied element of competitiveness or ‘one upmanship.’”
Another study, referenced in Psychology Today, found that individuals who behaved in ways that made them appear competent to others—above and beyond their actual competence levels—gained more influence and ascended social hierarchies.
Does that mean you should exaggerate, put others down, and puff up your accomplishments to get ahead? We’ll talk more about that in the second part of this story. We’ll also discuss your relationship to bragging if you’re an introvert. And I’ll share a quick quiz to help you determine whether you’re understating your accomplishments, tooting your own horn just the right amount, or if you’ve gone off the deep end into the bragosphere.
REFERENCES:
Lynn Carol Miller, Linda Lee Cooke, Jennifer Tsang, Faith Morgan, “Should I Brag? Nature and Impact of Positive and Boastful Disclosures for Women and Men,” Human Communication Research, Human Communication Research, International Communication Association, 1992, vol. 18, issue 3, pp. 364-399.
Matthew Hutson, “[How to] Self-Promote (The Introverts’ Edition),” Psychology Today, December 2009, p. 25; referenced the following study: Cameron Anderson and Gavin J. Kilduff, University of California, Berkeley, “Why Do Dominant Personalities Attain Influence in Face-to-Face Groups? The Competence-Signaling Effects of Trait Dominance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2009, vol. 96, no. 2, pp. 491-503.
