Do you feel incompetent, insufficient, discouraged or powerless to get done what you need to or want to accomplish? Welcome to inefficacy.
How much would you agree with these statements:
- I accomplish the things that really matter every day at work.
- I have the resources I need to get my job done.
- I feel supported and encouraged at work by my colleagues.
- I value my contributions at work.
- Others value my contributions at work.
- I feel qualified to do my job.
- I feel I can handle anything that may come up in my job.
- It’s ok to contribute to others in my unique way.
- My job matters.
- I play an active role in addressing issues that come up related to my work or workplace.
If your degree of agreement with many of the statements above is low, you may be at risk for experiencing a feeling of powerlessness at your job which can lead to disengagement and eventually burnout.
Feeling powerless at work is especially concerning because it can directly affect the quality of your work. We all know when the quality of your work falls, we stand out – and not in a good way. In my experience, management tends to tolerate a degree of cynicism from workers who are still producing strong results – and everyone can easily empathize with exhaustion because we all experience it from time to time. But when you don’t produce – your boss isn’t producing – so it’s a problem that quickly gets noticed.
Although there is a lot an organization can do to improve an employee’s ability to recover more quickly from inefficacy – but often it’s left to the individual to “shape up or ship out.” It usually goes down something like this “It might be a tough time/situation, but your _____________________ (fill in the blank with some negatively perceived quality you may have – i.e. anger, complaining, lack of confidence, unwillingness to participate, etc.), isn’t helping.”
The organization often sees feelings of powerlessness as the employee’s problem to fix – not theirs. Organizations tend to do their part by starting performance counseling – a “talking to”, poor reviews, written documentation, demotion, etc. or threats of those things come your way to put you on notice that you need to improve.
So, do you feel like everyone else’s agenda runs your day and you can’t get anything done at work? You can break this cycle – here’s how…