Be Easy To Work With: The Overlooked Career Skill That Drives Success

Forbes

7 hours ago

A group of professionals collaborating effectively
"Be easy to work with."
That was the most impactful piece of advice my mentor gave me early in my career. I had just stepped into a challenging stretch role that required me to grow quickly, learn new skills and make a noticeable impact.
Eager to succeed, I reached out to her because she was an experienced and accomplished leader. When we met, my primary question for her was, 'How can I make the right impression and thrive in this new position?' I expected her to say things like "leverage your strengths," "work hard," or "be yourself." All solid advice, but that's not what she said. Her response was simple, practical and powerful: "Be easy to work with."
That insight has stuck with me. Over the years, I have seen it hold true not only in my career but in the experiences of countless professionals and leaders I've coached and developed. Regardless of role, industry or level, being easy to work with is an underrated but essential skill that strengthens collaboration, builds trust and drives long-term success.
5 Practices to Be Easy to Work With
Backed by research and practical experience, these five practices have consistently helped professionals and leaders become more collaborative, trusted and effective across diverse roles and industries.
1. Focus on We Instead of Me
Do the people you interact with to get work done believe that you understand and have their best interests at heart, or do they feel you are leveraging the situation for selfish gain? Trust will remain low if others perceive you as focusing only on your interests. To build trust, you must approach working with others with a self-orientation of "we" versus "me."
Taking the time to understand others' perspectives, goals and solutions is the foundation for successful collaboration. People will almost always bring varying views about any complex situation that requires collaboration for success. Asking open-ended questions to understand how others perceive the work at hand is a crucial first step in finding shared meaning for collaborative work. To establish a "We" perspective, you must regularly ask two types of questions:
𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗧𝗼 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿' 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀
𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗧𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Taking the time to ask questions does not stop you from sharing your perspectives about the situation; it just means you choose to ask questions and understand others' views before sharing your own.
2. Deliver Results
Credibility is built by consistently doing what you say and delivering quality work. I often see articles and posts that focus solely on the relational aspects of being an effective employee (such as kindness, empathy, listening and understanding), but do not give equal weight to the importance of delivering results. To build relationships and gain influence, people must believe you can and will get the job done. Consistency is a crucial aspect of reliability. Be someone others can rely on to get the job done.
When you deliver on your commitments, trust is built. Establishing clear responsibilities, next steps and timelines enables people to rely on each other, whether meeting deadlines or fulfilling their duties.
3. Demonstrate Emotional Competence
Our brains and bodies are hardwired to react when we feel threatened. This instinctive reaction is why many well-intentioned, skilled and competent individuals make poor decisions that negatively impact themselves and others.
Understanding our physical responses to negative emotions helps us recognize when it's time to pause. Pausing allows our minds to catch up with our emotions before we react out of anger, fear, fatigue or frustration.
Emotionally competent people do not blame circumstances or conditions for their behavior. During challenging interactions, establishing a long-term orientation by aligning our "in the moment" intentions to our longer-term goals and values helps us to:
4. Seek Feedback
Regardless of your talent or level of effectiveness, you will have flawed perspectives or sometimes make mistakes. Asking team members, stakeholders or managers for their feedback demonstrates that you value their perspectives, have a growth mindset and want to continually improve.
Since giving feedback feels risky for people, we must be deliberate about creating a safe environment by actively giving permission and expressing openness and desire to receive feedback about our performance. To regularly receive honest feedback, we need to minimize potential obstacles while encouraging others by:
5. Practice Reflection
Reflection is a humbling yet powerful tool that helps us improve our performance. However, it is not easy, as it requires us to look honestly at ourselves, including our strengths, weaknesses and areas that need improvement. A practice of reflection often leads to insights, learning and ideas to test future experiences.
Research shows that regular practice of reflection increases our capacity to demonstrate emotional intelligence, social skills and learning agility. Rolfe et al.'s (2001) reflective model is probably one of the simplest reflective models, as it centers on asking three straightforward questions: What? So what? Now what?
This practical approach to reflection provides a framework for assessing experiences, making meaning of them and determining what they mean for future action. Below are some example questions for you to use to customize your reflection process:
What?
So What?
Now What?
Why You Should Be Easy to Work With
Being easy to work with is often overlooked when professionals think about skill sets for advancing their careers and that is a mistake. No matter how high your level of technical skill, experience or intelligence, it will be your ability to effectively collaborate, communicate and adapt with others that will make the difference for long-term success.
If you want to grow your influence, advance your career and build lasting professional relationships, start with this: Be easy to work with.