You鈥檙e probably not thinking about how your reputation is forming during your second meeting of the … More day, or while replying to a quick Slack message. But others are.
If you鈥檝e ever been surprised by how someone described you at work? Too intense, distant, warm, funny? It鈥檚 likely they weren鈥檛 judging your biggest achievements. They were reacting to something smaller. A moment. A pattern. Something you barely noticed but they kept seeing.
That鈥檚 the strange thing about reputation. It鈥檚 often built less by what you do than by how you are, particularly in ordinary moments. A look across the table. How you speak when you’re under time pressure. Whether you ask someone how their day is going, or if you just jump straight into business. These things stick. They form impressions long before anyone reads your r茅sum茅 or your performance review.
Psychologists call this affective primacy. People respond emotionally to signals before they respond cognitively to content. Said another way, people feel you before they understand you. If they feel ignored, dismissed or underappreciated, that colors everything else鈥攅ven if your work is technically flawless.
It鈥檚 easy to assume that reputations are earned in bursts of brilliance. But often, they鈥檙e built the same way trust is: slowly, and in pieces.
You鈥檙e Being Watched When You鈥檙e Not Performing
You鈥檙e probably not thinking about how your reputation is forming during your second meeting of the day, or while replying to a quick Slack message. But others are. They鈥檙e noticing your tone. Your pacing. Whether you follow through on the things you say. Whether you say hello.
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People make sense of others using patterns. We all do. And when we can鈥檛 make sense of someone, we fill in the blanks based on past behavior. A clipped response becomes a signal that you’re impatient. A missed follow-up might suggest you’re unreliable鈥攅ven if that鈥檚 not how you see yourself.
You can鈥檛 control every impression, and you shouldn鈥檛 try. But you can spot the small things you might be overlooking. You might review your next calendar week and ask: Which meetings am I likely to coast through? Where am I showing up distracted? When am I likely to default to speed over clarity?
Even setting a micro-goal helps. For the next five days, try looking up when people speak in meetings. Or responding to emails with a sentence of context rather than a bare reply. Or asking one colleague each day how their workload feels. These acts don鈥檛 take long. But they land. Repeatedly.
If you鈥檙e not sure how you鈥檙e coming across, you can invite feedback without making it a big moment. Ask a peer, 鈥淗ey, is there anything I do in meetings that might feel a bit off to others?鈥 The answer might surprise you. That鈥檚 the point.
Reputation Forms When You’re Not Paying Attention to It
There鈥檚 a concept in behavioral science called 鈥渢he default mode.鈥 When you鈥檙e in it, your brain runs on autopilot. You make choices without thinking much about them, which is often efficient. But the downside is you also start to coast socially.
That autopilot mode can hurt your reputation more than any high-pressure failure. Why? Because people experience the default version of you more often than the deliberate one. They don鈥檛 just see you when you鈥檙e presenting or pitching. They see you when you’re halfway through your inbox or waiting for a meeting to start. That鈥檚 when habits鈥攇ood or bad鈥攕how themselves.
To nudge your autopilot in a better direction, try examining your baseline habits. Do you tend to check your phone while others are speaking? Do you visibly multitask in video calls? Do you offer credit without being asked?
Reputation is cumulative. Every time you interrupt someone, even slightly, it leaves a mark. Every time you show up prepared, it does too.
If you want to be known as thoughtful, show it in how you pause before responding. If you want to be seen as clear-minded, show it in how you organize your updates. If you want to be perceived as someone who listens, let that be reflected in who gets to speak when you鈥檙e in the room.
It鈥檚 not about overcorrecting. It鈥檚 about recalibrating your defaults. Not with grand changes, but with small deliberate shifts.
People Talk About You When You’re Not There. Give Them Better Material
Eventually, someone will say something about you to someone else. That鈥檚 inevitable. The question is what story they鈥檒l tell.
You might think they鈥檒l reference your most recent win. Sometimes they will. More often, they鈥檒l mention how you made them feel. Trusted. Dismissed. Energized. Unheard. That part is up to you.
Reputations are social. They spread through conversation, not documentation. And people don鈥檛 quote your r茅sum茅 in casual conversations. They recount the moments that left an impression.
So think about what you want to be known for. Then work backward. If the goal is to be described as someone others like working with, what does that sound like on a Tuesday afternoon, when everything is behind schedule?
It probably sounds like being calm under pressure. Giving credit freely. Keeping things in perspective. Or simply noticing when someone looks tired and asking about it.
If you lead a team, talk openly about how these behaviors shape culture. You could ask, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 one small behavior that made work better for you this week?鈥 Or share a moment when someone handled a routine interaction with unusual care. These reflections normalize attention to the micro-level without making it feel like soft science.
Over time, people stop needing to guess what kind of colleague you are. They know. Because they鈥檝e experienced it. Not in a grand gesture. In the way you showed up for the small things, when no one required you to.
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