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Business Insider: Promoting your colleagues' ideas over your own could boost your influence at work, a new study finds

13 Oct 2021

Originally found at Business Insider by Stephen Jones

Promoting your colleagues' ideas over your own could boost your career, according to the authors of a recently published study. 

People visibly giving credit to their colleagues were viewed as more admired and more influential by their peers, the study of nearly 2,800 people found. The person whose ideas were promoted also benefited, researchers said. 

In contrast, people who often promoted their own work were disliked, a co-author of the study said.

Kristin Bain, assistant professor of management at Rochester Institute of Technology's Saunders College of Business, told Insider the findings showed you don't need to be an "aggressive jerk" to get ahead at work.

The results also suggested that promoting the work of other people can raise the profile of groups typically overlooked in organizations, such as women and people of color, she said. 

For the study, which was published in the Academy of Management Journal, the researchers wanted to understand the effects that amplification — which they defined as a public endorsement of another person's ideas, with credit to the person — could have on how people were perceived at work. 

Continue reading the original article at Business Insider.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Journal.

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