Xenophon tells the story of Glaucon, a young Athenian so eager to lead the city that he insisted on making public speeches before he was twenty. His friends couldn't stop him from embarrassing himself. Socrates managed it with a few friendly questions.
Where do the city's revenues come from, Socrates asked, and how large are they? Glaucon admitted he hadn't looked into it. What about the city's expenses? "Upon my word I have not had time to look into that side of the matter either as yet," Glaucon replied. Socrates suggested they put the subject aside, since "without knowing the outgoings and the incomings it would be impossible to deal with the matter seriously" (Memorabilia 3.6, H. G. Dakyns's translation).
Glaucon had ambition and energy. What he lacked were the habits that make people take you seriously. At work, those habits are usually small and visible. Here are seven worth letting go of.
1. Letting small promises slide
Confucius compared an untrustworthy person to a vehicle that can't be steered. "A person without trustworthiness, who knows what he may do? A carriage without a yoke strap, a cart without a yoke hook: how can you drive them?" (Analects 2.22, Robert Eno's translation).
At work, trust is often built or lost in small promises. "I'll send that over this afternoon." "I'll check and get back to you." Each one is easy to forget, and each forgotten one teaches colleagues that your word needs checking.
Write down the small promises as you make them. If one is going to slip, say so before the deadline passes: "I said Tuesday for the figures. It'll be Thursday, because I'm waiting on finance."
2. Showing up to meetings unprepared
The Athenian orator Demosthenes was mocked for over-preparing. He rarely spoke on the spur of the moment, Plutarch writes, and "would not come forward unless he had given thought to the question and was prepared to speak upon it." A rival sneered that his arguments "smelt of lamp-wicks," suggesting they'd been worked out by lamplight (Life of Demosthenes 8, Bernadotte Perrin's translation).
Demosthenes didn't mind. According to Plutarch, he said preparation "was a mark of deference to the people," and that not caring how a speech would land showed a man who relied "on force rather than on persuasion."
You don't need to work by lamplight. Even ten minutes helps. Check what the meeting needs to decide and bring the figure or update you're responsible for.
3. Pitching ideas you haven't thought through
Glaucon's problem wasn't that his ambitions were bad. It was that he hadn't done the basic homework. Socrates kept asking simple questions, and Glaucon kept discovering he didn't know the answers.
The workplace version is putting a new idea on the table before anyone has asked what it would cost, who would do the work or what would have to wait. Enthusiasm gets attention. But when the first practical question goes unanswered, the idea, and the person who raised it, can lose credibility fast.
Before you pitch, try answering three questions yourself: What would it cost? Who would do the work? What would have to wait to make room for it? Even rough answers show you've thought past the exciting part.
4. Checking your phone in meetings
Many people treat a quick glance at their phone as harmless. Their colleagues often don't. In a 2014 U.S. survey of 350 full-time professionals, 76% said checking texts or email during a formal meeting was rarely or never appropriate. For making or answering a call, it was 87% (Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 2014). Views also differed by age, gender, region and income.
Whatever your own view, the person running the meeting may see a phone check as a sign that their time matters less than yours.
Put the phone away for the length of the meeting. If you're expecting something that really can't wait, say so at the start: "I'm waiting on a call from the school, so I may need to step out."
5. Agreeing in the room, objecting afterward
The Book of Proverbs puts it bluntly: "Open rebuke is better than secret love" (Proverbs 27:5, King James Version).
A common workplace pattern is the reverse: nodding along in the meeting, then raising doubts in the corridor or a private message afterward. It feels safer in the moment. But colleagues usually find out, and they learn that your agreement in the room doesn't mean much.
Disagreeing openly doesn't have to be confrontational. "I can support this, but I'm worried about the timeline. Can we check progress on Friday?" puts your concern on the record while it can still change something.
If raising it in the room would put you on the spot, take the concern directly to someone who can act on it. The same goes for problems you only spot after the meeting: "I've checked the schedule since we spoke, and I think Friday puts testing at risk. Can we revisit it?" What matters is that the concern reaches someone who can change the plan.
6. Firing off replies when you're angry
Plutarch records a parting piece of advice the philosopher Athenodorus gave the emperor Augustus: "Whenever you get angry, Caesar, do not say or do anything before repeating to yourself the twenty-four letters of the alphabet." Augustus was so taken with it that he asked Athenodorus to stay another year (Sayings of Kings and Commanders, Augustus 7, Frank Cole Babbitt's translation).
Email and chat make the alphabet trick harder, because the reply button is always right there. A sharp message sent in the heat of the moment can undo months of careful work, and it stays in writing.
If a message makes you angry, write your reply but don't send it. Come back after a walk or the next morning. Most of the time, you'll want to change it, and sometimes you'll realize a short call would work better.
7. Treating everything as urgent
Aesop's shepherd boy brought the villagers running by shouting "Wolf! Wolf!" when there was no wolf. When the wolf really came, no one answered his cries. The fable's moral: "There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth" (Aesop's Fables, "The Shepherd's Boy and the Wolf", George Fyler Townsend's translation).
Urgency does grab attention. In five experiments, people chose tasks with lower payoffs over more rewarding ones when the lower-payoff tasks were given an artificial sense of urgency, such as an expiration time that didn't really matter (Journal of Consumer Research, 2018).
The workplace risk comes with repetition. Marking every email "urgent" isn't lying, but if most of those emails could have waited, colleagues may start to tune the label out. Then the message that really can't wait gets lost with the rest.
Be specific instead. "Needed by 3 p.m. Thursday for the client call" tells people what matters and when, without the alarm bells.
Being taken seriously isn't only about habits
These habits matter, but they aren't the whole story. In some workplaces, the same contribution gets a different reception depending on who makes it. Speaking up can also carry real risks in workplaces where disagreement isn't welcome.
Some of these habits are also reasonable in the right context. Real emergencies are urgent. Some phone calls can't wait. The aim isn't perfection. It's making sure that when you do say something matters, people believe you.
One place to start
Look back over the past week and find one small promise you made at work: a file you said you'd send, a question you said you'd check.
Either finish it today or send a short update with a new date. It's a small thing, but it's exactly the kind of small thing people notice.