Do you have to be a bit ruthless to get ahead at work?

You don’t have to be ruthless but you do need to be confident and assertive in your own worth. You think you deserve a pay rise? Call a meeting and request one. Have evidence to back up what you telling them and hold firm.

I was exactly like you (even down to the pay!) and my biggest regret was accepting that for years and never asking for a pay rise when I was way overdue one. I left after having my first child and set up a company with my DH and I wish I’d done it sooner.

Now I’m on the other side of it (employer rather than employee) I can assure you that it’s a huge pain/expense to lose a good member of staff, going through the rehiring process and then the cost of training as well… Most employers will do what they can to retain you.

Yes - you can be friendly and respectful but unless you act like a manager or decision maker you’ll be seen as one of the workers.

Avoid having friends from work - eg sharing personal matters, seeing them at weekends, in your head keep a professional separation as if you’ve already been promoted to director.

Be politically savvy, choose assignments strategically, and dress for the job you want.

Completely agree with this. I'm senior in my organisation and have been there a while.

My boundaries are strong (eg I won't take on stuff for others because they can't be arsed or see it as beneath them, I don't work on holidays etc) but I am very skilled at what I do, not status driven and so am absolutely willing to pitch in on stuff outside my remit to make projects I'm involved in a success etc

I collaborate and problem solve well, am happy to give people my time and share my experience but don't take any bullshit and can be very direct, including with the people above me (and definitely when it comes to more junior men people trying to pass the buck).

I don't consider myself ruthless at all, and I think my friends and loved ones would laugh if anyone did, but I know my worth to the organisation and am willing to turn my hand to anything even if it's outside of my comfort zone (which is one of the reasons I have got where I am).

It took me a long time to get over my people pleasing tendencies, and stop taking workplace nonsense personally. Earlier in my career if someone suggested that I had fucked up it would send me into a spiral of panic. Now if I have I'll happily admit it, if I haven't I'll happily point that out (but either way we'll fix it)

As I've got older I have a lot less time for corporate politics, and work for a fantastic organisation where telling the CEO that you disagree with him and putting an alternative pov across is not a problem -so the culture of the organisation you work in is very important

I’m far from ruthless but have progressed and earn £86k. I’m not even that good at the job (in the sense it doesn’t come naturally), I just deliberately picked a type of work that had good earning potential and worked hard. I also tried to be liked by everyone (i.e. not in any particular camp, don’t get involved in politics, inoffensive) and ensured I’m easy to manage - I’ve never raised any issues or been difficult. The latter means I’ve had to suck it up at times, but all good in the bigger picture if it gets me where I want to be.

It’s not ruthless to do your job well and to be clear about where your strengths lie, or to buck a culture of keeping you head down. Putting yourself forward doesn’t mean holding others back or undermining them.

I think you need to keep all your wonderful qualities of kindness, consideration for others and professionalism but add new ones to your arsenal :) It's not being ruthless, it's about rightly standing up for yourself :) And people will not like you less, and respect you even more.

that is a paltry pay rise OP

what was it for? promotion? inflation?

you need to be more ruthless about your pay if you’re taking on increasing responsibilities as you outline in your Op

for £1k increase i doubt your colleague resent you. More like pity you for taking on extra work for such a paltry increase

The only time I've worked in a 'ruthless' sort of culture, I left quite quickly. It's completely possible to earn a moderately high salary (at least 50k etc) without being a dick.

ETA

I've improved my salary over the years by changing jobs, learning how to sell myself on my CV and in interview, pushing myself beyond my comfort zone so my skills improved outside of work as well as within, and following the philosophy that I'm just as good as anyone else in the jobs I want, so why not me?

It definitely depends on the workplace I’d say.

At my old firm, there was no competition, no elbows out, no putting others down to get ahead.. Everyone just wanted to do well and they did. My current firm is all of the above ^, I don’t trust anyone and I def don’t want to try very hard.

But either way you have to look out for yourself and really go for it.

Many years ago I was a Nanny for a billionaire family. On my first day of security training (there had been a previous kidnap attempt on the children) the Father said to me “You don’t get this rich without pissing off A LOT of people on the way!”

So yes ruthless!

It's a more accessible way of being successful it seems

Well you should be proud of your achievements for a start! Everything in your OP (the disclaimer for not boasting, the "fear" that your colleagues might resent your performance) screams to me that you are quite...passive and eager to please rather than to achieve success.

Own your success and be kind, it's not mutually exclusive you know!

Kindness is good but you need to develop other qualities; resilience, taste for healthy and fair competition, learn how to be opportunistic (in a good way!), how to make your own work visible (never stealing the spotlight to those who deserve it).

I agree with you to a degree. I wouldn’t call it ruthless though, more about self promotion, having a ‘profile’ and constant bum licking/networking. I think if you’re that sort of person (narcisstic tendencies) then great, crack on, but it shouldn’t disadvantage those of us who are just solid good-at-our-jobs people that don’t have the inflated ego.

I think you do, to a degree.

If you mean ruthless in an 'I'm going to put everything into this and go for it' kind of way. So what if you outperform your peers and then get a promotion? You can still be friendly, be helpful. But NOT going for a promotion because Jerry would have his nose out of joint because he's been there a year longer, is madness!

someone ruthless wouldn’t care either way let alone be paranoid about it!

OP you’re on a low income is on £23k and full time

chanel any ruthlessness you think you have in leveraging a high salary!

From what I've seen blowing your own trumpet and brown nosing the right people seems to be key.

Not ruthless, unless that's your particular work place culture (and tbh if that's the case, find a new job!)

But you do need to understand professional boundaries I think. Particularly as a woman, being too friendly and helpful can mean you get walked over. I am friendly, but with distinct work boundaries. There will always be people who you don't particularly like, but still being able to work with them is an important skill. For me, that started with not particularly caring how they felt about me personally