How to recognize you’re being a judgmental jerk (and what to do about it)

Being judgmental often comes with giving your point of view supremacy over the values and views of others. The risk of being this narrow-minded could result in being less likely to see other colleagues’ perspectives as being relevant or important. Thinking that your way is the only way could also hinder your ability to gain potentially great insights or learnings from those operating outside your value system.

Consequently, you may be impacting your own productivity, learning, and growth by not allowing yourself the exposure to a diversity of opinions, fresh ideas, and input from others.

Passing judgment often implies making a decision before considering all the facts. This may also impact your willingness to look at information objectively or make an attempt to comprehend the full picture. 

Judgmental people have a tendency to evaluate things as either right or wrong, black or white. This blanket assessment, aligned with the first two points, makes them paint things with one brush instead of appreciating that some things are multifaceted.

 Making conclusive judgments—particularly about people, behaviours, or options without considering grey areas, may limit your perceptions and keep you from taking a win-win approach that has validity and value.

Judgmental people often make their colleagues feel shame and indignity about their choices, values, approaches to work or general behaviour. This may result in people not wanting to be around you or to build a relationship with you that fosters teamwork and workplace dynamics. 

If you find yourself classifying someone’s behaviour, actions, or values using hypercritical words like lazy, dishonest, or stupid, take a step back and ask yourself, “Is my perception of this situation based on a full view of the picture?” Or, “Am I imposing my own values here and what alternate explanation is there for this behaviour?” 

Putting yourself in someone’s shoes is a great remedy for judgmental behaviour. It is quite common to feel a sense of superiority when looking from the outside: “If that was me, I would have made a better decision.” Or, “I would never have allowed this project to fall behind.” It may be that faced with the same circumstances, you would have done exactly what you are judging someone else for doing.

If you put yourself in that person’s situation and experience what they experienced, you may reevaluate your approach.

If a person behaves in a manner that is questionable or that you disapprove of, the tendency is to think it relates to a personality flaw rather than the situation.

This so-called fundamental attribution error is the propensity for people to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors when they’re judging others’ behaviour.

Before generalizing, take a minute to consider the situational factors that might have played a role.

Judgmental behaviour doesn’t only affect those who are judged. When you place supremacy on your value system, you can hinder your own progress and productivity.

If you keep judging others with a critical attitude, expect the same to be done to you.