Tolerance in the workplace

Having a well-balanced tolerance is a very important trait and this cuts across every part of our lives, not just at our workplace. I used well-balanced because I see tolerance as something bad at its extremities; too much tolerance is bad and too little tolerance is bad as well. Too much tolerance is bad in the sense that people can easily take advantage of you because they know you can tolerate a whole lot of bullsh*t and over time it's disastrous for your mental health too because you're bottling up feelings and pent-up anger.

Too little tolerance is bad also and that's when we say a person has a short fuse. They lash out easily at any inconvenience no matter how small it is and people tend to stay away from such persons. But on the plus side, nobody will dare take you for a ride because they know you won't tolerate any form of nonsense from anybody. The main goal is to try and find a balance when it comes to tolerance, and this balance is different for everyone. For now, let's focus on why tolerance is important in boosting productivity at the workplace.

The first thing to note is that tolerance encourages teamwork and collaboration which are the bedrock of any workplace. If everyone respects each other differences and keeps an open mind when it comes to diverse opinions, then it makes it easier for everyone to come together and share ideas that will make the business flourish. Imagine a workplace where certain individuals are known for belittling the opinions of others and enjoy ridiculing people during meetings, do you think people will like to share the ideas they have?

I can't thrive in such a place because I will always keep whatever I have in mind to myself for fear of being ridiculed. Tolerance will help individuals to work together harmoniously towards achieving common goals and enable them to overcome challenges more efficiently. Tolerance is also important because it leads to better communication and this is closely tied to the first point I gave. Better communication leads to improved teamwork and collaboration, and I think we can all agree that good communication is what leads to better teamwork.

Better communication can be seen in the form of people being able to express themselves freely and listen to different opinions with an open mind, and this is similar to what I talked about earlier. Better communication leads to reduced misunderstanding and better decision-making. Another reason why tolerance is important is that it leads to higher morale among the employees. High morale in the workplace is directly proportional to higher productivity because people do their best work when they are highly motivated and in the right state of mind.

This makes employees love waking up in the morning and going to work because their workplace makes them feel accepted and valued. There's a difference between working at a place where your opinions are respected and a place that makes you feel like a stranger. When people are happy with their workplace, they are motivated to invest their time and energy into their work, which leads to better performance and higher productivity.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why tolerance is important for productivity in the workplace and I can't even think of a disadvantage. I mean, why would it be bad to have tolerance at work? As I said earlier, it's important to strike a balance because having too much of it is bad and too little is bad as well, which you can already see from the few reasons I have talked about. But overall, everyone at the workplace should be tolerant of one another, it helps the business to flourish and become more productive.

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