by Jeff Grabmeier, Ohio State News

Main title

• You should only tell higher-status people about your ambitions.
• People were more engaged in their goals and achieved better results when they talked to others they believed had higher status than themselves.

• Keeping their goals to themselves or telling people they thought had lower status did not help.
• What drives a person that has shared a goal is the consideration they have for the person that has evaluated them.

“The important thing is that you need to care about the opinion of who you are telling. You don’t want them to think less of you because you didn’t attain your goal.” - Howard Klein, Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business

• Higher-status people for the study were those that the participants thought were held in higher regard than themselves.

“If you don’t care about the opinion of whom you tell, it doesn’t affect your desire to persist – which is really what goal commitment is all about. You want to be dedicated and unwilling to give up on your goal, which is more likely when you share that goal with someone you look up to.” - Howard Klein.

Source: news.osu.edu