Must I be "mousy" to succeed? I work for a big public sector corporation. Recently, a kind and much more senior colleague told me I would never be promoted because I am "too bold to make it to the top." He was adamant that only the "quiet mice" who never enter a single battle can navigate their way into the higher echelons of power. He would know - he has been working there for 35 years. Does my "boldness" really spell "trouble" more than "potential"? It would be nice to know if I should be abandoning ship right now before I sink any deeper into this swamp that is a public sector organisation. Manager, male, 30s Lucy's answer If I were you, I'd ask that kind and much more senior colleague to explain himself. What did he mean by "too bold"? There's good bold and there's bad bold. Good bold is the sort of thing Steve Jobs had in spades - an unshakeable determination to do something differently and a refusal to settle with any compromises along the way. Bad bold is much more common: it's when you're too loud, brash and the source of endless bad ideas. Dear Lucy I have a nasty feeling your colleague meant bad bold. If you were really bold in the way that Jobs was, I can't imagine what terrible series of disastrous career choices could ever have led you to the public sector in the first place. But if I'm wrong and you are really good bold you must get out now and start your own company in your garage and put that boldness to better use. If you are bad bold, as I suspect, you need to try to find a way of being less so. This is more important than seeking a transfer to the private sector, where the bad-bold are not especially valued either. Ask yourself what you are doing in the public sector. Are you there because, like quite a lot of public sector workers, you really care about the service that is being provided? If so, that is the best reason for being in any job, and I suggest you cling on for dear life. Or is it because of the fixed hours and relative job security? That's not a bad reason to stay either. I'd also like to take issue with your grey-bearded friend in dividing the workforce into the bold and the quiet mice. This seems like a pretty unhelpful division, as every employee in almost every organisation needs to be both. Everyone needs to know when to shut up and agree, and when to speak out. If what you are saying is that everyone at your workplace is so downtrodden that no one ever expresses any views on anything, that is bad - although if that were so, I wonder why has it taken you until now to notice? If you are happy with your job in other ways, I would go straight back to your mentor for some advice on how to be better at expressing your views without rubbing everyone up the wrong way.