No one wants to step on toes, including you, most likely.
Most people somehow conclude that it’s important to never step on toes, which makes them so timid that they don’t do the bare minimum needed to make their manager love them.
This isn’t a new condition. Hamlet even observes that the “dread of something after death… makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all.” The condition of the human soul, articulated better by Hamlet than anyone else, affects all humans—including you. Let’s unpack that phrase. He’s saying, fear makes us put up with our problems because we’re scared that, in trying to solve it, we’ll create a bigger problem. He then boils down that point to the awesome phrase “conscience does make cowards of us all”—indeed. Your conscience, your desire to not be the bad guy to anyone, has made you a coward, because you’re not doing what you need to do, to really do a great job and make your boss love working with you.
Of course, turning someone timid into someone bold may not be possible. Even if it is, you can’t change someone completely overnight (and even if you could, that is far too risky than slowly changing into someone else.)
Instead, the way to learn the power of boldness is to be just slightly bolder than your comfort level. If you would usually keep your mouth quiet and not say a thing, maybe you should try making the point you’re thinking, but in an understated and positive way with eleven qualifications. If you would usually copy-edit by only changing the most egregious grammatical errors, then try making just lighter edits, still light, but just slightly heavier than you would have before. If you sit hunched over, experiment with sitting slightly less hunched, and slightly closer to sitting straight up.
Then, repeat that process, month after month, for a year or few years. If each month you’re slightly bolder than in the previous month, what will the result be? You’ll slowly evolve into the balance that works for you. And that balance needs to jive with your personality, so I can’t declare the perfect level since it’s different for everyone.
Doing this over months, you’ll learn something powerful: more often than not, the stronger you are, the better everyone else will respond… until a certain point. And the challenge is to find that point, but if you’re timid through personality or experience, then through slowly trying to be bolder, you will find that right balance.
