If you are chronically late to meetings and appointments in the workplace, it doesn’t matter how busy you are really - you’re destroying all of your hard work and killing your chance at career advancement.

You might think that’s a bit harsh, that a few minutes here or there are no big deal, or that others are late too, but we will speak about five impression your tardiness leaves.

You may or may not believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but regardless of that, being punctual needs to be one of the top items on your to-do list.

Impression you leave: Not reliable – If you’re late to a meeting, the questions start: Are you late to customer sales calls? Are you late with projects? Are you late to work every morning? Can I trust this person to do what they say they will if they can’t make a meeting on time?

Impression you leave: Overwhelmed / Lack of priorities – Everyone is busy, but successful people tackle being busy by prioritizing. In fact, it’s the key to being able to handle more responsibility. If you can’t make meetings on time because you’re too busy, then you aren’t ready for more responsibility.

Impression you leave: Lack of respect – Would you be late to a meeting with the CEO? Probably not because you respect them, the meeting material must be important, and their time is valuable.  So when you are late to a meeting you are showing your peers, subordinates and bosses that you don’t respect their time, their position, or the material you are meeting about.

Impression you leave: Arrogant– Usually the highest ranking person in the meeting gets a free pass to be late – this can be discussed but however right now this is not a question – matter is if you are showing up late it can be perceived that you think you’re the most important person in the room.

Impression you leave: Irresponsible - Adding up the hourly wage of everyone in attendance and multiplying by the length of the meeting, you can get the cost of a meeting. That doesn’t mean that this is not money well spent - but let’s say you have six other people in a meeting and they wait 10 minutes for you to arrive, you just wasted ONE whole hour of company time.

All of this impressions can be related on how your friends, family or your one-in-a-million perceive you  - so, change your attitude and behavior regarding the time as soon as possible.

By Tanja Loncina