Careers: 10 Actions for Advancing Your Career

Are you struggling in your career?  Perhaps you are feeling stuck, keen to move on  but just unable to break out of this?

Well - you are certainly not alone here as disengagement and career angst are challenges we have all experienced at some point in our working lives.

Here are my top 10 insights and actions which will help you progress:

1.   What makes you successful is not what keeps you there

As you go up the management chain, your independent reliance on yourself and your technical skills to get the results is no longer as high a priority as the need to become more adept at building and leading a team including coaching others. Developing and getting the most out of your team members becomes a bigger imperative than doing it all by yourself. By overusing your strengths, they can become a weakness and work against you. A key criticism I have had time and time again, especially with new managers is that “he hangs on to things for himself and does not delegate."

2.   Identify opportunities that add real value to the business

Be on the lookout to spot opportunities that you could get involved in or are worth further exploration. For example, there could be room for improvements in customer relationships, better delivery of your service or changes in an inefficient process or part of your system. Perhaps there is an opportunity for a brief overseas assignment. Knowledge and experience gained through all these projects will have a high transferability value to another organization.

3.   Set yourself challenges within your current role

Assess your role and identify things you need to learn and develop to be successful. Develop an open, flexible and learning orientation. This will not only stretch you but also boost your morale and confidence, preparing you for the next challenge up or getting out at the right time. Make sure this development opportunity has a stretch to it but not so much that you are headed for failure.

4.   Continue to develop personally and professionally

Have a mind-set of learning, growth and development and keep on learning new skills. Discuss your learning and development goals with your manager or other key decision makers in the organization.  Demonstrate that you are open and ready for any opportunities that may come up. Don’t disregard the value of learning softer skills as this can de-rail people more than their technical know-how.

5.   Take on board critical feedback

Be open to receiving formal and informal feedback and then doing something about it.   Pay close attention to your last performance review or 360 degree feedback. Everyone including the best manager has areas they can improve upon. How about selecting one area and working on this over the next 6-12months? How good would it feel to have achieved the desired change in your behaviour that gets noticed by those who provided the initial development feedback?

Developing the EQ skill of self-awareness is critical to avoid the blinkers we have. This is what a senior manager shared, “We have one competent person who is currently playing 'victim' with the manager. Any negative feedback is interpreted as he is 'picking' on her and yet she has not been able to identify anywhere she believes she needs to grow. More disturbingly this senior person in the executive team strongly perceives the team as dysfunctional - yet they all work well together,  just not with her and it hasn't occurred to her that she might be the problem.”

6.   Learn to get results through others

Shifting from being the expert to enabling and getting results through others. A challenge for those in middle management is learning to make a shift from your technical skills to getting results through others. You no longer have to be the one with all the know-how. Your technical skills become less important than managing results through others as you go up the hierarchy. Learn more about being a servant-leader where you are utilising and building other peoples strengths to achieve the desired outcomes.

7.   Build excellent relationships with all stakeholders

Building respectful relationships with people is the basis of all human communication. Having integrity and being trustworthy are valuable character traits. Establish and maintain good relationships with your team members, clients, suppliers and particularly, your manager. Know and understand what their needs are from you and deliver accordingly. Learn the following about their: 

• strengths and weaknesses
• blind spots and vulnerabilities
• goals and objectives
• dreams, aspirations and big picture
• communication style
• demands, stressors and pressures from their manager and others
• triggers ( pet peeves/what sets them off!)
• and most of all, their expectations from you.

Build and develop a high performing team where others also feel good about their roles and contribution.

8.   Manage your expectations

In these days of flatter organizations; up is not always the only way. Lateral moves are quite common for people. As highlighted by Beverly Kaye in “Up is not the only way,” career paths are more varied and “zig zagged” than a straight line to the top.  But you may also wish to investigate thoroughly that if you do make a lateral move, it is going to add to your skill base and grow you as a person.

This is what a senior human resources manager had to share, “one of our managers took a sideway step to manage a technology area for a couple of years as this was a real gap in his knowledge and a critical discipline that scares people if they have no knowledge of it.  At the time everyone thought he must have been side stepped and yet now he would be considered a strategic authority  (he can talk the talk with the techos) and this has helped his career.”

9.   Work with an executive coach

Work with an executive coach. Increasing your levels of self-awareness could be one of the best investments you make. Your coach could assist you in mapping out your personal and professional development needs and be a resource to you as you work through your 360-degree feedback. Such coaching can be extremely beneficial especially if you are going through a transition in roles and need to learn and demonstrate new behaviours. For example, if you have moved to a senior leadership role, it maybe time to develop your coaching and or strategic leadership skills.

10.   Maintain a holistic approach to life

Don’t let your work take over and become the “be all, end all” of your existence. This is too narrow an approach and you are putting all your eggs in one basket. Make sure you have time to do things that nurture your soul and restore the input/ output balance. Make some time just for you. Busy, committed, driven people find it hard to get that it is okay to sometimes just “do nothing.” (For those of you who need to be doing something – you are re-charging your batteries!”) As one of my coachees in a very demanding role said, “ you know, it’s my stress and business that is keeping me together. “ Maybe for a short while but this will not be sustainable in the medium to long-term horizon.

If you are an emerging leader keen to develop your leadership and career, this FREE  leadership development guide could help. 

If you are evaluating your career path and needing to take a step back and re-connect with what truly matters, then check out  "Get Your Groove Back" - my holistic book on the topic.  A workbook is available too.  The above excerpt is from the book.

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The Narcissistic Leader

As a leadership coach, team facilitator and speaker, I love working with organisations and savvy managers and leaders to grow their emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) and engage their teams better. I also speak to different audiences on such topics including finding and living our mojo, emotional intelligence and leadership and life transitions.

You can contact me at +64 27 280 3335 or [email protected]