- Assemble a plan. Create one that takes you year-by-year to accomplish career growth at a speed that makes sense to you. Your career management is in YOUR hands, not your employer’s. Start today!
- Be open about your goals. Your manager and other mentors can’t pave the way for your career growth unless they know what you are aiming to achieve. Let them in on both the long-term CEO goal and the short-term goals.
- Connect with people who can help your career. Take your manager out to lunch, or arrange coffee with the head of the department you’d like to work for next. Network within your company as well as within your industry. Be sure to offer value in return!
Ditch your boxes and envelopes. Think outside the box for creative problem-solving, and push the envelope aside and force yourself to learn and grow beyond what’s comfortable and easy. Real growth of any kind is uncomfortable.- Expect to hit the wall. No one has a straight path to success. There may be rough spots, sacrifices, and difficulties along the way. You can get to your goals if you push through and keep working.
- Find mentors. You can’t grow your career alone, you need teachers, mentors, and trailblazers. Grow your network garden to include people you admire in positions you aspire to earn.
- Give back. Take some time to volunteer. That can, in turn, give you opportunities to sit on non-profit Boards someday…which is the perfect way to start at the Board level.
- Help others. Add value to your network of work relationships and be the mentor you needed when you first began. It’s a start on building a legacy leadership.
- Invest in your attitude. Stay positive, look for the silver lining, and seek the sunny side of every situation. Doom and gloom win no friends and influence everyone to avoid you…and hiring influencers don’t hire negativity. Go positive!
- Just checking. No career proceeds in a straight line, so take time to check where you’ve come and where you’ve been, and adjust that career plan once in a while. Make sure the plan still fits the leader you are becoming.
- Keep going. Even if you fail or get knocked down, get back on your feet and ready to work. Layoffs, downsizing, and pink slips happen to the best of us: The trick is to use what you’ve learned to do even better work next time.
- Listen to your mentors, learn from your connections, always be open to change and improvement. Try what they suggest and keep the tools that fit you, discarding those that don’t.
- Make a difference. If your goal is to make a contribution and improve every organization and every project you join, the higher-ups will notice.
Ditch your boxes and envelopes. Think outside the box for creative problem-solving, and push the envelope aside and force yourself to learn and grow beyond what’s comfortable and easy. Real growth of any kind is uncomfortable.
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