Six questions you must ask yourself

From time to time it helps to take the time to check that you are your best path to where you wish to be career-wise. Here are some questions to help your reflections;

WHO ARE YOU AS A PROFESSIONAL?: What’s your work ethic and working style?; How do you contribute to a positive work environment, how do you balance your aspirations with those of your organisation? How do you establish and maintain important professional relationships? What are you known for in your professional circles? What are you like at your best?

WHAT’S YOUR CAREER STRATEGY?: What do you want to achieve and in what timeframe? How do you push yourself into more ambitious places? How are you proactively managing where you go from here? How do you assess what options are available regarding the direction you want to go in? How do you make an informed decision on whether you are on the right career path?

HOW DO YOU HANDLE OBSTACLES?: Which of your own behaviours are becoming barriers and sabotaging you? How do you distil lessons from your mistakes?. How do you navigate when you are outside of your comfort zone? How do you bounce back from setbacks? What do you need to develop to strengthen your resilience?

WHAT ALARM BELLS ARE YOU IGNORING?: How do you know when you’ve stopped growing? What excites you that you no longer make time to engage in? What lame reasons are you telling yourself for not doing what you know you ought to? What are you tolerating that’s hurting you or your prospects?

HOW DO YOU MANAGE SELF DIRECTION? How do you handle change? How do you adapt when you find yourself in a situation that is new to you? How do you handle uncertainty? How do you proceed when you have to handle an important responsibility without clear direction? What actions are you taking now that will prepare you better for challenges?

WHAT WILL PUT YOU IN THE TOP LEAGUE?: What are you doing or not doing that’s keeping you from making the top league? How are you building on your successes? Who are you intentionally learning from? How do you know when you are ready to compete at your next level?

Now take action: Based on your answers to the above, what do you need to get better at?

What should you be willing to ignore?

Focus is such an important thing, it helps you pay put your attention on what really matters and to ignore other things of little consequence. But in the workplace there are several things that can distract you and stress you out. Here are some common occurrences things I suggest you learn to ignore;

IRRELEVANT WEAKNESSES: Most people are more concerned about fixing their weaknesses than building their strengths. If an area that you are weak in is not a critical competence for your job, minimise it otherwise whilst you spend time fixing your faults, your work is not getting done.

ADDICTION TO APPROVAL: A pat on the back will lift anyone’s mood but always needing a dose of validation from others in order to feel that you are doing something right is a false sense of security . Overcome your need to please everyone with the intention of getting approval. Don’t depend on others to feel good about yourself or the good work you do and don’t crumble if you don’t get a much deserved recognition or praise for something you have achieved.

OFFENSES AGAINST YOU: These will happen, a colleague will offend you or you may take offence at someone else sometimes even without the person knowing. When offences happen ignore them; if you can’t the deal with them promptly and then draw a line under them. Don’t hold grudges in the workplace. They drain your energy and can hold you hostage to yourself.

ADVICE THAT DOESN'T WORK: People mean well and especially in a nurturing environment people will volunteer free advice. Don’t reject it out of hand, reflect on it and feel free to ignore advice that you believe will not work for you and just plain inappropriate. Disagree with it without being disagreeable.

DRAMA AND MORE DRAMA: A thousand things can cause tension and drama in the workplace, personality problems, people who often find themselves in the midst of controversy, the rumour mill, gossip. Stay away from people with a negative attitude. When it comes to venting about your personal problems, set boundaries and avoid the urge to confront others over everything you are unhappy with.

Now take action: What little thing are you blowing out of proportion at work?

Keep it REAL with your boss

Your boss has a responsibility to help you be productive; but this is a partnership that requires you to be proactive in ensuring an open, honest and mutually beneficial process that facilitates this. Get R.E.A.L by demonstrating;

RESPONSIBILITY: Don’t just do tasks; make proper choices, solve problems that emerge and do things when you say you will. Being responsible includes having a strong work ethic and keeping a positive attitude when the going gets tough and rough. Focus on the right priorities. If you work with the same boss for more than a year, ensure that you demonstrate increasing capability year on year to strengthen their confidence in you.

ENGAGEMENT: Keep a conversation going with your manager. Know what your boss’s full scope of work is so that you keep your bit in perspective. Don’t surprise them with bad news or leave important work undone. Don’t be so attached to the way you like to do things that you fail to adapt to a way that works for both your manager and you. Engaging with your manager regularly helps you identify what’s changing and what’s on the horizon. It also helps you be aware when he or she is extremely busy and will appreciate not coming to them with issues are not urgent or critically important at that time.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Personal accountability should be paramount, take responsibility for your own performance. Know the performance metrics your boss pays attention to. Don’t do anything that will let he or she or indeed others question your integrity. Don’t complain without making effort to improve things. Highlight potential problems quickly and indicate what you are going to do about it. Don’t put problems on the boss’ shoulders, if you need help be specific about what you need.

LEADERSHIP: Show you can operate different situations. Don’t get stuck in ‘how great your previous boss was’’ and hope your new boss becomes like them. Every boss is different and must deal with their own challenges in their own way. Don’t let all your discussions with your boss be about problems, show that in time of trouble you can fix things and in stable times you can fly higher and sail further. Let the mention of your name bring positive attributes to mind.

Now take action: What can you do to improve how you work with your boss?

Act up to move up

Progression does not come by wishing, hoping or even just working hard. It takes knowing where you want to advance and taking steps to earn your way there. Here are some suggestions on how to act your way up.

UPWORTHY: This is about how you view yourself and believing you deserve where you have set your sights to get to. I am not talking about arrogance. Appreciate yourself; learn to speak up for yourself and celebrate your successes. Don’t be uncomfortable around power or authority. If you have either use it to build; if you’re near it, learn how it’s wielded wisely.

UPSKILL: You can never have too many skills and it’s not wise to be satisfied with the skills you need for your current level. Have better skills than your job requires because it prepares you to go for opportunities as they come up. Should those opportunities not come quickly, you can still use your skills to make yourself more valuable to your organisation. Upskill through formal courses, mentoring from a senior person, on the job training or trying your hands at tasks you have not done before.

UPGRADE: You can have the right skills but still not conduct yourself well at certain level. In addition to skills, develop the professional confidence and manners that enables you think, act and interact at the level. Upgrading includes looking the part, sounding the part and being the part. It’s transitioning from skills expert to executive or leader. It’s developing the capacity to read situations accurately, making good judgements, setting yourself highly standards and living up to them.

MANAGE UP: Inability to manage your boss and your superiors is one of the most challenging career traps. Whether your boss is super, difficult or disengaged find a way to cultivate a productive relationship. Earn their trust by doing your job well and by supporting them in whatever way you can to be successful. Give them constructive feedback that will help them be a better boss. Don’t go giving to your boss’ boss feedback that you have not or are not prepared to give to your boss directly especially if your aim is to have things improve. Managing up is not easy so get a mentor who will guide you


Now take action: Where do you need to move UP?