I started my working life in 1980 right out of High School. Over the next 4 decades, I worked in numerous companies and roles, not always with increasing responsibility.
These are some of the more important lessons I picked up along the way.
- The benefits of learning discipline and rigor early in your career.
- Being flexible but doing what makes sense.
- It's not enough to work hard and do the job, you have to differentiate yourself against your peers.
- Sometimes you may not be the most knowledgeable, but never underestimate passion and desire. It's easy to acquire job knowledge. It's much harder to be passionate.
- Take your career into your own hands. Don't wait or expect someone else to manage your career for you.
- Build a great network early and continuously.
- Build your credibility, but make sure other people know how good you are too.
- Find things that motivate you, but don't let them define you. Be open to new possibilities.
- Become known as the "go-to" person who can get anything done. A broad set of transferable skills really helps.
- Have the courage to take bold career moves. But manage your stakeholders each and every day. If you wait till "evaluation day", it's too late.
- Things are not always as bad as they seem.
- Never play a bad hand.
- As a Senior Leader, you are expected to change the status-quo.
- The need to be resilient in the face of challenge and difficulty.
- The value of partnering with a great leader.
- The value of great leadership skills.
- The value of a high trust relationship.
- An upward career path may not be the most important thing. Why you come to work is the most important thing.
- Know why you come to work. It's probably because of that project or analysis that needs to get done.
- Know what makes you happy at work.
#leadership
