3 Ways To Stand Out In The Workplace ( & Grow Your Career)
By Gloria Pierre
Are you career-conscious and wondering how to stand out in the workplace?
One way is to show personal leadership. What is it? It is defined as taking responsibility for your life and career and making decisions that are in your best interests. There are many ways to deploy personal leadership to grow your career. Here are 3 with questions to ponder on.
1. Recognize That You Have Earned Authority.
Earned authority indicates that you’ve paid your dues through experience, constant learning and time invested. Your accomplishments are proof.
President Obama didn’t have formal authority because he didn’t lead a large organization or a political campaign but he held leadership positions in the non-profit arena. He had earned authority, which by the way, generates respect faster than formal authority.
Recognize that most of your skills are transferable so leverage your earned authority to boost your confidence and performance and be noticed.
Question: What skills do you excel in that you are not currently using? How can you use them and where?
2. Take Responsibility
Be specific about what you want to achieve and when and hold yourself accountable.
In your career, the buck stops with you. No one is as invested in your career as you are. You are responsible for it so dive in and ask for assignments or do tasks that will showcase your under-utilized skills, especially if you are not using them in your current position. Go to your manager with specific suggestions about how you can contribute to improving processes or systems or making the department more efficient. Something else you can do is to figure out what skills you need to learn to be better at what you do or to be closer to your career goals. Doing so immediately differentiates yourself from your co-workers. Make it easy for your boss to help you achieve your goals.
If you want to be a leader at work, learn to take responsibility for anything you participate in- whether it fails or succeeds.
Question: If you are not where you want to be in your career or business, what do you have to do to get there?
3. See Opportunities Everywhere
Align your career goals with the department or company goals and you’ll notice opportunities everywhere. This will help you to anticipate and adapt to change quicker and get company-wide exposure. You will be noticed for your boldness to stand out and your earned authority will be recognized.
Also don’t ignore lateral moves. Whether they are temporary or permanent, you will be learning about other departments. Consider taking on the project no one wants and you’ll get to know people from other departments and what’s happening in the company.
Last question: What opportunities are you ignoring?
Case Studies
Case study 1: I have a client who got married and moved to Denver. The only job she got was working in a call centre. In one of our calls, we talked about personal leadership.
As a result of the discussions, she set out to learn all she can about her role and the department. She had work experience but never heard of earned authority. She identified relevant transferable skills and made suggestions for improving some processes which were implemented.
Soon after, she was promoted to shift supervisor and showed more of those transferable skills. Management noticed her and she was offered a temporary position in HR.
The company is aggressively expanding so she is in a pivotal position to capitalize on the opportunity to create a role for herself in the new environment or in an existing role that is suitable. She has shown her earned authority, her willingness to move and grow and her ability to build relationships.
She has shown personal leadership and now has more earned authority.
Case study 2: Another client started a business which quickly grew and so had to hire 2 employees. Because it was so busy, they weren’t properly trained which caused delays with orders. In one of our talks, the client shared he managed 10 employees in his previous job and shared the problems he was having with his new employees. To solve his problem without incurring training costs, he drew on his earned authority to train and looked for opportunities to do informal training. He is taking full responsibility for every aspect of his business now.
To be successful in leading, first be successful in personal leadership. The answers to the questions you wrote should prompt you to recognize your earned authority, take full responsibility for your career and pounce on those opportunities you’ll be noticing.
Jarod Kintz said “Leadership is being the first egg in the omelet.”
I say personal leadership is the first egg in the omelet.
Clearly Speaking www.clearlyspeaking.ca info@clearlyspeaking.ca
