- Know your vision for your career
Have you a clear picture in your mind of your longer term career objectives?
Can you visualise yourself in that role? If so, write your career aspirations down. By creating a personal development plan you will be able to assess where you are now and what skills and experience you lack in order to reach your objective. Neuroscience has shown that you need to be planful about developing new behaviours and put together a ‘practice plan’. That is to schedule in your diary specific times when you will practice new skills in order to embed them.
- Get feedback from a variety of sources
You cannot assume that your view of your effectiveness corresponds to others’ perspective. A 360 feedback survey such as the ‘Q-OPD Measuring Change 360’, is an important means of gaining frank and honest feedback from your work colleagues in a safe and confidential way. You can, of course, just ask others to give you verbal feedback but often people will put a positive spin on their comments so as to not to damage their relationship with you. Use an Executive Coach to challenge your assumptions and help develop your critical thinking skills. Find an ‘inhouse mentor’ to help you manage the organisational politics.
- Develop your communication and influencing skills
The higher you rise within an organisation the greater number of people you will need to influence. By understanding your communication preferences by going through a robust personality assessment such as Lumina Spark, you will be able to flex your style to appeal to a wider range of people. As a leader you need to have your ideas heard and bought into, developing your influencing, communicating and presentation skills is a must.