Your career is the perfect combination of many aspects of your life: how well you did at school, how committed you are to your job and how passionate you are about what you do. But only one element will truly grow your career like magic: using your best strengths.
Science shows that strengths-based career counselling increases our ability to land the job of your dreams by an amazing 20%! (Hadassah et al., 2013). So, what are you waiting for to finally follow your aspirations.
Finding your best strengths and developing their personal practice will give your career the kickstart you might just be looking for! Here you’ll find some remarkable ideas to cultivate and explore.
1. Dependability
In the workplace, reliability is gold! Be honest with your colleagues and leaders. Remember, they’re not the enemy and you should all be targeting the same goal!
Sabotaging your colleagues or lying to make a good impression isn’t just a bad idea, it will hurt and indeed haunt you in the long run!
Micromanagement is annoying for both leaders and employees, so trusting employees saves everyone’s time. And it’s good for both sides: with trust and dependability leaders and employers can concentrate on development, and trusted employees can climb the career ladder more effectively.
2. Time Management
Show up, both at work and at meetings without unnecessary absenteeism or tardiness! Don’t make excuses to avoid meetings or lateness, everybody is as busy as you.
Be punctual: both on the job and for the job. Being on time – even few minutes early - demonstrates you take your job seriously, and that you’re dedicated to your profession.
Respect deadlines: if you manage your time appropriately, you’ll manage most sensible deadlines without feeling time pressure or being stressed.
And the evidence tells us that employees and entrepreneurs who are great at managing their time actually achieve larger growth (Yoo et al., 2016). So it’s time to become one of them!
3. Communication
In any relationship, communication is key and the office is no exception. Feel confident in sharing your straightforward opinions during meetings and be open to discussion.
Give constructive feedback and be ready to accept, honest criticism, even when it might hurt your ego. Rather, take them as opportunities to improve the quality of your work.
Listen - truly listen - to what you’ve been told with an open mind. The key to effective communication is active listening (Jones et al., 2019)
4. Team Player
Modern workplaces get more interrelated and connected every single day. And greater complexity and specialisation demands greater collaboration.
So, be sure you’re a solid team player and the science says you’ll see your performance and success increase dramatically (Schmutz et al., 2019). Remember, “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’” !!!
5. Proactivity & Self-Motivation
The research also tells us that 2 further qualities help boost our standing and status at work: being proactive and self-motivated. (Parker & Bindl, 2016)
We all like and need external recognition, but being your own cheerleader will give you an inner power that proves difficult to switch off. Even if you normally prefer to wait for instructions, imagine how much freedom being proactive could give you.
6. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is important for us all but is also great for business (Jain, 2019). Being capable of reading the room during a meeting, being to empathize during a project or being more closely connected with the important people in a sales process will save you time and make money and propel your career.
7. Success Orientation
Simply being a hard worker is no longer enough to run the extra mile. Understanding the big picture for yourself, your boss and the organisation will help you truly understand the ultimate goals management and leadership wants to achieve and hence what makes them look good. Being part of delivering that effectively can only look good for you too!
All the cards are in your hands, play the game with your best strengths to truly grow the career of your dreams!
Have a successful day,
Andrew
