Last week, a client who works as a manager in a Fortune 1000 company revealed in her coaching session, “I was surprised when my boss didn’t promote me.” When I asked if she had told her boss she wanted to be promoted, she replied, “He should have known I wanted the position.” We often believe if we put our heads down and work hard, someone will notice and reward us. After all, it’s not appropriate to toot our own horns…or is it?
1. Market yourself within your company. You may expect others to notice what you've achieved, but you sometimes have to tell them. It's possible to get the word out about your accomplishments indirectly or without seeming boastful. One way is to praise a subordinate or your team in an e-mail memo to your boss copied to other managers or during a conference call. Acknowledging their successes raises their visibility and puts the spotlight on you as their manager.
2. Set career goals for yourself this year. A goal is a dream with a deadline. Take quiet time to think about what YOU really want out of your career this year -- it may be time for a change, or to take on different responsibilities in your current position. Maybe this is the year that you'll set up your own business venture. Envision yourself at the end of the year and describe at least three achievements you want to make during the year for you to feel it has been successful.
3. Manage your boss. There's great benefit in managing your boss to ensure that you meet your personal goals and find career fulfillment. Do you want a 4-day work week? Have your eye on a promotion? Want to mentor the new hires in your office? Find a way to share your dreams for the year with him/her and ask how they can help you achieve them.
4. Get over your fear of public speaking . Schedule a “lunch and learn” for people within your company or team up with a colleague to present a paper at a trade association meeting. Hone your speaking skills and overcome the “um’s” at your local toastmaster’s group. Even if your only venue is to stand up and articulate an idea during a work group meeting, you’ll be depositing credits in your leadership bank account.
5. Know your “emotional IQ”. Take your emotional temperature with a simple online assessment. Even if you have a fabulous IQ score, you could be wasting your potential by thinking, behaving and communicating in a way that hinders your chances to succeed.
6. Review your work habits . Are you always late for meetings? Is your office always a mess? Change at least one daily habit and see how it makes a difference to the way you work and the way you're perceived. Try something new so you don't get into a rut.
7. Spruce up your image. What is your personal brand saying about you? Your clothes, your personal hygiene and habits , your car, your writing, your way of communicating all speak volumes about the type of person you are. Make a resolution to raise your image a notch and project a sense of success -- you'll see it become reality!
8. Leverage your top five strengths. Read Buckingham’s “Now, Discover Your Strengths”. Maximize those talents you naturally do well by practicing until you can do them at a consistently high level.
9. Take up networking as a hobby. Networking is a great way of making new friends as well as finding new career opportunities and getting a new perspective on life. Make a commitment to have one lunch and one dinner out monthly, either with a professional organization or with new contacts. There are also lots of networking groups on the Internet, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
10. Enlist a confidential thinking partner. Whether it’s a coach, a mentor or a trusted colleague whose only agenda is your success, take time to focus on you. Your challenges and the sensitive issues you’re facing. What you’re doing well. Your desires and goals for now and the future.
11. Become a master delegater. If you’ve got your head down grinding out the tasks, you will miss the opportunities coming your way. Surround yourself with competent people and inspire them to do what they do best. Schedule at least 50% of your time to focus on relationships, planning and creative ideas.
12. Come to terms with power -- your own. Power is not a dirty word! One key to growing your power is to recognize the simple fact that we now live in a project world. Almost all paid and volunteer work today is organized into bite-sized packets called projects. This is ideal for polishing up your image: projects exist around deliverables, they create measurables, and they leave you with bragging rights.
Lee Sumner Irwin works with successful people to help them create breakthroughs so they make more money, do more good and have way more fun.
A speaker, writer, and the founder of No Limits Coaching, Lee coaches executives and influential people across the country. Her coaching has been featured in magazines, newspapers, radio and television. She earned the Professional Coach credential through the International Coach Federation.