How to Grow Professionally

Assume responsibility in excess of your authority. Play the role that you desire. Express appreciation for people’s contribution to the success of the larger organization, as well as things as that help you personally.

If you want to become a team leader, instigate the formation of consensus. If you want to become a manager, take responsibility for the schedule. You can usually do this comfortably while working with a leader or a manager, since this frees them up to take greater responsibility. If that is too much to try, do it a little at a time.

Evaluate yourself. If you want to become a better programmer, ask someone you admire how you can become like them. You can also ask your boss, who will know less but have a greater impact on your career.

Plan ways to learn new skills, both the trivial technical kind, like learning a new software system, and the hard social kind, like writing well, by integrating them into your work.

Even if your boss is Michael Scott, there must be a reason they have that position and you don’t. Some of us may have many more skills than our boss, much more knowledge, etc, but how come they have their position and we have ours? What skills or traits gave them the opportunity for the job and not us?

There are two scenarios we may find our selves in – we are very similar to our boss, or completely different from them.

If you find that you are actuality very similar to your boss, you might get some great perspective by figuring out why. What exactly is holding you back from being more successful? Is it fear? Is it your education, experience? By finding those minute differences, you might find it very easy to obtain what you lack. Maybe it’s as simple as a couple classes, or knowing the right people. Whatever it might be, when we reduce it in this way, we can see clearly what we need to get to the next level.

Sometimes, however the differences may be large, you may be completely different than your boss? What can you glean from your boss then? In this case, I might ask if I was in the right industry, or the right area of that industry. If I was that different than my boss, I would have to wonder if I was really pursing something I’m passionate about. If I really have the desire to move forward and become more successful at what I’m doing, I have to have at least have some similarity with my boss.

Even if our boss is a micro-managing bozo, there must be some reason (even if it’s just plain luck) they have their position and we have ours. What’s holding us back from finding those differences and overcoming them?

Most of us have an accent. You can tell almost immediately if someone is from the south, or from the midwest, or an eastern european country, south africa, etc. Even Californian’s, who I actually thought were the only people on planet earth without an accent, have been said to have an accent.

But what is a leadership accent? Leaders speak with “we” and “us” instead of “they” and “them”. Leaders take responsibility, and work with the people they lead. A none leader might say, “they have decided to do the music like that”, or “It was them who thought it would be better to do it that way”. On the contrary, a leader would say, “we have decided to do this”, or “Let us try to do it like that”. Leaders are in the game, they don’t speak from the outside in, but from the inside in. Leaders know the people they work with and serve. There is no distinction, or segregation – we work together, helping us grow.

Next time someone speaks, listen to their use of “us” and “them” or “we” and “they”, you’ll be able to tell quickly if that person is a leader or not.

Next time you speak, listen to what you use. Are you a leader?