5 Secrets For Rapid Career Progression
A large percentage of executives I coached during the past few years were introduced to me as ‘Hi-Po’ — which means the organisation deemed them to be a High-Potential Employee. They were deemed extraordinary, provided more visibility, given more opportunities — which in turn — resulted in their rapid career progression. Do you know someone like that? It could be your classmate in university or your former colleague who scaled the career ladder faster than you.
That begs the question. What makes someone a High-Potential?
How were they judged as ‘extraordinary’? More importantly, what secrets can you learn, model and replicate to accelerate your career progression?
Here are 5 key ingredients that I invite you to pay close attention to (if you haven’t already done so)
Demonstrate Extreme Ownership
Ownership is the habit that leads to leadership. When you consciously demonstrate early on that you are able to take initiative without directive, you brand yourself as someone with untapped leadership potential. How do you do that? In leadership coaching programs like Confident Leader Program I emphasise the need to watch out for the perceptions you leave behind during meetings, conversations, presentations and interactions. This sounds elementary, but even in advanced programs like LEAP: Next Level Leadership Readiness Program, (where participants are executives with years of experience) I notice that most participants have not been paying adequate attention to this key aspect. Perception matters because perception is your reality. I encourage aspiring leaders to observe and learn the leadership phrases that demonstrates extreme ownership in areas of your responsibility and more, in the best interests of your team/department/organisation while you continue to add immense value. There is one more thing. Remember to put your personal stamp on your contributions. Many executives won’t do this or do not know how to do this without being arrogant, thereby, they provide space for someone else to take the credit for their contributions!
Master Upward Management and Influence the Agenda
If you do not control your destiny, someone else will. While it’s important to respect everyone, it’s paramount to be able to influence the agenda. Leading your boss, is as vital as leading your peers and subordinates. There are slew of things you can learn to do to get better at this. But, the most important is to develop confidence in your leadership potential — and to convey your perspectives persuasively when it matters the most.
Those who do not learn to lead are at the mercy of masters who govern them.
Highlight Pain Points Before It Becomes a Problem
One of the expected benefits for employing you in any organisation is your ability and willingness to spot trends, detect potential pain points and resolve emerging challenges before it becomes a problem. Many executives detect potential pain points, but do not have confidence, competence and influence to champion a cause and execute their vision into reality. Having great ideas is not enough. As they say “vision without execution is hallucination”. When you highlight pain points and rally others for resolution, it also demonstrates your ownership, initiative, improves your visibility and shapes better perceptions. This also opens doors to more opportunities and more responsible positions. The temptation of many talented executives is to play small and bury issues under the carpet that only helps them to stay irrelevant and insignificant. Even if you are not good at this yet, these are learnable skills that you need to pay more attention to.
Gain Insights Into Human Behaviour and Behavioural Psychology
This might sound complex, but this is a foundational need for your leadership mastery. I feel this is a much overlooked topic that I spent an entire module teaching this during the Confident Leader Program. Why is knowledge of human behaviour and behavioural psychology so important?
As psychologist Dan Ariely says, people are Predictably Irrational and hidden forces shape our decisions. (Case in point are the things in your home that you might have bought out of impulse, but never used). If people are ‘predictable’ in some ways, it helps you to use tools to know — What drives the people you work with? What are their motives, values and beliefs? What are their influence triggers and levers? What are their blind-spots?
In my leadership coaching sessions, I am sometimes astonished how ignorant many are about the people they have been working with for years.
Once they start using the relevant leadership tools and techniques, they gain an upper hand in their personal and professional relationships. Just as ‘one-size-doesn’t-fit-all’, you need to deal with different people differently and connect with them personally — and it all starts with knowing them better using various tools of discovery and various lenses of observation.
Become a Master of Focus, Prioritisation and Delegation
Trying to do everything by yourself is the equivalent of prematurely aborting prospects for your rapid career progression. The top leaders I have met are never busy.
The top leaders I have met are never busy.
This includes billionaires and those who lead large teams with thousands of members. They always have time to take on more tasks and responsibilities. What’s their secret? They are not focussed on getting things done by themselves. They are good in getting things done through others. Irrespective of the amount of responsibility they take on, they are ready for more. Elon Musk is able to lead three companies in three different new-age industries while engaging in twitter battles with numerous people.
The higher you aspire to go, endeavour to drop off things from your task list, by empowering others to execute your tasks, so that it frees your schedule — and gives you time to think strategically, to focus on more high-visibility value-adding tasks, to up-skill yourself and to broaden your experience. With your new breadth of experience, depth of knowledge, the ability to confidently lead others, the ability to influence the agenda and master your schedule, you are on the way to be regarded as a High-Potential Employee. You anyway have to do your best to stay employable, why not spend the same time more strategically to get the best possible returns for the part of life you spent at work?
Call To Action
Here are two questions for you to reflect on:
- Which areas do you need to focus on?
- What are you doing about it? If you like to level up your leadership skills, join the Confident Leader Program(4-week program) or the LEAP: Next Level Leadership Readiness Program(12-week program)
Manoj Vasudevan is an internationally renowned Next Level Leadership Readiness expert, management consultant, and the World Champion of Public Speaking. He helps executives and entrepreneurs to break through to the Next Level in career, business, and life. Manoj is known for his expertise in simplifying complex topics into practical strategies. He is the CEO of Thought Expressions and holds an MBA from Imperial College, London. His books include the international bestseller Mastering Leadership The Mousetrap Way. and How to become the World Champion of Public Speaking. He speaks at international conferences, multinational companies, universities, and around the world. As a coach, Manoj has proven track-record in personal transformation and breakthroughs. CEOs, Senior Executives, UN Diplomats, Celebrities & Professionals from over 50 nationalities have benefited from Manoj’s coaching. To contact the author’s team, click here.
