Four Work Habits
You Need To Change At Each Stage Of Your Career
This GE exec shares
how she learned to change her working methods as she's taken on bigger
leadership roles.
I accepted my first management role early in
my career, heading up a 15-person team at GE Global Research's semiconductor
laboratory. It was a big step at the time, but today I manage 28 labs of over
500 people, in addition to our research headquarters with around 2,000 people
on site. Making that first shift from contributor to leader wasn't easy, but it
set me up for the other big changes I'd go on to make in my career.
I'll
often pick the top three things that need my attention every month, then divide
my time across those priorities each day.
When a new role or opportunity forces you to
change your work habits, it's rarely clear just how to do it or whether the
adjustment will pay off. And it isn't just your role that pushes you to shift
gears. Having a family has also forced my work habits to evolve, including in ways
I never expected. Still, there are some common themes. In my experience, there
are four key ways you'll need to change your approach to work as your career
progresses.
Early
in your career, the best ways to understand your boss's priorities and keep
your performance up is simply to communicate. You ask
questions. You put in a lot of face-time. You meet
frequently. This is good for you—it helps you highlight your skills and
achievements and keeps your boss updated on your progress. This is how you
built trust and, ultimately, get
promoted.
At some point, though, expectations shift,
and I made the mistake of not recognizing this. I kept my boss in the loop on
projects and decisions where his guidance was no longer needed, and only after
he asked, "What are you looking for me to approve?" did I realize the
error. My project had grown, and so had I; despite having picked up the
leadership skills to handle it, I clung to my old habit of checking in with my
boss—which now projected insecurity, not conscientiousness. So I quickly
shifted tactics and began to only check in when we hit key milestones or needed
to make high-level decisions.
As you advance your career, time with the
boss is better spent talking strategy (not execution) and receiving coaching,
which means you may no longer need to meet once a week. Use the increased
distance to build a different kind of trust—the sort that shows you can manage
your team on your own. If you want more autonomy, give yourself room to be more
autonomous.
Entry- and associate-level jobs often require
that you spend a lot of time working on things others need to review. Your own
work output is managed closely, and you take direction on a very regular basis.
That sets a certain pace for how you manage your workload. But as you move into
higher-level roles, you need to lengthen the timeline that dictates your work.
Start managing your tasks according to
weekly, biweekly, and even monthly or quarterly timelines—it's no longer as
much about daily execution. Pacing yourself and your team is crucial both to
avoiding burnout and performing well.
I
clung to my old habit of checking in with my boss—and that now projected
insecurity, not conscientiousness.
When I first started my career at GE, the way
I managed my time was very different than the way I do today. I'll often pick
the top three things that need my attention every month, then divide my time
across those priorities each day. By the end of the month, I can measure how
effective I was, and without that longer-range vision, my time would easily get
swallowed up by daily distractions.
There will be times when you need to give
thorough, exhaustive feedback, no matter your position. But the higher-level
the role, the more managers need to shift from oversight to coaching.
The
difference can be easy to miss. For new managers, engaging with direct reports
often means giving them time to talk through their commitments and establishing
specific roles on your team. But as your management role grows, you need to
spend more time discussing their approach to tasks and
managing their responsibilities, and less time reviewing their actual output.
Eventually, effective leaders become something like chiropractors, adjusting
how those under their care might operate, but with less formal yet more regular
check-ins than the annual visit to a general practitioner.
Or, to pick a different analogy, leaders need
to coach team members to become coaches themselves. To do any of this well, you
need to move from one-on-one engagement to team management as a whole. The more
a team operates as a single organic entity with shared values and purpose, the
more likely its members can hold each other accountable and drive collective
results.
A
final work habit you need to adopt as your career develops involves life beyond
where you actually work: You need to develop a professional profile outside
your business, from an active social media presence to representing your business or industry at
conferences or in publications. This range of representation grows as you move
to larger management roles, and with that, so do the sensitivities of speaking
for a larger entity.
This
may mean moving from casual, personal engagement to a more planned, thoughtful
approach, partnering with your company's external affairs team in the process.
Social media can be a great tool to connect with potential recruits, partners,
and even your own employees. But there's also a risk that you may offend others or
obscure your own points, so it's worth considering keeping personal accounts
separate from professional ones as your career advances alongside your public
profile.
One key habit doesn't change as your career
evolves, though. Each time I feel my role change or evolve, I try to do the
same thing: Take a step back to examine my priorities, refresh my focus, and
keep my eye on the bigger picture. No matter what else changes, I've found that
continuing to make an impact and feel fulfilled at work depends on getting that
right, time and again
Danielle Merfeld
https://www.fastcompany.com/3064111/work-smart/four-work-habits-you-need-to-change-at-each-stage-of-your-career
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