The CEO’s most important job is to groom team members for more responsibility, for leadership roles and simply to do a better job day-to-day. And when times are tough, our people need more from us. That’s especially true when we ask them to take on more duties, swim in uncharted waters and excel at everything. Here’s what you, as the leader, need to do to make sure your next-level leaders achieve:

MAKE TIME.

We know it’s important to have regular meetings with direct reports to give direction and feedback. Yet when we get stretched, it’s often the internal meetings we wipe off our schedules first. Plan to increase your time with employees when you ask them to stretch their skills. Meet at least once a week for an hour and give ad hoc feedback frequently.

FOSTER AN ENVIRONMENT OF FEEDBACK.

Make it part of your company’s culture to give continuous feedback, both positive and negative. If that seems out of reach, at least foster feedback with direct reports and those you mentor. Frame this feedback as a positive: you’re giving these because people more attention because you see that they have what it takes to succeed. Feedback is the ultimate compliment. It means someone cares about your development.

DON ‘T HOLD BACK YOUR PLAN FOR SOMEONE.

If you tell a rising leader that you see unique capabilities in her and have a plan for her growth, it’s much likely that she’ll get there. Let your high potential employees know what is possible for them, and you’ll increase their confidence and success rate.

BE SPECIFIC ABOUT WHAT YOU NEED.

This is neither a time to manage nor to sit back and see what someone can do. Be clear and specific about what the person needs to do to achieve the goals you’ve set for her. Lay out the vision and skills she must develop, and have her repeat back to you what she heard. You want to avoid misunderstandings at all costs, they waste time and take you off track.

MATCH POTENTIAL LEADERS WITH OTHER MENTORS.

Use you reach to find other performers, inside or outside the company, to act as mentors, modeling other’s behavior is one of the best ways to learn, so encourage your people to find role models. Because the CEO often has a strong network, you cab be a powerful facilitator in this process

INVEST IN TRAINING OR COACHING.

This is what I do for a living, so I’m biased. I’ve seen the enormous demand- and- effects- of leadership development on high potential professionals. It’s much more common, and often has more impact, than corrective coaching. You can contract for a tailored leadership training programme, individual of both. There are also countless management training programmes to which you can send employees.

If forecast are correct, the current economic environment isn’t going to end soon. We will need our people to stretch and grow. There may never be a more critical time to focus on developing your bench strength. Do it, and you’ll emerge even stronger than before.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, mentor, time

What do you do when your well-thought out career plans come to a screeching halt due to a down turn in the economy? You rethink your strategy and remain agile.

The traditional hallmark of rising in the corporate world has been a steadily increasing salary, along with expanded responsibilities, promotions, and higher-ranking titles. When a company is struggling, raises are expendable, but you still have the opportunity for non-economics gains. If you take it in your stride, maintain an optimistic attitude, and assume additional duties without complaint, you will be well positioned to reap the economic benefits when the economy turns around, as it always does.

A sophisticated professional knows you can advance your career in numerous ways outside of income, and looks at the hard and soft markets as natural occurrences and plans accordingly. Pauses in monetary rewards don’t mean your upward career track has to be stalled; when the recession is over you will recover from the temporary economic stagnation. Here are some strategies to employ that will help you stay the course:

• Pursue continuing education and certifications, and finish your degree if you don’t have one yet. Join, contribute, and assume leadership roles in industry associations. Make friends with your competitors.
• Assume more difficult or advanced positions, and accept promotions even if there is no salary increase immediately attached to them. You should not be in the same position for more than two or three years, so don’t wait to be available to move up.
• If you are asked to take on a larger workload or consistently more challenging projects, ask if you can have a promotion, at least by title as compensation. Or negotiate bonuses based on performance returns.
• Reflect honestly on where you need to improve and make changes. Are you taking care of your appearance and health and keeping up with technology.
• Maintain an open dialog with your manager. Ask what you can do to make their job easier. Take on as many high-profile projects as you can, particularly if it gives you exposure to other departmental executives.
• If you don’t already have a mentor, establish a relationship with one now. Offer to be a mentor also; you never know who your next boss will be, and it may be someone you influenced on their way up who will remember.
• Keep track of all your achievements and include them on your resume as you update  it periodically

Your career will take place over most of your adult life, so make sure you take a long-term view while remaining flexible during the inevitable short-term cycles. Think of other roadblocks in your past and the coping mechanisms that worked for you. While they caused despair at the time, now you can reflect back with hindsight and perspective, pleased that you made it through with no permanent negative con sequences. Have confidence that with dedication, perseverance and planning you will keep climbing the ladder of success

By: August Cohen-

Technorati Tags: attitude, Economy, optimistic, performance

Career choices may well be more difficult today than at any time in history, for three reasons: there is infinitely more to choose from; career definitions re more fluid and changing; and the levels of expectations are rising. Most men and women entering the workforce today ca n expect to change careers three or more times during their working lives. Here are ten steps that will help ensure that your choices are good ones.

1. Begin with your values
What’s really important do you like to do so much that you would almost feel guilty getting paid to do it? These questions are designed to help you get at one of the key elements in career choices: values.

Your values are the emotional anchor of all that you do. Satisfying career careers are built upon the notion of high correspondence between one’s personal values and the work they will be doing.

Begin your career search by sorting out your values and writing them down as clearly and succinctly as you can.

2. Identify your skills and talents.
A skill is something you’ve learned to do. A talent is something you’ve been born with, or at least that you seem naturally qualified to do. It’s important to recognize the difference between the two. You may be skilled at something and still not find it interesting, chances are however, if you are naturally talented at something, there will be a correspondence between that particular talent and your values. Put another way: you are more apt to enjoy doing what you do well naturally than what you have simply been taught to do.

3. Identify your preferences.
From early on, we approach the world with certain personal preferences: how we certain personal preferences: how we perceive others, how we think and make decisions, whether we prefer concept over people or vice versa, and the extent to which we are comfortable with uncertainty in our lives. For many, these preferences operate at a subconscious level, but they strongly influence the way we function with others. Some questions may help: Do you regard yourself as highly intuitive? Are you outgoing or reserved? When faced with a decision. Do you rely primarily on facts or feelings? Your answers to these questions can tell you much about the kinds of work you will find interesting and challenging.

4. Experiment
There’s no substitute fro experience and the more the better. It’s probably safe to say that nearly every career looks vastly different from the outside that from within. If you’re new to the job market or if you are considering a career change, get out and talk to people who are actually doing it. Take a job in the field or industry and see for yourself if it’s really all you thought it would be. And don’/t rely on single authority or work experience. Within the bounds of the area you’ve picked, try to get as much and as varied experience as you can. If you’re committed to fin ding out about a certain career, you may want to consider volunteering in order to gain work experience. That way, you’ll be able to test out whether it fits your values and preferences. If you aren’t getting paid to do it, chances are you won’t stay with it unless you like it.

5. Become broadly literate
In this high tech information world, there is an incredible pressure to specialize, to know more and more about less and less. That’s dangerous, because it increases your chances of being obsolescent. Many people lose their jobs and scuttle their careers because they have gradually developed tunnel vision about who and what their capabilities are. The old debate over specialist versus generalist/ specialist.
That’s the individual who has been able to grasp the large picture while, at the same time, becoming expert on several of its parts. That’s what becoming broadly literate all is about. Learn as much as you can about what interest you and about the jobs and careers you’re considering- not just what those involved are currently doing, but about where the industry or profession is heading.

6. In your first job, opt for experience first, money second
If you are at the top of your graduating class, you may be able to combine both experience and money in a single package, but for most new entrants into the workforce, it’s a matter of priorities. A good way of sizing up several opportunities is to ask yourself: “which position will offer me the best chance of becoming excellent at what I do?” and that may not be the one that pays the highest initial salary.

7. Aim for a job in which you can become 110% committed
Modest dedication and average performance are unacceptable today. The problem is, with downsizing becoming fully acceptable you aren’t likely to discover the truth of that statement until you’re out a job! So, how do you protect yourself? If you aren’t able to commit 110% to what you are currently doing, start now to find something in which you can.

8. Build your lifestyle around your income, not your expectations.
Recruiters are famous for courting desirable applicants with promises of large future incomes. The problem is that many new entrants into job market buy into this line and begin living as though they were already making the kind of money promised. A better way is to begin, right with your first job, to structure your lifestyle in such a manner that you can put away 10%of what you earn. Starting early and investing regularly and wisely are probably two of the greatest secrets of wealth accumulation.

9. Invest five percent of your time, energy and money into furthering your career.
In terms of a 40hour week, that is only two hours per week. The point is, you cannot rely on your employer to spoonfeed you. Employers today are orientated towards immediate returns on their investment. They will invest in you only when they can see an immediate or relatively quick benefit, or when they see extraordinary potential. Better to not count on either. Dedicate yourself to getting ahead by keeping ahead and you do that be controlling the one thing you can control: your dedication to being the best that you can be.

Source:www.topten.org

Technorati Tags: Career, Employment, Job Search