I have had the chance to work with many leaders in senior positions throughout my career. A key skill I have developed is being able to adapt to their personal leadership and management styles.

Understanding the ways they prefer to work is extremely useful when it comes to your own career development. I quickly learnt that even those leaders who do want to help you develop your career, may not have the time to sit with you to consider potential pathways and opportunities.

In my experience I had to be proactive about my own development. If I wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t have gotten many of the opportunities I was fortunate enough to undertake.

I’d like to share some of my insights from what has worked well for me. These don’t work with every leader you work with so it is just a matter of trial and error to figure out what works in your working-style with your boss.

Tip 1: Lay the foundation

The most essential step to take when working with senior leaders yet still developing your own career. Start by demonstrating you can handle any task and do a great job, no matter how big or small. Become reliable and trusted. You need to establish yourself before you can go on to the next steps of asking for opportunities for career progression.

Show you can handle what you’ve already been given to do first. Once you have established your foundation, you will be able to go on to the next steps of career growth.

Tip 2: Do your research and clearly articulate what you want

If you are interested in a career path, investigate it further. There are a number of things you could do. Start by engaging with the people in your network. Find out what qualifications and experience you need. Attend industry events and ask people in your network to introduce you to someone who is in a role you might want to be in one day. Do your research. Be clear on what you want from the next steps in your career. Note – from all that research you might find its not actually what you want to be doing!

You might find you have to take this approach if you don’t have the chance to have these conversations with your boss, but your boss is very keen to help you grown in your career. In my experience I was lucky enough to have several bosses who were supportive in helping me progress. They were willing to help me create opportunities, I just had to let them know what it was that I wanted.

Tip 3: Take initiative your boss’s key deliverables

You might be in a situation where you aren’t sure of what you want to do in your career at the moment, but you want to keep moving forward. I recommend understanding your boss’s key priorities. What do they need to deliver on? What are the priorities they are working toward? Is there a new way of working they might be introducing across the organisation? Offer to be involved/lead something in that space.

For example, years ago, a boss of mine wanted to introduce agile ways of working for all his teams. He then had big plans to expand more broadly across the organisation. I offered to work with a lead contractor he brought in to help roll this out. I put up my hand to do anything and everything and did it well. Responsibility came slowly but surely.. I was able to not only develop a great understanding of this new methodology. I also ended up leading projects in a new unit that was established and found a new passion!

Tip 4: Get involved in meetings

Ask to attend meetings you see in your boss’s diary. I was fortunate enough to have a boss who took the approach of “If you see anything in my diary you are interested in, just come along”. This was gold to me and definitely one of the best perks to working with a senior leader.

I went to so many interesting meetings with many different internal and external stakeholders. It gave me an excellent opportunity to shadow my boss and understand how to run their portfolio. I also started offering to take on tasks to do that came out of these meetings which turned into projects I was able to lead. I appreciated every opportunity!

Tip 5: Find a time that works

I still recommend trying to find a time that works for a chat with your boss. It would be a shame to miss the opportunity to receive guidance from a senior leader. I would figure out what time would work best for each boss I had. For instance, sometimes I met my boss very early in the mornings for a coffee, before the working day began.

Other times we would meet after work following our last meeting, or when my boss was working from home I’d give them a call via video-conference. Find what time works well for them and take that opportunity to have a chat. There is a wealth of experience you could learn from a senior leader.

Tip 6: Take a step back and reflect

At the end of each week or fortnight, write down the things you have achieved. When working with senior leaders, it is so easy to get caught up in the high work load that you may not get a chance to be fully aware of and appreciate your own achievements! Take the time to sit down and write out what you achieved during that period of time. I am sure that you will be pleasantly surprised by what you come up with.

Wishing you the best of luck with your career progression!

Check out other articles around Personal Initiative here.

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The idea itself seemed terrifying. But I put my hand up to be considered as a resource for the project anyway. Note, to be a resource. I thought it would be great to learn how to approach a project like this and lend a hand myself.

Background

A little context first. I was part of a central executive team for my boss who had about 1,000 employees located in multiple offices across the state. His team had five people who were dedicated to running his central office. The team had a manager who I reported into and we ultimately reported to our boss.

My manager became the lead for this project. It made sense that all messaging and direction came from this central team. He asked me whether I wanted to co-lead the initiative and I said ‘yes’! Liking the fact that I would have him as a safety net.

Staff from across the organisation nominated themselves to also be a part of the initiative. They first checked in with their managers as to whether they could participate.

After about 6 months, the project really wasn’t going anywhere. This was mostly because of a restructure among the leadership team with culture being the last thing on their minds. As a result, those who had self nominated weren’t very motivated to contribute. They didn’t show up to our regular scheduled meetings or become involved in initiatives.

On top of this, my boss and my manager eventually left the organisation as well! This left me as the key contact for the project. Among all this, I admit I had let the project slide. It was terrifying to lead it on my own! I also didn’t have anyone I felt I could turn to for support with leading a project like this. Going it alone was scary.

After a few months, the organisation had somewhat of a stable leadership team and my new boss wanted the project to kick up again. I was asked to lead the project and think of a way to re-launch it.

This was terrifying and exciting at the same time. I wanted to make a good impression on the new leadership team.

So what did I do? I’ll summarise it here in dot points as I could go on for a little while!

That’s pretty much the essence of what I did and it managed to work. There were definitely other actions I also took throughout the process. But I feel these were the most significant that led to the success of the initiative the second time round.

As time went on we quickly had successful projects launch and people coming together to take part in them. I even started to have people asking me whether they could be a part of the group!

Leading cultural change in an organisation is difficult. Even though it terrified me I did it. When asked to lead my next project, I was less nervous to do so. And so my experience began to grow.

I would love to hear about your own experiences in leading a project that initially terrified you! Please comment below.

For further career insights, check out my blog here.

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You might even get to the final stages of the interview process and think that you are this close to securing that job.

And then you don’t get it.

I know how you feel – I’ve been there too! It can be awful, you might even lose a little confidence, you might be anxious and think what will you now do with your life! You had a certain image of your life going down one direction, you hadn’t thought of it being anything other than that!

Trust me, it could be a blessing in disguise.

You never know what might happen throughout the long process of finding a graduate job. They take months to go through all the necessary processes and there could be multiple stages involved in finally securing a role.

The important thing is to respect and say yes to all opportunities and offers for interviews that come your way, and take them seriously. 

Not landing that grad role with one of the big city firms was something I thought about often during the start of my career. I always thought it was something I had really missed out on – that it would set me back professionally because of all the opportunities and people I wouldn’t be exposed to, or worse, that I wasn’t ever good enough for those places.

Whatever twists and turns are taken throughout your career journey, you can never plan it out and think that it will happen exactly as you have imagined it. Personally, I am grateful that my career went down the new path I was paving for myself. Now, years after all the graduate intakes are through I have been able to hear from others’ experiences about working in one of the big firms for quite a few years, I realise that things have worked out for the better for me personally.

I put my all into the role I was fortunate enough to get. My job certainly was nowhere near one of the big firms, and not even in the city but I still did my best and I respected where I was.

I was able to gain great experience and move up the chain faster than I would have otherwise. And along with this came pay rises which happened a lot quicker than I would have thought! I also met wonderfully smart, creative, passionate and kind people along the way who were willing to help me grow in my career. In addition, I had a great personal and professional balance in my life which I greatly value. It certainly isn’t where I thought I would be, but I think it’s better.

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You might be lucky enough to work somewhere that is keen on pushing you and seeing you grow your breadth of skills in tougher and higher level roles, but sometimes you might be faced with superiors who will always see you (at least for a long time) as the graduate they hired within the past year or two.

I don’t think there is a simple solution other than saying it’s all about putting in the time and hard work consistently to build up your brand. Prove you have what it takes to be a member of the team. Don’t consider any task too small to show you can take it on and knock it out of the park.

Sometimes you might have to make a move to another organisation to be recognised for the value you can offer.

From my own experience, I found it best to seek a role outside of my organisation so I could take a significant leap forward in my career. I had continued to work hard in my final year graduate placement and had built my knowledge, skills and reputation as someone reliable who could ‘do the job’. I built excellent relationships with my teammates and bosses.

When the time came for me to apply for a permanent role, my manager offered me a role with a very decent pay rise, one and a half times more than what I had been earning as a grad.

To minimise my risk of not finding a job, I had also been applying to other roles. At the same time as receiving the offer from my manager, I was offered another role that offered different experience (which I admit was not as exciting) and it was double the pay.

It was an extremely hard decision to make. I remember feeling upset and overwhelmed at what I should do. One of the things I did think about was how I would be perceived in both workplaces. I knew that if I stayed where I was, I would still be the ‘grad’ in their eyes but if I were to move into this new organisation, I would have the chance to be seen in an established role with a clean slate, at that level of competence for the role (even if I wasn’t so confident in it at first!).

I let my manager know about the offer I had received and I asked whether it was at all possible to match the offer so I could remain in the organisation. He told me it unfortunately wasn’t possible at that time.

So I decided to take the role in the new organisation.

I knew it was the right thing to do in the end because about a year later, the team advertised the role I was originally offered. I saw the pay on the advert and it was the same as the role I had accepted in my new organisation.

It was a shame I was not recognised for the value I could bring at the time. I would have loved to continue working for the same organisation. Even though it didn’t feel it at the time, taking the risk in a new organisation where I didn’t know anyone was the right choice in the end. It was my way of breaking the barrier to no longer be perceived as a graduate.

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Because it was the end of the year, the next training sessions were to be held after several months – which is a great deal of time when you are pregnant! Over this time I edged closer to my first day of maternity leave and my belly grew a lot! It was hard not to think about when you saw me.

When I approached my boss about attending the training session again, sending her the details of which one would be best to attend, she wrote back saying that this was not the best time for me to do a training session. She said that it wouldn’t be worthwhile for me to attend because there wouldn’t be enough time to practice what I had learnt and that I would forget my training when I was on maternity leave.

I was hurt and furious! I felt completely discriminated against.

I tried to see things from my boss’s point of view – which was very hard – and did my best to calm down. It took me weeks to not get upset over it anymore. At this point in time I was also thinking I was falling into the abyss of my year long maternity leave (maybe even longer) where I’d be forgotten about and no longer have any opportunities to progress my hard earned career. It was hard to keep a level head.

Maybe my boss had a point, and maybe she didn’t. This however was my approach:

After running different conversations in my head about how I would confront my boss or even my boss’s boss or HR, I decided it wouldn’t be worth the stress and heartache it would cause me in my last few months at work.

My boss had actually avoided me for about two months – at least I could still carry out all my work with my project team as we had a flat structure and led our own work. When my boss needed me for a submission of some sort she only emailed me. This honestly really got me down even more about the whole situation.

I made a decision that if I wanted to do the training, I would set aside the money myself and do it in my own time, with my own resources. Knowing I had the freedom to do this relaxed me a lot.

In a 1:1 meeting I had with my boss’s boss shortly before I went on leave, I decided that I would only say positive things about my experience with my team (which was true) and my boss (which was not entirely true). I realised the best scenario I had played out in my head was one where I remained calm, professional and positive.

Specifically in regards to my training, I said that I was looking forward to undertaking a training session when I returned from maternity leave and my boss’s boss said she supported and approved me undertaking this training. I said I was thankful for the support of my boss (which I had when I first started my role) and that was it.

If I had mentioned the experience I had of not getting my training opportunity and I had their agreement over me being treated unfairly, it wouldn’t change things for the better. I may have gotten my training but at the possible expense of further deteriorating my relationship with my boss. Also, I didn’t want to leave a ‘bad taste’ with my boss’s boss of being seen as someone who complains (they might forget the content but remember that I complained about something).

This positive feedback found its way back to my boss who was then surprisingly very nice and supportive in my final month in the team. I can also say she must have been quite surprised.

Also, a lot can happen in a year.

There was a massive restructure during the time I was away and both bosses left the team and one left the organisation completely. Luckily my new boss approved me undertaking the training upon my return (after explaining that this was approved prior to me going on leave). I also had this in writing before I left, just in case.

I went on leave having positive relationships with both bosses. It’s a small world – I never know when I might cross paths with them again!

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The best thing you can do for yourself is keep going. Stay positive and keep searching and applying for roles, keep asking for feedback and advice on how to improve for that next application or interview. Don’t stop, no matter how disheartening it is at first hearing negative news. I find taking action is the best thing I can do when I feel like it’s the last thing I want to do!

Also take a moment to look back on how far you have come and the achievements you have made along the way. You will see that you can achieve what you are after.

I think about how I have grown from the first day I started working. I have developed my job application and interview techniques by becoming more self-aware and making improvements along the way. It can be hard to take the time to notice where improvements can be made. Sometimes it is the last thing you want to do! But taking that extra effort to understand how you could approach a similar situation differently next time could be just the key. I look back on all the jobs I have succeeded in getting, all the things I have learnt and the people I have gotten to know and I wouldn’t change any of it. Even the bad days. Each rejection led me to the roles I was successful in landing and the fantastic experience I gained as a result.

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My undergraduate degrees have been in psychology and commerce, and as part of my graduate program I completed a masters degree relevant to my graduate job’s field. I worked in one industry and then decided to take a risk and work in another that I knew nothing about!

I am getting to better understand that having more confidence in my skills is the key. It doesn’t matter if I am a generalist or if I was a specialist. Believing in my past experience and education is what really matters. It allows me to better relax and focus on what I’m doing.

Remember, your early career is also an opportunity to try out different roles and industries. You might find that over time you really enjoy a particular subject area or role and want to specialise in that field afterall. Just know it will never be too late to do something you enjoy, so don’t put pressure on yourself thinking you need to find your speciality now.

Genuinely not doubting and comparing yourself to others is also important as it sets out a solid base for how you approach your job. Your attitude comes from your inner beliefs and it establishes how you will allow others to treat you and think about you.

I have experienced being comfortable in a role and not wanting to change for fear of not being able to do another role in another organisation. It’s a crippling feeling and has made me stay in a role for more than I’d like.

Having taken that leap from one industry to another that was completely new was scary but it helped with my confidence levels. I saw that I was able to apply my skills in a completely different setting and do so successfully. This made me even more motivated and the better I worked, the more I was recognised and the more opportunities I was given, and so the cycle continued.

Taking on small projects outside of my full-time job has also helped me to take steps towards feeling more confident in my knowledge and skills by gaining more of both, and seeing how I can apply what I already know. So, having belief in yourself is essential. It influences how you will set out and tackle new challenges. Your motivation and eagerness to do good work will not go unnoticed. Keep going and keep believing in what you have to offer. Your superiors want to see you do well – if anything to do a good job for them! So don’t be your own worst enemy. Believe in what you can do.

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