Do you have a plan to build your professional career? Do you even know where to begin? Or what goes into developing a career with relevant skills? And where do you start? An important skill in managing your career is communication! Communicate how your work is adding value to your organization, your boss and stakeholders. The timing in communicating your work/deliverables includes frequent updates as you hit (or miss) milestones in your work and when you have completed the work. A couple of tips to remember as you communicate your progress:
- Notice how you are building your knowledge, skills, experience during a project/task. These tasks are building blocks to your “technical” skills.
- Provide frequent updates to encourage feedback from your boss and stakeholders on your progress. Creating awareness on where you are in the work, allows you to pivot and remain in sync on the latest priorities that could present an opportunity to build your skills.
- Be aware of how you are leveraging your strengths. For example, if your strength is to be a bridge builder, share how you were able to obtain feedback from the team and or your customers to forge and or strengthen relationships toward the completion of the work/task.
- Ultimately, the goal is to share how your skills and strengths are being multiplied or leveraged, to continuously improve and grow the organization, as you serve your boss and internal and external customers.
Keep in mind that the core message in completing the work is not on "technical" skill alone, you need to include "interpersonal" or "emotional intelligence" skills. Combining your technical and interpersonal skills build defining moments in building the leader that is within you - these skills eventually becomes your brand. The benefit of communicating these messages over time will help you build a pathway to grow your career.
