Career Brand Management, Personal Branding
Leadership is not simply one skill, but rather a mosaic of qualities and personality traits that makes an individual a leader, a person people trust and are willing to follow.
An important part of leadership is its authority, and for people to accept this authority, it has to be legitimate. Leaders whose authority is not earned and not recognised are simply tyrants.
The definition describes leadership as a “process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal”. The definition focuses on “what” is it, but not on “how” it is done. And we all know that some people just have the necessary ingredients to be a good leader and others don’t.
So today, I want to list 10 qualities of a leader that I think are essential and I encourage you to self-reflect on them to see if you have what it takes to be a leader.
Courage – mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. The ability to do something that frightens others, bravery. No surprise this word comes from Old French “corage”, from Latin “cor” meaning ‘heart’. Courageous leaders are people who are able to push through uncomfortable situations and are willing to make difficult decisions. They also do not back down when things get too hard, but persevere and strive. If there is a quality that can inspire respect and trust from others, it is courage.
Self-control – the ability to control one’s desires and emotions, especially in difficult and stressful situations, remaining calm and collected under pressure. Self-control means that the individual is able to self-regulate and alter responses to avoid undesirable behaviour, increase desirable ones, and achieve long-term goals.
Being able to control emotions, thoughts, and behaviour in the face of temptations and impulses is a highly desirable leadership skill.
Self-motivation – it would be difficult if not impossible to be a leader without the ability to drive oneself to take initiative and action to pursue goals and complete tasks. It is an internal driver to create and achieve, a force that keeps pushing you forward. Self-motivated individuals are proactive and willing to go the extra mile, because they have this internal desire for performing and giving their best. They are also more resistant to failures and setbacks. Self-motivation and courage make them unstoppable.
Decisiveness – moving forward means making decisions, often tough ones and in difficult circumstances. So, leaders have to be decisive, they need to make decisions quickly, confidently and effectively while understanding that they take the responsibility for it. Being decisive means, you weigh pros and cons, you calculate risk, you make an informed decision, and then you stick to what you decided.
Work ethic – this goes without saying, a leader is required to have a high sense of ethical behaviour and adhere to both written and unwritten sets of rules and code of behaviours, as well as ideals of discipline and hard work. As a role model, his or her behaviour and approach to work should be exemplary and unquestionable. It is also the leader’s responsibility to ensure others understand the work ethic and demonstrate high standards.
Likeable personality – if being “likeable” might not seem like a leadership quality at first to you, think again. Would you rather work with someone you like or not?
Some research shows that likable leaders seem more effective, as they are more positive in words and actions. And while it is not always possible to be liked by everyone, openness, humility and empathy is surely a desired trait of a modern leader.
Sympathy and understanding – leaders often fail because they are too self-centred and forget that they only exist if they have people who follow them. And the modern servant leadership model shifts the importance of the business and company to the team, and in this model the leader’s main goal and responsibility is to provide a service to the people. That requires empathy, listening skills and understanding. A servant leader is open to feedback, considers the opinions of others, and encourages creativity and innovation.
Responsibility – key element of leadership is assuming responsibility. And in business it boils down to making sustainable decisions that take into account all stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, suppliers and clients, as well as environment, community and future generations. Responsibility is task-oriented and focuses on processes that must be in place to achieve the goal. A good leader ensures that these tasks are completed, and he holds himself personally accountable for the results.
Cooperation and team spirit – cooperative leadership means a leader engages in the same activities as everyone else and demands no special privileges. He is close to the people, open to feedback and willing to work with others. This approach also helps keep the company hierarchy flat and give an easy access to the leadership, making the decision-making process faster and more efficient. This also naturally positively impacts the team spirit – the willingness to work together to achieve a common goal.
Visionary – a leader must look into a future and have a clear vision of how the future should look. While we may focus on our KPI this month and this year, the leader must look a decade ahead. Because we make decisions that impact what we do tomorrow, and the leader’s decisions made today, impact the business in the future.
And that vision, that conviction and belief of a leader should serve as inspiration to others. Therefore, visionary leaders need to be skilled communicators to motivate people to work hard to make that vision come true for a benefit to all.
Career, Career Brand Management
Do you want to remain competitive in the future workplace? Check if you have the 10 key skills and competencies to stay relevant.
Overworked, discouraged and without energy – those are the characteristics of the XIX century workforce. An alarming picture emerges from numerous studies and burnout became a modern plague. Especially now, when social interactions are limited due to the global pandemic and most of the work is done remotely from the home office.
Many professionals start feeling that their potential or skills at work are not utilized to the fullest potential. As a result, they do not know what to look for, where to place their passions, what is the purpose and meaning of their lives. Does this sound familiar to you?
New competency model
Technological development, which is revolutionizing the world before our eyes, introduces inevitably changes in the way we live and work. The development of artificial intelligence, robotization, management of a huge amount of data – all this means that the competency model of employees is changing. And skills like comprehensive problem solving, creativity, innovation, cooperation, cognitive flexibility and empathy become more important.
A big question is if all employees and leaders have the strength to become such?
Many employees often feel discouragement, irritation, fear or even anxiety. The tasks they perform do not give them satisfaction and joy and they don’t know the sense and purpose of their job duties. On such foundations, it is impossible to build competencies of the future that will help to win with artificial intelligence.
Ideal employee of the future
The ideal employee of the future is a flexible specialist. One that is digitally savvy and has the ability to see problems in a wider spectrum. A creative individual that can also demonstrate analytical thinking and understanding of the data.
And while machines can beat us in analyzing information, they cannot look at it creatively. For this reason, in the era of machines, there will be someone who is well-versed in his work, empathic, able to communicate and cooperate and having a flexible mind. Such a combination of features ensured success in every age and there is no indication that the machines would change something in this field.
Key skills to develop or acquire
Let’s look at the below 10 skills and competencies that can keep you relevant in the future workplace.
Interdisciplinarity – the ability to understand concepts from various fields and “connecting the dots”.
In the face of the increasing complexity of the world and problems, narrow specialities will not allow people to properly understand reality. Therefore, people with 360 degree view and expertise in various fields will have the advantage.
Innovative and adaptive thinking – proficiency in unconventional thinking that goes beyond the usual patterns. Creativity, flexibility and openness to change are the base for development and progress.
Digital competencies – the ability to use a wide array of digital tool, as well as new media for effective communication.
Design thinking – the ability to use a non-linear iterative process to understand users’ needs and problems, creating solutions and prototypes, defining tasks and their implementation to achieve the expected results.
Computational thinking – the ability to understand and translate huge amounts of data into abstract concepts. As the amount of available data increases, people will have to be able to process the huge amount of information in a meaningful way.
Deeper reasoning – the ability to recognize the deeper meaning or importance of what is being expressed. While routine and repetitive activities can be performed by robots, there is a whole range of skills that the computer will not be able to master, such as drawing deeper conclusions that go beyond the scheme.
Emotional intelligence – the ability to communicate with other people in a deep and direct way that allows you to feel and stimulate specific reactions. Employees with high emotional intelligence are able to quickly assess the emotions of other people, empathize with them and communicate more effectively.
Intercultural competence – ability to work with people from various cultural backgrounds. In the times of progressing globalization, the ability to work with people who function in different cultural conditions may turn out to be a gold competence.
Working in informational noise – the ability to filter valid and credible information in the media noise and overload of facts and data will become increasingly important to effectively work in the world of complexity.
Virtual collaboration – the ability to work effectively within virtual teams. The rapid development of communication techniques will require employees of the future to work at a distance within virtual teams. Usage of tools for online or virtual cooperation will be an asset.
Career, Career Brand Management
The year 2020 changed everything. If any company was doubting the digital future, the global pandemic accelerated digital development for sure. And companies that were slow in adopting the change, surely suffered a lot.
In the last decade, there was a growing talk about changing the nature of work. The conviction that work is what you do and not a specific place where you spend 8 hours is not a novelty. The anachronistic idea that work is defined by timeframe and location loses its significance, inter alia, for efficiency. The redefinition of the concept itself is associated with the factors we already experience. Remote working became reality last year and is likely to stay. All of a sudden it became a new standard, and the work itself is now measured by the accomplishment of the goals or the effectiveness of our activities.
Question is how this new standard will impact the employees? Should you start worrying if you possess the skills and qualities for the new job market?
The desirable employee of the future will have to reconcile quite extreme expectations. In addition to the indicated skills in the area of exact sciences, so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) the key will be soft skills like creativity, the ability to actively learn and to share knowledge, as well as cooperation with other people.
At the same time – and it should be emphasized here – soft skills are typically human and will not be covered by automation or at least it will not happen quickly. Soft skills will become the most important for employees of the future, as they will distinguish us from machines and artificial intelligence.
Professions of the future
According to the estimates, 65% of children born after 2007 will work in occupations that do not yet exist. So how do we know which of the professions will become the most desirable?
According to Forrester, automation and robotization of work will eliminate 6 per cent jobs in the USA by 2021. And 2021 is now. So, what can we do not to be replaced by chatbots or machines?
Deloitte’s report “Essential skills for working in the machine age“ indicates that among the most important skills that will allow surviving among machines in the labour market are soft skills mainly those linked to the formulation of thoughts in speech, empathy, the ability to deduce reasoning and critical thinking. The top ten also includes the ability to actively listen and flexibility in matching facts.
To understand what skills the era of robots will require, you need to know what machines are good at and where humans are better. Machines can replace people in analyzing information, but they can not look at it creatively. And while analytical software is able to draw trends from the data set, it is unlikely that to be able to combine it with seemingly distant data or explain it with the relation to the audience. Machines can beat us on many fronts but still lack the empathy, creativity and flexible mind.
This brings me to the conclusion that the ideal employee of the future is a flexible specialist. Someone who has knowledge in a few fields and is able to have a 360-degree view, who can connect the dots and see correlations and connections between various elements.
Flexible specialist should be a visionary that sees beyond the daily tasks and activities, someone who is driven and willing to constantly learn and develop.
So, let’s look at the personal and team competences of the employee of the future.
Personal competences
Learning is the core competence. In an ever-changing world, we have to assume that our education will never end. The most developing competence is being proactive, expressed by taking responsibility for one’s life and making choices. Perhaps sometimes difficult or challenging ones, and not always succeeding. But learning from mistakes completes a proactive attitude and very often success is the result of many trials and errors from which we have drawn conclusions. Mistakes and failures are part of our everyday life. Unpredictability requires unconventional and adaptive thinking – proficiency in creative thinking and finding out-of-the-box solutions.
Team competences
Success is often teamwork and requires working in multi-cultural and multi-level industry teams. The employee of the future will have to be prepared to work in a very diverse environment, hence the need for strong soft skills, especially empathy and communication. People with high emotional intelligence are able to quickly establish relationships with others because they read emotions better and adapt their behaviour to others.
In teams where the key is to work together, achieve goals, define priorities, go beyond individuality, the ability to build trust and relationships in a deep and direct way are required. The necessity to cooperate with larger groups of people in various conditions, often in virtual teams, enforces the ability to think and see the connections between individual tasks and tasks of other team members, sharing information, understanding the perspective of people representing other disciplines of knowledge.
Do you have what it takes to stay attractive in the future workplace? What skills you need to have or develop to have a competitive advantage? More on this topic coming soon!
Career, Career Brand Management
To maintain your own employability, you need to develop capabilities to acquire new skills on your own or develop those which are necessary for career success.
Today, you will find out how to assess your own skills, how to perform skills gap analysis and how to read the job ads to be able to tailor your resume to succeed in the selection process.
In previous article ‘Strategic Approach to Your Career’ I asked you to set yourself career goals. Those goals should be precisely defined to make sure you are focused on a specific area of expertise required for the particular job, industry or even company. The objective of the exercise was to define job title(s) of your dream job. The next step will be the assessment of your skills portfolio, a benchmarking process and skill gap analysis in order to create a self-development plan.
In every job ad, you can easily see two sections: required skills and future responsibilities. Those two give you an indication of who the company is looking for, and what tasks the person is expected to perform.
Those two sections should be a basis for the evaluation of your knowledge and the portfolio of your current skills, abilities and competencies.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND COMPETENCIES
There is a difference between knowledge, skills, abilities and competences. So, before we continue, let’s dive into each of them.
Knowledge is simply the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, an awareness of some facts, acquired through experience, observation or learning process.
Skills are your ability and capacity, acquired through systematic and sustained effort, to carry out complex activities or job functions.
There are also your abilities, which are acquired or natural talent or power to successfully perform a set of tasks under particular circumstances.
Lastly, huge word now: competencies. They are defined as the applied skills and knowledge, that enable a person to act successfully and effectively in a job.
Skills can be developed and improved over time, by combining your abilities and knowledge. But the underlying abilities are necessary for the skills to be developed.
To give you an example: if you were a football player, you may be very good at juggling the ball. This is a skill, which you would not be able to perform without the ability to move quickly, be flexible, which is down to your muscles and physical condition.
Competencies specify how the job tasks are performed and what the person needs to do the job successfully. They are used for a spectrum of human resources activities including:
– assessing and selecting candidates for a job
– assessing and managing employee performance
– workforce planning
– employee training and development
SKILLS PORTFOLIO
As you know, from the previous article in the Career Brand Management series, career brand has two components: the emotional one which is personal image, and the functional – which is your marketable skills.
Those are generally divided into two categories:
– hard skills – Hard skills are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify. They might be specific to an industry or a trade or a profession.
– soft skills – non cognitive skills or personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.
Soft skills are a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes and emotional intelligence. They are desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on an acquired knowledge.
You might have come across the term ‘transferable skills ‘ or ‘portable skills‘. Those are non job specific skills, that you can take with you, and can be effectively used to serve another employer. Decision-making, leadership, communication or problem-solving are good examples of desirable transferable skills.
You should take some time to reflect on your own portfolio of skills and list your hard skills, soft skills and transferable skills. The list will be a very handy when it comes to creating your LinkedIN profile, tailoring your resume and writing your motivational letter.
HOW TO READ A JOB AD AND TAILOR YOUR RESUME
When companies and recruiters look for a candidate, they list the required knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies. When reading the job ad, take some time to spot the key requirements, list them as keywords and make sure that your resume and your motivational letter contain them.
In most cases, your CV goes first via electronic system that scans the documents for job titles and set of keywords. A final selection that passes the system, ends on the HR person’s desk. This means that it is critical for you to always tailor your resume and the motivational letter, to pass the preliminary selection process.
SKILLS GAP ANALYSIS – PRACTICAL EXERCISE
Look at the previous week’s article, what was your career goal, what was the job you wanted? Got it? You should have a define job title(s) for this. To be able to succeed in your career you have to develop skills that are critical for your dream job. Which are those? Check any recent job ads for your dream job and make a list of required skills.
What is between your current role and the dream role is either the expertise level, the experience or the set of skills. Remember, while the expertise and experience often come with time, the skills are something you can actively develop.
Now, search for a recent job ads for your dream position and list the key requirements, with a focus on skills. Examine the job description and break down skills areas and required mastery level.
You should have at least five on your list. Try to assess your level of mastery in each of them on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being none and 10 being excellent. You should be able to benchmark yourself based on to-date experience and peer comparison.
As a result, you should spot the skills that need an improvement. Make a priority list of critical skills and plan how to develop those, probably best, one at the time. To do it efficiently you should:
– define a reasonable time frame to develop the skills
– set a mastery level you want to reach
Let me give you an example. If you would like to be a Sales Director, a critical skill could be leading weekly meetings and regular sales training. You do not feel comfortable speaking in front of the group, and you would like to improve your presentation skills. You have the skill to focus on, now set yourself a time, how many weeks or months do you need?
What mastery level you would like to achieve? And of course very importantly, how would you like to do that?
Think, what courses could you attend? How could you practice?
List the obstacles, if you feel there is something that would prevent you from developing the skill. Then try to see how to overcome it.
If you would like to develop in depth knowledge of online advertising, perhaps a course in Google Advertising would be an idea. Do you have the resources, money and time to commit? You may consider the online resources, that are cheaper and offer more flexible learning system.
ACTION PLAN
1. Set yourself a clear career goal and define dream job titles
2. Assess your current portfolio of skills
3. Benchmark your skills against those required for your dream job
4. Conduct skills gap analysis
5. Set self-development plan to acquire new or develop existing skill to needed mastery level
NEXT WEEK
Stay tuned for more tips on Career Brand Development. Next week you will find out how to market yourself. I will give you a few tips on creating your professional resume and LinkedIN profile.
Career, Career Brand Management
Having a list of New Year’s Resolutions? Well, how about your professional goals? Have you thought about your career in 2017?
It is time for Your Career Brand Management.
This series of articles is designed to help you create, manage, and communicate a strong career brand for professional growth and career success.
Research shows people do not spend much time on planning their professional career. And they should, because the job market changed dramatically in the last decade. People change jobs more often than in the past and have to put more effort to manage their own employability. A degree is no longer a guarantee of the career success. Many professionals work in positions that have nothing or very little to do with their academic qualifications and the career pathways became non-linear. Job market is more competitive and less secure.
So how can you succeed in the race and achieve a competitive edge in the job market?
The term career management is often used to describe workforce development programs undertaken by corporations or organizations and aimed at managing the careers of their employees. For many individuals, participation in such a program can be very beneficial. Yet, many people either are not given such an opportunity, or simply relies on company navigating their career without much planning. Often people just take a tactical approach, jump into opportunities or take immediate actions for quick payoffs. A strategic approach is focused on long-term goals, and career planning decisions.
WHAT IS A CAREER BRAND?
Career Brand is a perception of someone’s work related capabilities and expertise by various audiences, most notably employers.
Career brand has two components:
– a functional component
– an emotional component
Functional component is your marketable skills. Those are generally divided into two categories:
– hard skills – Hard skills are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify. They might be specific to an industry, trade or a profession.
– soft skills – non cognitive skills or personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. They are desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on an acquired knowledge.
An emotional component is your Image. Your image is a combination of 3 elements:
– Appereance
– Behaviour
– Communication
Your image is a critical part of your career brand and has to be consistent with your functional component, and has to support your professional goals. Most importantly, both personal skills and image can be successfully self-managed and self-marketed in a strategic way.
A strong brand is one that is based on a strong skill portfolio and is reinforced by a powerful personal image.
Skills alone, are not a guarantee of success, neither is your degree nor years of experience. You need to find a way to effectively market yourself. On the other hand, heavily promoted personal image, that is not rooted in real skills, may vanish quickly.
HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR OWN EMPLOYABILITY?
To maintain your own employability, you need to focus on 3 areas:
– you need to assess your skills portfolio and develop those, which are necessary for career success
– you need to develop capabilities to acquire new skills on your own
– you need to market yourself effectively
SET YOUR CAREER GOALS
But before you start working on a critical skill set, you should be able to set yourself career goals.
This brings us to the first practical exercise I have for you. Sounds simple, but often turns to be quite a challenge. Since it is a beginning of the year, I would like you to answer this question:
What is your career goal? Who would you like to be in 3, 5, 10 years career wise?
Define: What position would like to be in? What company? What industry?
If you have a clear answer for this, second question is why?
Why would you like to become that person?
Answer: What impact you would make? How your life would change? What would you achieve?
Take your time to answer those 2 critical questions, because your goal and motivation should be a driving force behind everything you do. Think, if the career goals reflect your personality and your values? Think of the steps you would need to take to reach your professional goal? Think of what would stop you from achieving your goal?
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will focus on skills portfolio and skills gap analysis. I will also explain the difference between skill based and competency based job ads, and show you how to read the job ads and create CV and motivational letter, that best address the requirements, but also is a best way to market yourself.
