How to Leave a Great Impression

People often ask themselves how they can quickly move up the ladder at their respective organizations– the answer, believe it not, is very simple: make yourself indispensable. Your next promotion does not require you to suck up to any of your higher-ups, nor does it require you taking on as much work as possible (quantity never beats quality). In her article “5 Things Every Boss is Dying for You to Do But Won’t Ever Ask” Alyse Kalish describes five simple behaviors and habits that bosses wish their employees would embrace (but will never ask for).

Here are our favorite tips:

• Take the lead (take initiative). When your boss delegates a task to you, take charge in a way that doesn’t leave him/her constantly “checking-in” on the progress or providing a lot of over-sight.
• If you’re struggling, speak up (take initiative). It is much worse to spread yourself thin and not produce desired outcomes than to let your boss know that you are struggling with something. Maybe it’s your workload, maybe it’s something you feel unprepared to tackle– they cannot address it and help you if you don’t speak up.
• Be engaged (take initiative). Your boss did not hire you because you are a mindless work drone– they want you to be involved, to ask questions and provide alternative solutions, to participate in making the desired outcome a reality. Just take care to not overstep your bounds.

There is a theme to all these tips– they all require one to take initiative in their respective tasks and assignments. If you make it a habit to show initiative at work, your boss will definitely notice; you will become a person upon whom he/she can rely and depend. Want to move up the ladder at work? Take initiative.

Photo: retrieved from Pixabay, available under the public domain.