Do's And Don'ts For A Successful Career

A recurring theme for both high-performing and high-potential professionals has been how to find the keys to a successful career amid the pitfalls and promises corporate career provide. Here are some insights to help shape, advance and revitalize the careers of executives and managers.

1.Take responsibility for managing your career. Don't wait until you're fired, laid off, burned out or fed up to revitalize your career. Reinvent your career on an ongoing basis;

2.Treat every encounter and conversation with people as an interview.  Everyone you talk to judges or evaluates your worth. Make that conversation worth something by focusing on the other person and not yourself. And you never know where the next great opportunity can come from;

3.Focus on your strengths. Do what you are best at and what you have a passion for. Don't focus on your weaknesses, you'll just make them mediocre; 

4.Don't become a workaholic; extreme workaholics overproduce and overachieve at a cost.  Typically, they burn out and never regain their previous success levels, and often pay a personal price for their behavior;

5.Balance your focus on results with a focus on people. Of course the bottom line is important, but not at the expense of people. Spend at least half your time cultivating relationships outside of work;

6.Stop being in love with the sound of your own voice.  Develop the discipline to listen 80% of the time and talk 20%. And master the use of silence;

7.Never be unemployed, not even for a day. If you get fired, or laid off, volunteer immediately somewhere for something that puts your skills, knowledge and abilities to work. The longer you are not meaningfully engaged, whether you are compensated or not, the more this will drain your energy and confidence;

8.Don't suffer an abusive boss. If you can't get the respect you deserve, leave faster than a speeding bullet. It doesn't matter if the company or boss is a superstar in terms of financial success, your sense of self- worth is more important;

9.Under Promise and Over Deliver. The celebrity-professional athlete hype and heroic CEO promises of over achievement have captured the public's fancy, but artificially so, when the performers can't deliver. We tend to remember more hype, which the media feeds on, than the actual performance;

10.Find mentors. Hire a coach, seek out a trusted advisor, preferably outside your family and work.

Most Common Ways People Ruin Their Work Careers

Even the most successful executives and leaders can suddenly "go off the track" and ruin their careers. Research on executive derailment has clearly identified the factors that cause previously successful executives and professionals to fail.

 1. Poor Interpersonal Style. Although technical competence and successes may initially pay off, as one moves up in an organization or profession, interpersonal skills become more important. In our study of firefighters, technical competence was the key to getting promoted to captain, but lack of social skills prevented captains from going higher in the chain of command.

Having an abrasive or arrogant style, being insensitive to those around you, or coming off cold and aloof can lead to derailment of managers and supervisors.

2. Over-Controlling and Inability to Delegate. In today's team-centered work world, it is critical to be able to work successfully with others to get the job done. Managers who try to do it all themselves, who micromanage, or who are unable to build a team are likely doomed to failure.

3. Inability to Adapt. Change is the only constant in organizations. Workers who fail to adapt will become obsolete and fail. In one engineering department, the manager was unable to master, or even understand, the new design technology. Due to his own insecurity, he refused to let the new technology be used in his department. The result: they fell further and further behind on projects and produced inferior results.

4. Lack of Transparency. Dealing openly and honestly with those you work with is the key to success. Even if you are justified and fair in the decisions that you make, you need to let people know why and how important decisions (such as promotions) are made.

It goes without saying that unethical behavior is a key derailer for anyone's work career, so the best way to avoid temptation is to be transparent in the decisions you make and strive to be virtuous in your behavior.

5. Inability to Think Strategically. All too often, we get bogged down in the day-to-day work that is in front of us, and focus too much on short-term goals. However, career success requires constantly looking at the big picture, and thinking strategically about where we are headed. Strategic thinking helps us anticipate problems, recognize new opportunities, and build a track record of accomplishments.