Focus on goals and growth

Jappreet Sethi

While there are numerous competencies and behaviors that one needs in order  to be a high flier in the corporate race, three skills stand out as the important ones for those looking for a better growth trajectory. Mastering these will give you an edge over others. Here’s a look at these

Active listening

Active listening is the building block of leadership skills; the other abilities use this extensively and are built on it. Through active listening, or listening well, you demonstrate to your audience that their points have been taken note of.

As a result of this, they feel accepted by you, and trust builds over a period of time. The way you indicate you are listening intently is by performing several observable behaviors. To improve your active listening style, follow these tips

By making encouraging responses such as “great, wow . . .” and “I that’s Interesting . . .” or sometimes repeating what the person has said, this is known as paraphrasing, signals that you have understood the meaning and emotions behind the message and that you are genuinely interested in the conversation.

Try using non-verbal language such as looking directly into people’s eyes, nodding your head, leaning slightly forward in their direction, scowling, or pleased where appropriate; This will convey that you are actively immersed in the conversation

Even though you may not be interested or your opinion is in sharp contrast to what’s being said, avoid interrupting others while they’re talking;

Recollect and show interest in things they’ve said in the past by reminding them of the conversation.

Resist the impulse always to turn the conversation to your experiences (opinions come with them) and to find immediate solutions. Listen carefully first; get into problem-solving mode much later.

Trust

The ability to trust and be a trusted one is an extraordinary one. Though both are different, development of one leads to improvement of other. The more your manager, peers and corporate leaders believe you, the more committed they’ll be to your relationship with them, and the more active you’ll be.

Trust develops over time — if they observe specific appropriate behaviors on your part. To become trust worthy, you must:

n Keep your conversation with them confidential, no gossiping

n Spend quality face to face time; don’t fiddle with your phone or keep using your smartphone during the meetings.

n Keep your promises to them.

n Frankly admit your errors and take ownership for correcting them.

n Subtly tell your partners if and why you disagree or are dissatisfied with something, so they’ll know you’re honest with them.

Reality orientation & personal vision

A good sense of current reality and a personal vision with specific goals are great building blocks of career success. 

If you know your exploratory goals, potencies, what development you need, and the precise aid you’d like, it’s a lot easier for your manager to channelise the resources for you.

The higher the degree of cognizance, the more precisely you can convey them to potential helpers, the higher the chances that they will be able to assist you. 

To move faster in your career, you need to continually fine-tune your knowledge of self-knowledge and incorporate new feedback and observations on a regular basis.

— The writer is an HR & strategy consultant

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Right orientation

You can build reality orientation by following these tips.

• You should know what you aspire the most and what is essential and treasured to you from your career standpoint
• Recognise areas in which you’re able to perform well, remember and tell your manager very concrete examples of behaviors you can play at the good-to-excellent level;
• Identify specific limitations or developmental areas you are cognizant of and at one or another point in time, others have given you feedback on similar lines. 
• Give specific feedback. Start discussing your tentative one- to three-year goals to reach in your personal life and career
• Describe the reality of your abilities and situations accurately.