Having beneficial professional relationships with your peers requires more than simply doing your jobs side by side in the same office. A level of trust and communication has to be established before you can make social trades with people who can help you achieve your goals. In terms of advancing in your career, building strategic relationships with key peers ranks alongside expertise and experience in importance.
Trust is an essential element in any collaborative or mutually beneficial relationship. When you trust your peers and they trust you, it becomes easier to share information and work together. You can openly discuss successes and failures, learn from one another, and rely on one another for support. Trust exhibits several traits. These include
Using your cell phone on campus is often the best way of keeping in touch with your friends and classmates. However, in the business world, inappropriate cell phone use can be annoying and disruptive for your colleagues, and be a waste of your company's time. Using correct cell phone etiquette, however, can help you project a more professional image – it demonstrates that you're considerate and know how to treat others in the office with respect.
Imagine that you and several others have been shipwrecked on an island. Only one person in your group can speak the same language as the locals. Like the island spokesperson, a mentor is a compassionate person who influences your fate. A mentor is someone with a great deal of experience and influence in a chosen field who helps and guides your – the protege's – professional or career development. A mentor can, but does not have to, work for the same organization that employs you.
Being a manager can be stressful. You are responsible for the work of others, you need to achieve company objectives, and you do not always have the resources or control that you would like.
However, understanding what may be causing you stress will make it easier for you to identify ways of alleviating it.
In today's global economy, you have to use new strategies to develop the next generation of managers – managers who are adaptable and global-thinking. Tomorrow's managers will be faced with unprecedented competition from the global market and changes in the way work is accomplished. In addition, they will have more to manage and broader responsibility than ever before.
Being responsible for a team means that a manager has to be aware of what motivates others. This is another area in which your new role may differ considerably from your old one.
It is not enough to tell your team members what to do and expect them to do it. To be really effective, you must appreciate that they have to derive satisfaction from their jobs.
Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, human error can occur in an almost infinite number of ways. But at work, individuals who are experienced and knowledgeable are expected to anticipate negative outcomes and avoid them. When workplace errors inevitably occur, employees have two choices: accept responsibility or play the "blame game."
In the United States, career management is typically the responsibility of the individual. This can be challenging for employees new to the US who are unfamiliar with the norms and expectations that typically dictate professional advancement. Understanding what career management means is the first step toward managing your career effectively.
When building a new team, an obstacle you, as the team leader, will face is expectations and behaviors not conducive to team work – especially if your team is diverse or competitive. You can overcome these challenges by establishing guidelines for team conduct early on in the team-building stage. This will improve your chances of building a unified team.
