Penelope Trunk’s recent post featured 5 career planning tips for being a good manager. I think they have fairly general applicability. You can read the full post here.
Some tips from the article:
— Manage conflict. Don’t run from it. Whether it’s your conflict or someone else’s, it probably won’t get resolved on its own. Learning some conflict management techniques will be a good career planning move.
— Develop genuine empathy. People can tell when you genuinely care about them or when you’re just going through the motions. When you genuinely like your job and peers, this one’s easy.
And here’s the best career planning tip: Manage your personal life.
As author Penelope Trunk says:
“You are kidding yourself if you think people don’t see what’s going on with you at home…Stress shows up in nonverbal, unexpected ways that make people uncomfortable to be with you and worried about your competence.”
If you’re drinking a lot or getting into debt, she says, your coworkers won’t necessarily realize what you are doing. But they will sense something is wrong.
You’ll use energy hiding your personal life at work. Instead, direct your energy to dealing with your personal life. In the short run, you may feel you don’t have time. However, in the long run, you’ll make more career progress (and maybe have a happier career too).