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Arbind Chaudhary

Professor Cynthia Garza

TELS 3340

November 1, 2016

Managing Your Career

Each Individual are different from one another in certain aspects. There might be some

similarities in skills level but some variations exist as well. These are the characters that

individual are born with but it is needed to harvest and develop in the near future for the better

career opportunity.

To survive in todays competitive, ruthless economy, job security is a must and corporations are

reworking in the employer-employee contract. Job security is not as predictable as it is used to be

earlier. To be the success in the future careers, an individual need to build the habit of taking

charge of their careers and should become self-directed learners willing to reinvent themselves

time and again. They should constantly look for development opportunities, experience, and

relationships from which they can learn. Another useful factor that helps in the development of

the skills is achieved by adopting a psychological perspective, attitudes, and values consistent

with their roles and responsibilities. In recent years, self-knowledge has found to be a key

characteristic to become an effective manager.

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Leadership skills rapidly require a change in a constant basis. It is no longer the purview of

senior executives but rather, even first line managers are assigned significant leadership

responsibilities. According to John Kotter, there are three critical leadership functions and their

attendant competencies.

I. Being focus, determine, finding the strength, constant research and multidimensional

thinking are the basic required step needed to establish direction. It is achievable by developing a

habit of taking risks, working on turning ambiguous data into a straightforward and easy to

understand form.

II. No project/work/ company is successful without the help from the team members. We

constantly need their help and full involvement through the completion of the project/work. So,

as a manager, we need to showcase the ability to build credibility, empathy and need to

communicate with diverse constituencies and the willingness to empower others.

III. The third and final principle would be motivating and inspiring people to overcome major

political, bureaucratic, and resources barriers by fulfilling human needs. It can be done by

constantly monitoring the team members work and providing help, support and feedback
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whenever they need it. Managers should look and should develop a new way to motivate people

and should complement and reward to those who does a better job.

Leadership quality is acquired not only by personal integrity, high energy level or a strong drive

to lead but it can also be achieved through learning and constantly applying it to the fields. There

appears to be a correlation between leadership and learning. According to the author Linda Hill-

there are three different experiences categorized as developmental assignments, relationships

with significant boss and hardship that teaches different lessons.

In order to progress in their careers, Managers need to grow themselves beyond their initial

strengths and should develop a broad repertoire of talents. These talents are not delivered with

spellbinding clarity, but instead, must be dug out of complex, confusing, ambiguous situation. In

some instance, managers need to learn from their past experience. It is a means of having a

Socratic dialogue with yourself asking the right questions at the right moment. They constantly

need to collect candid feedback and need to analyze their behavior, attitudes, and values.

The first and foremost step in building a better career is choosing the right positions along the

way. As mentioned by the author- there are two factors that managers should look for in choosing

the right position. First would be How good is the fit between who they are and the position?

& how good is the fit between who they are and who they want to be? The best way to find the
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answers to these basic questions would be by doing a better research of the career he/she want to

pursue in the future. They should look for the development skills they currently have and the

skills required to do the certain job. They should not stretch themselves to fit into the positions

that don't meet their ability and should avoid taking a big risk that might turn out to be not very

helpful. The general thumb of the rule states that if it takes more than six months to make enough

progress to achieve something meaningful than such risk is considered as a great risk.

Individual might come across special dilemma during their early career. They might end up

taking a job which doesnt fit their strengths, motives, values, and capabilities very well. In a

short term, it might look alright but positions like this don't last long. So instead of choosing a

career with prestige and high salary over personal capabilities, individual needs to be creative in

finding their strengths, limitations, motives and values in order to make an appropriate decision.

Ones should go back and forth and should look on their past experience to determine if the

particular job fits their personality or not.

If an individual chose a career that fits their strengths, success comes along. Success, thus

obtained will help an individual in developing the powerful and strong relationship with a broad

range of people, they find themselves holding a more central position in their network of

relationship and thereby gain even more power and access to the currencies.
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Every career comes with the certain type of Risk. It is the not the matter of taking it but if it is

worth taking it. To develop personal capabilities, to stay in business or compete with others,

managers need to look for stretch assignment. Instead of picking a high salary, easy going,

personal satisfaction job- one should look for the positions that should help in the growth of their

as well as the organization. Individual should think strategically about their careers, set goals and

should periodically re-evaluate and revise them. Instead of engaging in self-serving behavior

focused primarily on achieving their personal ambitions, they should take a calculated risks

necessary to seek out or create the kinds of assignments from which they can learn to meet the

corporate operatives, by doing that, individual can develop an expertise of new things that is

needed in the growth of the company.

Individuals who are better off in thinking strategically about their assignment choices also tend

to do so in building their relationships. Instead of looking for one perfect mentor, an individual

should create an opportunity and should build relation with the individual they need at the

moment. It helps them in managing the associated risks. They need to spend time on critical

relationship according to the needs of their work and their personal development rather than on

the basis of habit or whom they are most comfortable with. Building relationship skills helps

managers in developing their leadership quality and take them towards the path of success and

entitle them with a good protg. Thus, it helps in attracting others toward ourselves. It might

be beneficial in terms of other people taking a risk on our behalf and might be helpful in moving

up to the ladder in an organization.

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The ethical dilemma is the other reason that comes handy while picking up the career. It is the

part of the routine practice of the management. In order to come across it, individual have to

think twice before choosing a career. They might face minority challenge as it has been seen in

the past. Women, African-American had often faced difficulties in getting in the highest level

positions in an organization. It seems difficult but it achievable as well if an individual develops

a better and strong network inside an organization. They need to work hard and need to display

their work related skills in order to find people who are willing to take a risk on their behalf and

help them in gaining the experience necessary to continue to grow and develop.

Building a career is a slow learning process. It is not something that can be achieved in a matter

of days or month. It certainly takes effort, hard work, and better mentorship. It is not easy to

build a successful and personally satisfying career. It takes a lot of things into consideration. To

achieve a blossoms career, an individual need to think strategically before getting into any field.

They constantly need to dig down to their strength and weakness. They must show the ability to

determine the calculated risk and taking it when necessary. Individuals should do mastery in

team building skills should practice it constantly in their respective organization. Instead of

going after prestigious and high glory job, they need to get into the positions and organizations

that fit and offer learning opportunities. Individuals should focus on achieving their objectives as

well as an organization. Making sure that the speed of progress is neither too slow nor too fast

guide individual to the path of success he/she might be dreaming for.

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Works Cited

Hill, Linda. Managing Your Career December 15, 1998, Harvard Business School.