Broaden your scope and skills
For anyone that wants to grow as a professional and broaden their abilities, it’s important to engage in continuous learning and development, and experience different industries and roles. This doesn’t mean you have to change jobs, but consider whether you could move into a different department or division so you have the opportunity to broaden your experience. Even working on task forces or in project teams that give you exposure to different skills and roles is useful.
Read more: Why we need more women in the C-Suite
Be passionate about what you do
Passion provides you with the motivation to continue to work, and this requires you to be in an environment that brings out the best for you, otherwise you might need to think about where you really should be. For instance, in my role if I can’t be passionate about bricks, how can I expect anyone else to be?
Back yourself and have courage
Failure is an orphan, while success has many fathers. Back yourself and have the courage to make decisions and take risks. But on the flip side, you need to have resilience for the times when things don’t work out and you have to still turn up the next day and try something else.
Read more: Authentic leadership and what it means for culture
Know what motivates you
When times are tough and you’re struggling to continue, you need to be able to dig deep and draw on that inner motivation and resilience so that you can keep pursuing your career goals or the path you’re on. To do this, you should have an awareness of what motivates you. It could be a loved one, a desire for success, or anything else as long as it drives you towards success.
Take on feedback
Being open to constructive criticism is a must. Receiving feedback isn’t a sign that you’re doing things wrong. Instead, it’s an opportunity to become better. A good leader should view feedback as a positive thing, and a helpful resource for moving up in your career.
Read more: 4 important steps women can take toward leadership
If you are inspired and would like to join the revolutionary movement that Imalia is creating, you can request to join our Facebook group The Wolfpack, to share ideas and learn from other like-minded women.
This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Women's Agenda.