When you are starting out in business, you will want to climb up that career ladder pretty quickly so you can enjoy the same benefits and the salary as those at the top. The only problem is that it can take a lot of hard work to get up that ladder. You might think that it would take years or even decades to get the experience and gain your employers’ trust to be given more responsibility within the business. The only problem is the longer you have to wait, the longer you are on a lower salary, and also the longer you are probably completing the less meaningful tasks within the business. If you want to speed up your career progression, here are a few ways you can prove you are ready to lead an important team in the business like taking a masters in leadership online.
Get qualified
If you are coming straight from education like a masters in leadership online, you might think it is impossible to demonstrate you have got real-life experience of leadership. You have probably never had the opportunity to lead a big team, so you will have no practical examples to give any interview board when they ask. That is, of course, unless you have completed a leadership degree. By competing for a masters in leadership online, you will have a document that shows you have studied and examined your ability to lead a team. You will also be able to draw from experiences from this course to show ways you have solved problems and dealt with complications within a team.
As well as giving you the opportunity to gain experience, a masters in leadership online course will also teach you a lot of the theory around being a better manager that you simply would not gain from normal day-to-day work. The sort of theory that you have to go and seek out and study. This can include anything from the basics, like communicating well with staff and gaining their trust, to the more complex concepts like ethics and motivating your team. Whatever role you are looking to apply for, a masters in leadership online course is something that will stand out in any CV. A masters in a leadership online course is one of the few things that would actually make an HR Executive Search Firm pick you over someone else who is a lot more experienced in the kind of work you are applying for.
Take on more responsibility in your current role as possible
No matter how low down you are on the career ladder of any business, there will always be more opportunities to take on more responsibilities within the company, if you take a masters in leadership online, it will give you some ideas on what to look out for. For example, if you work on the shop floor in retail, this could be anything from taking responsibility to locking up the shop at the end of the day, being in charge of making the displays look as attractive as possible, or even simply making sure the recycling gets taken out. It is highly likely that when these tasks need doing, your employer will ask the team for willing volunteers. Although you will not get paid any extra for completing any of these tasks and they may even result in you even having to stay at work late to complete them all, they will help you stand out from the rest of the crowd with your employer.
When it comes to promotion, your employer will remember that you were willing to put your hand up and take on more responsibility when called upon by the business. If they don’t remember, you’ll be able to list these extra tasks during the interview or application process of any promotion that you go for. Although they may only seem minor, these tasks could have a big effect on the business if they are not completed properly. Make sure you explain how you have made sure the tasks you have been responsible for have been carried out most effectively and how it is affected the business. Even if it is something as simple as taking out the trash, you could explain how you have managed to break the packaging down into smaller sizes, so the bins do not have to be emptied as often, saving your business money in the long run. You could even find ways of recycling more of the packaging. As environmentally friendly practices are something that more and more customers are becoming concerned about, likely, your managers are always looking for new ideas on how to reduce the business’ impact on the environment.
Some of these extra responsibilities could even lead to extra training. For example, many businesses are always on the lookout for employees to train as first-aiders. The advantage for the business is that they know a number of their employees will know exactly what to do if an accident was to happen in the workplace, reducing the stress that any incident like this could cause to a company. Many states and countries even require a business to have a certain number of staff members to be trained in first aid under business and licensing laws. As well as lots of benefits to the business, there are many benefits to receiving this training. Alongside a master’s in leadership online course, this kind of practical training is one of the most attractive qualifications that you can put on your CV when trying to impress new employers.
As well as demonstrating that you were trusted enough by your current employer to partake in this training, it also shows your willingness to go above and beyond your normal responsibilities to better yourself and a company. It also means that the business looking for a new employee could save money on having to train a new employee in first aid if you already have the correct qualifications. As well as helping your career, these skills could even help you deal with any injuries your friends and family may have outside of work. Most of these courses are only a day or two long but could have a big impact on your ability to deal with a health crisis inside and outside of work if one were ever to occur.
Suggest ways of improving the business to your manager
Another quality that any employer will be looking for when considering someone for promotion is developing new and inventive ways to improve the business. That is why a great way to make you stand out from the rest of your colleagues is to suggest ways that you think the business can be improved. Often your manager will probably sit you and the whole team down for a catch-up and ask whether you have any problems and queries with work. You might think that this is the only time you can raise suggestions with your boss. You should raise suggestions with your boss as soon as you think of them.
You might think the best way to keep your boss happy is to keep your head down, stay quiet and simply get the work done. You might think that you manager might even see any suggestions negatively and almost take them as criticism against themselves personally. In fact, most managers will be more than happy to listen to any suggestions you have for the business. If he or she agrees that they are a good idea, they are more than likely to act on it. Not only will they want to make life easier for the people they manage, but the implementation of this new idea could also impress their bosses. Often something that might seem so simple to you may be something that your boss has never thought about. It may be an answer to a problem they have been trying to solve for months but have simply lacked the first-hand experience to know how to solve. As the TV show Undercover Boss regularly demonstrates, some of the owners and managers of some of the world’s biggest brands are often shocked to find out how employees are working within their company. At the end of the show, you regularly see them rewarding their employees for coming up with these suggestions and explain how they are going to implement them across the whole company and offering enrolment in a masters in leadership online. While real-life might not have the same big results as the end of a reality show, suggesting these ideas could be that extra thing that you can call upon in a job interview.
Volunteer outside of the business
You might think that the only place where you can get this experience to impress your bosses is within the workplace itself, or through taking a masters in leadership online. There are lots of ways you can learn new skills outside of the business that could further your career inside the business. Volunteering is a great way of experiencing what it is like to lead a small team of people. There are so many groups you could volunteer for. Whether it is at a community group teaching young people new skills or sports, a soup kitchen, or helping to organize a charity event, there are probably lots of different opportunities for you to be able to volunteer within your community. While these groups may run on a much smaller scale than any business, the skills, and qualities you will need to help lead a team are the same. That means the experience you have had volunteering for these organizations will be easily transferable to any role within the business.
When employers ask for examples of where you have shown great leadership, they are just as likely to be impressed with real-life examples that you can give them from your time volunteering as they are from examples you give from your work life. Many employers will be impressed that you volunteer. It not only shows that you are good at things like timekeeping to be able to volunteer alongside your busy work and personal life, but it also shows that you care about your community. This is a quality that all businesses are looking to show their customers that they have, so they will often look to promote employees who share those same beliefs.
Do not slip up with the simple things
While you are trying to develop ways to impress your boss, it is important that you do not slip on the simplest tasks that your employers ask you to do. If you spend too much energy trying to show your employer why you would be ideal for a promotion or coming up with new ways of improving the business, it can be easy to forget to complete some of the tasks that make up your shift. If you forget to complete these tasks, no matter how minor they seem, they could end up causing big problems for the business. As well as causing problems for the business, if you are found to be dropping the ball regularly and forgetting to complete the tasks you are paid for, it could cause problems in your relationship between you and your employer.
No matter how simple a task may be, make sure it is done to the best of your ability. For example, you might think cleaning the floors of your building will never affect your business’s profits. In fact, the appearance of a store could be the difference between a customer stepping into a shop and wanting to spend a lot of time there, or simply leaving the store quickly and going to one of your rivals. If you can prove you can get the small things like cleanliness right, a customer is going to be a lot more likely to trust that your product will work and a lot happier to spend money in your store. Simply taking a masters in leadership online in your spare time will help to impress and keep your standards up.
As well as making sure you get all of your tasks complete, make sure you show up to work on time and ready to work. For example, any breaches of company policy, for example, if you were given a warning about repeated lateness, could seriously impact any possibility of being promoted to a position of leadership in the future.