Initiative is a self-management skill , and self-management is one of five key life and work skills for Young Professionals. When you use your initiative you do things without being asked, solve problems that others may not have noticed needed solving, and go out of your way to continue learning and growing.
You do extra research if required, ask questions, and seek help if you need to. Doing our free online Young Professional training already shows initiative as you are taking time to develop professional traits and skills.
Initiative also means doing things for others. Using your initiative makes you a desirable candidate for jobs and opportunities as you are showing you can think for yourself, as well as proving that you will continue to develop and grow in your role. People who show good initiative often win awards and promotions as they generate exciting and beneficial ideas. PLUS: You can also join as an ambassador to help young people get heard by government and businesses. Take charge of your future today.
Aged ? Become a Young Professional to build your life and work skills. The training is free, it only takes a few minutes and looks great on your CV. Email us at info youthemployment. You can even write down their strengths and hand over the document.
This kind of exercise can be an eye opener for the other person. It can help to confirm what they are good at and excel in doing. Additionally ask others what they enjoy doing and put them in roles and teams that can best utilize their skills and help them shine. On the opposite end of the spectrum is helping others to discover their weaknesses and actively work on helping them to improve and excel. Offer to train, mentor and coach others.
Ask for areas where they want to improve and identify development opportunities that can benefit them. Help and encourage others to push themselves by setting challenging goals and each time they reach their goals, they should then set even bigger ones.
Especially by drawing from your past experience and knowing typical failure paths or where mistakes usually happen in a certain project and avoiding errors ahead of time.
Foreseeing challenges is greatly aided by good planning upfront. When working on an activity, set aside some time at the beginning to plan it well. Think through what you want to accomplish and at the same time visualize areas that could potentially go wrong. Other reasons are not following up with others who you are collaborating with to ensure that work is progressing well and not being on the same page with team members on the expected requirements and deadlines.
These challenges can be overcome by having good work plans, clearly communicating with others the expectations at the beginning of a task, assessing requirements at the beginning and identifying gaps or missing resources and following up regularly on the progress.
Get inspiration from the dressing style of senior professional managers who you admire. Look at details such as color combinations, well put together outfits, good quality clothes and sparkling shoes. At a minimum choose clothes that are comfortable, well fitting, clean and well maintained, then top it up with good grooming and key accessories.
Many activities in the workplace are usually accomplished through teamwork, joint efforts or contributions from various employees. Make it a practice to acknowledge, recognize and appreciate colleagues, in a timely manner, who helped, contributed or pitched on a completed or successful project. Simple ways of sharing the credit include sending out an email to team members thanking them and acknowledging their contributions, publicly praising colleagues during a meeting or privately thanking a co-worker for their help.
By not being a credit hog, you build up goodwill that makes it easier for others to assist you in the future. A by-product of sharing the credit is when you appreciate others, they could in turn acknowledge your contributions in other projects to your manager and others thereby raising your profile during performance reviews. Push yourself to higher limits of excellence and performance. Be known as a professional who not only sets high quality standards but also consistently works to maintain those standards.
Examples of high standards at work can include: setting goals and taking action, planning and prioritizing your work well, always meeting deadlines, being well prepared for meetings, participating and giving valuable contributions during meetings, giving top-notch customer service, having integrity and maintaining a good attitude. Being decisive is an important trait for succeeding in the workplace especially in situations where there is ambiguity or uncertainty. A simple way of decision making is coming up with a few solutions or alternatives then analyzing each option in terms of what would be the best outcome if I choose this option and also what would be the worst outcome.
Then select the option that makes the best sense. Likewise, endeavor to keep improving on your decision making process over time so that you become better and more comfortable in deciding and at the same time being able to confidently explain to others your rationale for making a particular decision.
When you finish major projects, make it a habit to set aside some time to review the final work output. A few questions to aid in evaluating completed tasks include: Does the final project or work output match the original specifications and requirements? Are there any errors? Is there any incomplete work? Are any corrections needed? It helps to prepare work plans and checklists when starting a project and these can in turn be used to do the end of project evaluation.
Aspire to get good at not only creating checklists but also in using them for monitoring finished work and additionally training others on using your checklists and standards.
You should take initiative because it gives you visibility at work, you stand out, you get recognition, and it enhances your value and personal brand. Taking initiative improves your potential for promotions and career growth. More problems are solved at work, time is saved, resources are saved or utilized efficiently and processes are improved. Additionally relationships are strengthened when you help others resulting in stronger team dynamics. It likewise creates independence, higher morale, bosses and supervisors are happy with your contributions, you become a role model for others, you stretch your critical thinking skills and challenge your problem solving skills.
Other benefits of taking initiative include strengthening your people skills, identifying synergies, removing redundancies and duplication in work and improving your self-confidence as you tackle things and obtain results. In as much as taking initiative is to be praised, there are some caveats to take into account before diving into the depths of demonstrating your initiative.
The first item on the checklist is to ensure that you finish your normal tasks satisfactorily before taking on more work. Your primarily responsibility is the job that you were hired to do. Efficiently handle what is on your plate first. Avoid overcommitting yourself. The second item on the checklist is to know the limits of your authority. Before taking initiative on matters in a gray area, consult as appropriate.
Do thorough research before changing things or proposing major changes. Taking initiative also means taking risks. Assess your risk tolerance. Know that there is a potential to make mistakes and fail. There could be situations where you need to own up and admit your mistakes when you fail. Have resilience and a good attitude. Additionally your sincere initiative efforts and ideas could be ignored or unwelcome.
Keep your cool. Feel free to ask for help when you need it. You can be taken advantage of by others and have extra work dumped on you.
You can encounter people who want to put you down for no reason. Be cautious of idea killers especially when idea is at infancy. Practice being patient, change takes time. Sometimes you will underestimate the effort involved in executing a task; this is part of the learning process. You will become better at estimating effort required over time and through practice. Ways of taking initiative as a team consists of problem solving as a group, brainstorming ideas — presenting a raw idea to a team can result in a much better idea after input of different people, and volunteering on an internal or external activity as a team.
Other ways entail working collaboratively on designing manuals, standard operating procedures, guidebooks, flowcharts etc. Taking team retreats to work on developing ideas, concepts and projects and working on team building initiatives to strengthen working relationships. An organization with a culture of employees taking initiative can achieve substantially more results than a company where staff do not take initiative.
How can you create a culture of taking initiative in your company? By acting on employee feedback and suggestions from staff surveys. By praising staff for doing a job well. By providing company-wide rewards tied to taking initiative to stimulate creativity and innovation.
By inviting well respected industry leaders to talk to, inspire and motivate your team. Encourage employees to take initiative by creating environments necessary for initiative to prosper such as weekly meetings where staff share their initiatives and the successes achieved, including employees in planning goals, publicly appreciating and recognizing those who take initiative and empowering employees.
Other ways of stimulating creativity include knowing what your employees are good at and encouraging those positive traits, sharing the company vision and inviting clarifying questions, showing employees the results of their efforts i.
Challenging employees to improve processes and create efficiency, being accessible to staff and listening to their ideas, making it ok to take smart risks and make mistakes.
Being open and sharing information about what is going on in the company, encouraging sharing of knowledge and information and senior leadership to make taking initiative a priority. Good management, culture of initiative being supported, actively seeking suggestions, ideas and recommendations from employees on how to fix what is broken and areas of improvement.
Encouraging teamwork, allowing work flexibility and telecommuting, giving employees regular and actionable feedback and hiring people with a history of taking initiative. Doing the bare minimum to survive in your job, making excuses, playing the blame game, playing the victim, waiting to be told what to do and believing that the boss has all the answers.
External reasons for lack of initiative include people pulling each other down, constant complaining and doing nothing, taking initiative is frowned upon, your ideas getting stolen by others, not getting the credit you deserve and people satisfied with the status quo. Being held back by past failures i. It is worth noting that despite all your good intentions while taking initiative, there are some bosses for whatever reason who might feel insecure and threatened when you take initiative at work.
Knowing what you want to progressively achieve in your career and deliberately taking steps to get you closer to your career goals. Concern and consideration for not only the well-being of the company but also about the well-being of colleagues. Boldness to take smart risks and having confidence that what you are doing will have a positive impact. Conducting relevant research, analyzing, interpreting and drawing timely conclusions and recommendations.
Persevering even when the going is tough or when it takes a long time to reach the desired result. Strong listening skills. Talking, writing and expressing your thoughts in a logical organized and persuasive manner. Passion for your job, for success, to teach others, to contribute positively and the desire to make a difference.
Pushing yourself to accomplish what you set out to do. Having internal motivation and the will to see it through. Thinking about the big picture of the company and how your seemingly small efforts can benefit the overall organization — entails dreaming big , being creative and innovative. Desire and willingness to keep improving.
Inevitably problems are a part of our daily lives. Problem solving skills are important for the career-minded professional. When you imagine yourself as the owner of a company, it can help stimulate your appetite for taking initiative.
A business owner is responsible for the success or failure of the company. This mindset requires thinking about all the moving pieces of the organization and ensuring proper alignment. To think like an owner of a company , ask questions such as — how can this company go to the next level? An owner thinks about the big picture and creates systems to make processes easier including automating tasks, delegating and even outsourcing some activities. They also work on setting goals, taking responsibility and not making excuses or blaming others, keeping good records, treating customers like royalty, following up regularly with customers, taking risks, develop the brand and reputation and studying other successful business leaders.
Being decisive and not getting caught up in analysis paralysis, thinking of potential revenue generating ideas, how to grow the business, how to improve processes, how to save costs and where to get good employees. A business owner similarly encourages staff, prioritizes work , networks, builds rapport and alliances, negotiates, sells, forecasts, innovates, studies business trends, looks for opportunities, manages, visualizes and plans.
Studies the competition, seeks mentors, makes presentations and pitches, improves processes, reduces expenses, works on customer satisfaction and learns from failure and mistakes. The art of asking good questions is a relevant ingredient in the process of taking initiative. Question why things are the way they are.
In a respectful manner, ask open-ended questions and also follow-up questions. Take down good notes. Later on take time to review and reflect on the important points you learned. Become proficient at gathering data, understanding details, figuring out how things work, understanding bottlenecks, listening well, paraphrasing, not interrupting, recapping, assessing pros and cons, testing theories and assumptions, and making logical conclusions.
Seek feedback and use it to spur on your initiative efforts. Talk to supervisors and colleagues to learn what you are doing well and should continue doing. On the other hand also learn about which areas you are not performing well and what you need to do to improve. How much initiative you take can be determined by your level of confidence at work. So how do you increase your confidence so that it spurs you take more initiative?
Simple ways of increasing your confidence include: being good at your job and having a record of accomplishments, being knowledgeable about your subject area, increasing your skill levels and competence. Paying attention to details, not making excuses, knowledge of both the big picture and the nitty gritty, building alliances and networks at work, supporting colleagues and supporting your boss. Other ways entail working on your posture and body language, speaking with confidence and projecting your voice well, participating in meetings, keeping your supervisor updated, planning your work and meeting deadlines.
Having goals and meeting them, being well prepared, dressing well and comfortably, smiling, stretching yourself, going beyond your comfort zone, being kind to yourself and practicing positive self-talk.
When you have a proposal or a new idea, write down the idea, list the major benefits of the idea, list the drawbacks and disadvantages, explain what resources would be required to implement the idea, how to execute and implement the idea, what are the implications if the idea is not implemented and a timeline for implementation. Prepare a one or two page outline that covers the points above then schedule a good time to meet with your boss. Send your boss the proposal in advance.
Create a checklist of your goals in a journal and map out a way you will accomplish them. Write down the steps it will take to achieve them, and give yourself realistic deadlines to make them happen. Following these plans will not only help us achieve these initial goals, but also give us the confidence to take on more difficult and long-term objectives for our lives like becoming debt free or purchasing a home.
Taking initiative at our jobs can make all the difference as we work toward advancing in our career paths. It helps feature our work ethic and strengths while exhibiting all we are capable of accomplishing. Think of ways you can go the extra mile at work and really showcase your potential.
Use constructive feedback as learning opportunities to continue getting better at what you do, and take classes to acquire new skills you can bring to the table. In order to make the world a better place, we must all take strides to better our own communities as well.
Taking action in community causes—no matter how big or small—is the first step. You never know how much of an impact doing good in the community can have on someone else. Food baskets you help distribute may help provide families in need with meals to survive until the next pay period.
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