Featured in Glamour.com: The Single Most Important Advice for Your Career

Good career advice and career guidance are like a good hairstyle.  You want to know where to get it and how to keep it.   The single most important career advice, after being competent which is a baseline “give-me”  is don’t annoy your boss.  If you learn the common mistakes most workers make, you can fix them and move up the corporate ladder.  If you annoy your boss It all boils down to one solution.   Honesty.  It’s that simple,  You can embellish, subtract and tone-it-down, albeit it all comes down to this.   A good boss can smell the BS cubicles away.  Fool them once, and there will not be a second time.   Honesty about your abilities, efforts, and work status is key to building your reputation and a good relationship with your  boss.  

Follow the logical career advice of why honesty is truly the best policy.  Or, if you must, follow the yellow brick road but, it’s the long way around.  Learn this simple career advice and be honest with your boss:

Your Boss will win the race. 

The Boss will figure it out, before you do.  Usually the boss has smarts even if you don’t see it.  This means unless you get a crash course on whatever it is you are lacking, a good boss will figure out that you don’t know before you figure out how to know it. 

Ask your Boss for face-time and career guidance. 

If your Boss is fair and not a jerk, he or she will value the opportunity to show you their way, teach a new skill and mentor you.  A good boss intuitively understands that employees value face time with them.   Therefore, they want you to learn from them.  They may not know you need the help.    Ask for what you need.

Learn to ask without being needy. 

This is a hard one for most.   Keep your voice, your mannerisms and your tone calm, cool and collected.  Don’t give long explanations.   Just ask for what you need.  For example:  “Can you show me how you would like the pivot table?”   If you ask, your boss will make the time to show you what you need or find someone else to help you.  

See the big picture.   

The boss has to see the forest and all the trees in that forest to keep the forest growing.  Know the type of tree you are and where you fit into that forest.  Make sure you keep your tree strong.  If you don’t get this advice, email me.   You need my help…..

This article in Glamour.com covers the 8 Worst MIstakes That Annoy your Boss More than Being Late.  It’s a quick read and worth it. 

Follow Tip #7 from yours truly:   You say you understand – when you really don’t!    It all boils down to simple honesty.  What do you think?