If you’re looking to advance your career, you’ll want to focus on enhancing the skills that are really going to help you get to the next level. In every single industry, there are specific skills that are more beneficial to advancement. For example, if you’re in the marketing department, you’re going to be working on your marketing skills. If you’re in the sales department, you should be working on your sales scripts. But the skills that are the most profitable in any organization are the ones that are transferable across industries. It’s really important that we have these transferable skills, not only if we want to work in another industry, but so we are capable of doing the work no matter what position we’re in as we advance.
So what skills are actually crucial to advancing your career? In this post, I’ll be sharing the top 3 skills that are necessary for advancement:
- Leadership — Leadership is defined as the ability to influence others. If you can influence your team toward a goal, it will make your job easier and more enjoyable every time. Unfortunately, people aren’t usually trained to enhance their leadership skills. However, this one area of expertise can motivate others to work hard and push your organization towards success, making this skill highly favorable and transferable across all industries.
- Communication — Communication is more than just words on paper or speaking in complete sentences; it’s your ability to translate a vision into something digestible and even attainable for others. Our tone and body language will help us to lead teams more effectively depending on how they are used. The deeper our communication goes, the stronger our leadership will be.
- Emotional Intelligence — This skill is one that people don’t spend enough time developing, but it’s worth expanding upon if you’re going to lead a team towards success. While communication skills are the way in which tone and body language relay a message, emotional intelligence is the ability to read those messages when nothing is said. This really comes down to understanding how people operate at the core: What makes people tick and how are they motivated? It’s common knowledge that we’re all created differently and what inspires one person may not inspire another. Likewise, what one person appreciates another may not. When we understand the people on our team and learn what they’re saying beyond their words, we can more effectively communicate and give them the motivation and appreciation that they need to persevere. This makes our ability to lead more compelling.
While these 3 skills don’t encompass everything you might need to advance in your career, they are at the core of every solid and respectable leader. Possessing these qualities will make you a versatile team player and a highly considerable prospect for advancement. Furthermore, developing your skills in leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence will not only help you in your career but in every area of your life.
