Not everyone wants to run a company, or be a senior leader. But those who do need to think about their career, achievements and the way they present themselves in a particular way to get there. The US Election campaign that has had us all gripped is a prime example of this.
At Enterprise, we place a lot of emphasis on developing people because we only promote from within our business. So our management trainees will one day be the leaders of our company. One of the core values that runs through every area of our business is diversity. And this presents its own set of very individual challenges.
The diversity challenge
One of the starting points of a diversity strategy is to acknowledge and embrace the fact that talent is not always obvious and that very worthy candidates can easily be overlooked for promotion. Good candidates, particularly those from more diverse groups often lack confidence in their ability to pursue promotion. Businesses that value diversity need to invest in training their people to be more confident and better at presenting themselves in order to progress.
There should be particular focus on people from backgrounds, cultures or with characteristics that may bring a context or history of being overlooked, which contributes to a lack of self-belief.
Make no assumptions. It’s your future, so take control
As someone who actively wants a leadership career, it’s not safe to assume if you have the talent that once you’re in the door you’ll be noticed – this goes for anyone. You need to package your skills carefully and demonstrate them to the right people – don’t be shy about what you can do and in presenting your ideas.
We’ve been piloting a range of initiatives to provide education; inside and outside of our business on ensuring everyone has the confidence and ability to identifying their career goals and actively pursuing them. Some of these have been intensive, focusing on individual mentoring or small group sessions. We’re really encouraged by the results. We’ve created a platform to develop networking skills and provide exposure to the most talented people in our business and an opportunity for them to interface with each other and senior management in the business. This post is just a taste – we don’t want to overload you. We’ll be sharing more of this, so look out for more posts on tips for successful leadership very soon…