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What Does it Take to Get a Promotion?
The Secrets of Personal Impact
By Dr. Carol Fleming

Once you get a foot in the door in the world of work, how do you go up? This is a good question to get answered if you don't want to stay at the entry level position. Which way is up and how to I get there? You will, of course, be looking around for your own answers as soon as you get the opportunity, because every work situation as it's own peculiarities.

But I think there are certain commonalties to all jobs, and certain efforts that are going to pay off in any situation. This gives you the power to improve your work level (and salary). The three aspects of work behavior that will be perceived as highly valuable in the world of work are your expertise, your attitudes and standards, and your communication skills.

1. Expertise:

This word describes what you know or do that has (monetary) value to others. When you 'know your stuff', what is the stuff you know? There is some kind of specialized knowledge/capability, be you opera singer, school teacher or electrician, that you have to offer. You may have more or less of it. Your 'stuff' may be old or cutting edge. It may be traditional and well understood (dentist), or technical (computer architect), or vague (administrative assist).

No matter what your particular job is:

It is important that you be able to articulate what your capability is.
If it is ill-defined, it is hard to sell or defend.
It is important that you know how to develop your area of expertise. How do you grow in the field, get certificates, degrees advanced training and how can you demonstrate this?

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2. Attitudes and Standards:

This important area is hard to define, but you sure know it when it's not there. Consider these examples:

a dentist with dirty hands
a psychotherapist who discusses her clients, by name, in public
a receptionist who makes you feel unwelcome
a sales person who would much rather giggle with other clerks than spend time with potential customers.

These are all examples of unprofessional behavior. In these cases, the individuals may have a satisfactory level of expertise, but their poor attitudes and standards will be immediately apparent and will scuttle their careers just as fast as any lack of knowledge.

It is not enough to just know your trade. You must discern and develop the necessary people skills to make your expertise delivered appropriately and to create the trust and respect from clients and co-workers.

Communication Skills:

This large area of Communication Skills offers the most opportunity for personal development, no matter what your line of work
It is the most available kind of training
It is the most transferable training
It is an important piece of all human relations.

That's because this area contains the behaviors that relate your work to the rest of the world. Without these skills, it doesn't matter how skilled you are or how nice you are. How are people to know these qualities unless they are somehow communicated - by you.

Yes, we are talking about public speaking here. And about business/social conversation. And about courtesy. And about making oral presentations, negotiating and teaching. And about sending email and leaving voice mail, and using the telephone. We are talking about having a good enough command of English that people do not avoid you. We are talking about having speech/voice patterns that people hear as mature and responsible. We are even talking about having systematic patterns for dealing with information that ensure response, follow-through, confirmation and retrieval.

If you can walk into a position aware of the importance of these attributes and if you take personal responsibility for development in these areas, then I would say you have a high degree of Personal Professionalism. And that will take you anywhere you want to go.

Contact us today to discuss how our workshops, coaching and training products can improve your Personal Professionalism and Communication Impact.

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