Humans were made to ask: “What’s next?” We got out of the cave, we went over the hill and have been on a forward journey ever since. We’ve even taken this thirst for continuing evolution into the corporate world with us, and have developed an innate need to move up in the ranks. To that end, we spend a lot of our time asking ourselves what it really takes to move to get to the next level and how we achieve upward mobility in the business world. This question, at once confounding and relatively straightforward is something we all must answer for ourselves.
It’s true that there are some universal, elbow-grease ways of moving up the corporate ladder: hard work, endearing yourself to your colleagues, going above and beyond the call of duty, etc.; but what it ultimately takes is ingenuity, resourcefulness and the ability to recognize opportunity when it’s staring us in the face. This doesn’t mean that we should do everything we can to tip the odds in our favor and exploit our co-workers, in fact that kind of behavior can backfire very quickly and we can find ourselves on the other end of a rather stigma.
The primary contributors to workplace advancement are intellectual maturity, hard work, respect and the ability to comfortably work with others. We often hear about these cartoonish scenarios of the boss stepping on necks on their way up to the top, but that’s simply not the workplace of today. We have to work in close quarters with these people and nothing is done in a vacuum, including operating a business. We have to remember to temper our ambition with honesty, integrity and emotional maturity. These qualities will not go unnoticed and will eventually distinguish us from others in our companies.
