4 Key Tips For Future Business Leaders

How will you respond when your boss asks you to stay late to finish a report that he was supposed to do three days ago? Will you take the job that pays less and forces you to defer some of your student loans but that gives you exposure to the field of social impact that you care deeply about? What will you do when you have dinner plans with a friend, but a struggling peer asks you to help him with a tricky model?

These dilemmas have no “right” answers. But self-awareness will enable you to answer these questions for yourself. Most mistakes in a career are, at bottom, errors in self-awareness. When you know who you are and what you value, it is harder to make a misstep, complex decisions happen faster with greater ease, and your self-confidence expands.

Try it out now: Answer this question: What matters most to you and why? How will your answer affect the choices you make at work on Monday morning? (Added bonus: You are laying the groundwork for an important essay in Stanford GSB and Chicago Booth’s MBA applications.)

  1. Be a Long-Term Visionary and a Short-Term Pragmatist

Your values chart the course for your career. They tell you the kind of impact you want to have, the sphere of society you want to improve, and the kinds of work you will enjoy doing to get there. What they don’t directly determine, however, are the options in front of you at any given moment. Your current opportunity set is more a function of your past than of your future. So you need to cultivate the duality of focusing on the future, while engaging in the present: Keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground, so to speak.

What does this mean in practice? It means you have to keep the long-term in mind while courageously leveraging short-term opportunities. Let’s consider this long-term vision: “I want to run a social enterprise focused on bringing enhanced education to the developing world by leveraging media and technology.” Might you try to start your own social impact company right after school and learn through entrepreneurial trial and error how to scale an organization? That could work. Student loan payments putting earnings pressure on you? How about management consulting or a general management rotational program that will let you pay down your debt and develop key skills that will serve you later on? That can work too.

According to a 2012 study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, (full study here) the number of jobs held between ages 18 and 46 by people born between 1957 to 1964 averaged 11.3. We are talking about Baby Boomers here! For Gens X and Y in the tech age, that number will be even higher. We all know the legends of Zuckerberg, Gates, and Jobs, but they are the exception to the rule. It is much more likely that if you want to reach the top, you will need to change jobs several times. That’s because you need to cross train. To run that social enterprise, you will need to understand financial statements, capital market strategy, investment models, and shareholder engagement. You will need to understand corporate strategy, marketing, talent management, and operations. You will need to understand the nuances of sophisticated technologies, media creation and deployment, and customer usability and engagement. A CEO engages in every aspect of an organization, and if you want that job, you will probably have to learn a lot of these skills in prior jobs before you can confidently do them as CEO.

The shortest path to your goal is not always the most direct one. People who achieve great things could attest that although the destination may have been clear, the journey itself was a surprise. Always keep your vision for the future in mind, but take pragmatic steps in the present.

Try it out now: What is your long-term vision for your future? And what are some short-term steps that will get you closer to that target in the next 6-12 months?

  1. Hold on to Your Relationships

One thing all great leaders agree on, they didn’t get to where they are all by themselves. As the clichés go, “No man is an island;” “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Still, behind every cliché there is some truth. I would never have even entered the business world in the first place if my student hadn’t shared my resume with his boss.

So the principle here is simple. Meet people. Keep in touch with them. Be a good friend and a generous person to the people you meet in life. Do good work for your superiors and solicit their guidance. Talk about yourself so they know what you have achieved. Maintain their trust and nurture your relationships the way you already know how to do. Do this for people senior to you, peers, acquaintances, and subordinates. You never know which relationships will help your career, so treat them all like they matter.

Try it out now: Who have you forgotten to keep in touch with in the last year? How could you reach out to them and keep the connection alive today?

One More for the Road

There is great piece of advice that goes: “Only do things only you can do.” No one else can go to the gym for you. No one else can learn new skills for you. No one else can handle your personal communication or relationships. And likewise, no one else can manage your career. If you plan to reach a great destination, you need to be at the helm of your destiny because that ship won’t steer itself. To actively manage your career, start now. Take steps to learn how to tell your story, elevate your self-awareness, make short-term choices with the long-term in mind, and build and maintain meaningful professional relationships. If you proactively engage in these activities starting today, your success is virtually guaranteed.


Angela Guido, Founder & CEO of Career Protocol  Angela Guido runs Career Protocol, the web’s most refreshing destination for no-nonsense career advice and awesome professional development coaching. She’s helped thousands of MBAs get into dream schools and dream jobs while staying true to themselves. Want to turn your career from meh to HOLY COW AMAZING?!!! Angela has an MBA from Booth and extensive post-MBA experience at the Boston Consulting Group.

DON’T MISS: Landing Your Dream Job or Internship – The Best of Ivan Kerbel or Insider Tips From An Expert MBA Recruiter

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.