Becoming The Boss

 

Lindsay Pollak interviewed many millennials to identify the qualities and requirements to become a manager or to realize a promotion or to accelerate their career. She had these conversations in order to document career advice for millennials.  She is quite well known as one of the Top 100 Websites for Your Career as accepted by Forbes magazine. This book is not intended as a leadership manual or technical manual. She provides advice primarily on building your brand. What are you known for? What is your reputation in your company, in your department or are you recognized as by your co-workers? She mentions that your brand, whether you are seen as polished, aggressive in your career, a team player will affect people’s opinion of your value to the enterprise.  She presents tools such as interviewing others such as your manager to find out how you are perceived. A one-on-one interview with your manager is successful. But remember this book is written from the perspective of someone managing their own firm. This is a different perspective than possible non-millennials who would rather work for a paternalistic firm. The techniques offered are whether one is a janitor, a project manager or drives a truck. She offers suggestions on how to deal with not reaching your goal too. The key that she offers is to find a mentor, someone who will not be challenged and threatened by your personality or skills and abilities. This is a technique that is written in many management books and applies to millennials and non-millennials. To find a mentor to help guide someone’s career is difficult. There are no job postings on LinkedIn, Monster or Glass Door called “Wanted Mentor”.  And someone has to want to be your mentor. She believes that someone has to manage up, network up and lead meetings. This type of skill depends on the firm-size too, and ability to present to not being able to threaten senior management.

I found the book helpful with key tips such as “Think outside the box, “practice what you preach.” And “you have to pay your dues.”  But as she notes if you offer to take on work or projects or offer innovative solutions or advice to your managers and it gets known then you will be noticed.  This book should be re-read annually at performance review time to ensure that you are reaching your goal according to your timeframe.