Manage Your Career

How to Achieve Executive Career Success 

10 years ago, if you browsed how to become “successful” you may have read that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz worked 13 hour days in the office before picking up again when he got home or ex-Google and Yahoo leader, Marissa Mayer, regularly pulled all-nighters and 130 hour weeks. You might have landed on a page that said Apple CEO Tim Cook begins emailing employees at 4.30 am and held staff meetings on Sunday nights or that Ryanair's Michael O'Leary worked 7 days a week beginning shortly after 6 a.m. each day. Even the dictionary narrowly described "success" as being about the attainment of wealth or fame.

Thankfully today, we have a broader perspective of what success means. Perhaps it is best defined, as achieving a pre-defined set of personal outcomes, objectives that matter and accord with a person’s own values. However, whether they are about health, power, financial independence, freedom to choose, work-life balance, expertise pinnacles, recovering from a setback, the outcomes you seek are best achieved by having a plan and managing your personal effort and actions according to that plan.

Knowing what you want, owning your progress, having the stamina to stick with it, are fundamentals to achieving career success. These and many other related subjects are discussed below in HRM’s Pathway article series. New support pieces are added each month.

Preparing An Executive CV

Four Steps To Planning A Great Career

Three Essential Competencies Every Leader Must Demonstrate

Preparing For a High Performance Interview