The End of Financial Year provokes much thought across corporate Australia. Where we direct our money speaks volumes about where our priorities lie. This year, ask yourself how much you have invested in your career and your future prospects.
From the outside, June 30 seems like any other day. There is no reason to celebrate. It certainly isn’t a holiday. It is merely another day in the week. That it happens to mark the end of the financial year is basically insignificant.
But there is something that makes June 30 that little bit novel. June 30 is a day of reflection.
It is natural to always look ahead. Somebody who lives in the past is not able to take steps forward. To be as successful as you can be, you must always focus on the opportunities to come and live without regrets.
June 30, however, is different. It gives you the chance to evaluate what you have done in the last 12 months. A quick glance over your year’s worth of personal spending will give you great insight into who you are and what you value in life.
This year, executives should be asking themselves one simple question: how much money have I invested in myself and my career?
A career, like anything else with the potential for growth, needs sustenance in order to flourish. No parent would ever let their child go hungry because a child needs food in order to develop. The same logic applies to your career. You will only ever get out of it what you put in.
This career nourishment can take many forms; however, executive coaching is one that is particularly common and particular successful among CEOs.
A survey conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business suggests that, in 2013, over 50% of executives employed some sort of executive coach to develop their leadership capacity. This number has only risen since.
In essence, many executives are not resting on their laurels. They don’t view their most recent promotion as the apex of their career. Instead, they reorient their aims so that they are always looking that little bit higher. If you are willing to make this sort of financial commitment to the blossoming of your career, then you move ahead of your competition in the hunt for success.
The benefits that coaching can deliver to an executive are not tangible; this is what makes them so unique and so important.
For example, Erika Anderson emphasises how executive coaching gives you insight into how other people see and respond to you. Most people do not have a proper gauge on how they come across to members of their team. By fostering this sense of self, you can better tailor your actions to get the most out of others.
It is hard to find this sort of environment anywhere else because, as an executive, people may be too worried to let you know what they actually think of you. With an executive coach, you have someone who understands how your industry works but is unafraid to let you know where you are falling down.
Moreover, the skills that executive coaching teaches are interpersonal and, therefore, applicable in other areas of your life. Complete leaders demonstrate mastery at work and at home; coaching can help you manage your relationships outside the office to ensure you are balancing your commitments properly and in the way that is most beneficial to you.
If you are looking through your bank records and cannot find some sort of expenditure that is directed towards career advancement, then you are selling yourself short.
We never stop learning. We never stop growing. Complete leaders understand that perfection is an aspiration that can never truly be obtained; there is always a better version of you out there.
Unless you are willing to commit to yourself, your potential will remain just that – potential.
The Complete Leader Program deploys advanced analytics to personalise its approach to developing its participants’ executive leadership capacities. If you are looking to take this next step, please contact Melinda Fell.
