Leadership Tip for the young professionals- Adapt

Most of the young professionals get into the trap of "I know it all" attitude within the span of the fist five years of their career. I have seen so many young folks who started very well in the first few years, but turned out to be mediocre pretty soon. Most of them landed up changing multiple jobs in an effort to fix the problem with their careers, but, that didn't help them much in the long run.

I have had the privilege of closely mentoring 100+ professionals and what I realized is that the ones who made it to the top were the ones who constantly updated their knowledge base and kept themselves current with the changing business environment. As a matter of fact, this is easier said than done. I have seen the entire leadership brass struggle with this. One of the large organizations, I worked for, was started as a captive consulting firm for the parent firm which was a global giant. Post the divestation from the parent firm and having the mandate to serve the other clients, most of the sales and the operations leadership which was so used to providing services to the parent firm, refused to adapt to the changed environment. Moreover, the were completely blind sided in hiring the right folks even from outside. As a result, the organization became stagnant at the time others in the industry were growing rapidly. The leaders refused to learn the outsiders perspective and wanted to play on their strengths. As Warren Buffet once said, "In the business world, the rear view is always clearer than the windshield", most of the leaders chose to look at clearer rear mirror and refused to look at the hazy windshield and the results obviously were pathetic.

As a young professional, one should know that the old adage, "leaders are born and not made", doesn't ring true in today's business environment. The leaders are not made without training. To scale the corporate ladder and also to help the organization scale heights, managers and leaders need to constantly horne their skills to adapt better to the dynamic business environment. One has to pay attention to constant unlearning and re-learning.