Page 36 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Have a Good Track Record • 17

■ Don’t say one thing to someone’s face and another behind the
person’s back.

Generate Work for Yourself

In addition to all the preceding, willingly take on harder work than
assigned. Look around; see the needs of the business, the department, or
the function you’re in; and find a gap and fill it. Don’t wait to be handed
a new assignment. Volunteer for additional duties. Have a self-starter and
problem-solver mentality. A favorite thing bosses like to hear is, “I want
more work” (along with “We successfully completed that”).
If you need to be managed like a new hire and wait until someone
brings you a task, you won’t be viewed as a high-potential go-getter.
Learn other people’s jobs in other departments. Go to another group
head and say, “Hi, I’m interested in what you do. If you need help where
I can do something on my own time, I’d like to do it.” If he or she doesn’t
take you up on it (which often stems from fear of you taking some of that
person’s authority), go ahead and follow up with information you’ve found
that would be of interest to the person anyway, such as an article, book,
or snippet of information from some connection.
Leaders help others outside their own area. If the person does take
you up on your offer, you get a chance to learn, be of service, and get
crossover exposure that helps you to evaluate the next direction in which
you may want to go.
When you take on additional responsibility, make sure to deliver on
it. Not delivering is slightly worse than not stepping up originally. Some
simple examples:
Early in my career, I joined this company, but I was young and
wanted to travel, and my job didn’t require it. So I started to
volunteer to help recruiting, which got me traveling. The human
resources department saw my “free” support of their efforts and
rewarded me by asking me to be part of some special events that
popped up. I was asked to help at another company occasion on a
very short notice but made it happen anyway. That affair had a cock-
tail party where I met the CEO and got to talking about how I got