Far too many people are rooted to their own position, their own job, their own immediate vicinity when they’re thinking about the world.
Rightly so, because they’ve got a job to do. They’ve got to focus in on what they need to deliver satisfaction to their immediate stakeholders.
Yet this is missing a major opportunity to step up to a higher level of thinking.
If you want to become far more influential, particularly at senior levels, you’ve got to adopt a much bigger picture view of the world. Not necessarily so it contributes immediately to your job, but so it contributes to your thinking and dialogue with more senior people.
To do this, imagine yourself in the top job, looking down from the CEO’s position and looking out at the world, from their position. What do you see?
Think about the strategy of the organisation, the environment in which it lives, the expectations of its shareholders like the public, government and shareholders.
What is the competition is doing? What are the trends in your market?
Start to understand the organisation and build your picture, your interpretation of the challenges that frankly, the organisation’s got to meet in order to be able to survive and thrive in the current environment.
As you start to do this, it will make a difference in the way you think about your work. It will give you context. It will help you to understand what your current role is in that bigger picture.
It will help you to contribute more effectively at more senior levels, to be able to position your requests in the context of the wider environment that your senior stakeholders have got to consider.
It will also start to signal that you may be ready for greater things, for bigger positions, for more responsibilities – because you’ve got that greater level of awareness.
Now of course it takes a degree of effort and energy to learn all of that, but the rewards from this particular lesson are huge, because you will start to adopt the mindset of the more senior individual, the more senior director or executive, which is just what they’re looking for.
They will not promote you until you’ve already got this, so get this now.
Related to the Bigger Picture
- Making an Impact at the Top Table
- How to Gather More Political Intelligence
- Influential Leadership Capabilities
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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