Developing, Developing Leaders
What leaders from our community recommend as advice for building a rewarding career.
Looking back on your career and sharing lessons learned is a powerful way for leaders to pay it forward. It can inspire others and help them succeed.
Who better to ask than leaders from the 2024 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® who shared on the “Better” podcast the advice they’d give to their younger selves?
Leaders at these companies face higher expectations. They exhibit the nine high-trust leadership behaviors, for a start. They are expected to do their job and invest time in developing their colleagues. They know that how they do the work matters just as much as the work itself. And they drive impressive financial performance, helping their companies outperform the stock market by a factor of nearly four.
Their advice offers a roadmap to success in a high-trust workplace, with insights about the behaviors needed to get ahead while building trust and community along the way.
Here’s what they shared:
1. Don’t lose sight of relationships outside of work
Kelly Jones, chief people officer at Cisco, talked about the importance of relationships on the “Better” podcast.
“When you’re early in career, there’s this temptation to kind of be across everything,” she says. “When I look back at my early 20s … I worked a lot. I was really a kind of one-dimensional person. I don’t think I was that interesting outside of my job, although when you ask me what are the things that are most important to you in life, it’s my family, it’s my friends, it’s my husband. It’s the things that sometimes end up on the bottom of the list.”
Modeling a healthy work-life balance is an important way leaders build resilient teams and organizations.
Those habits can start early in your career, Jones said. “I would go back to my younger self and say, ‘These things that you care about the most, figure out how to prioritize these things in your life.’”
2. Seek out a variety of experiences early in your career
Experience with a range of cultures and personalities builds essential skills.
Monique Herena, chief colleague experience officer at American Express, shared how early career experience traveling around the world was incredibly valuable in her journey to the C-suite.
“Seek out really different, diverse experiences early and embrace growth opportunities,” she shared on the “Better” podcast. “I think the more you expose yourself to different thinking, different cultures, different ways of doing things, the faster you grow as a leader and as a person.”
Some calculated risk-taking is exactly what young career professionals should do, she added. When you are uncomfortable, you are growing the most.
“Looking back at times when you had a little discomfort in the belly — not sure if you can land on your feet and deliver in the way you need to — those are the times where you’re really learning,” she said.
3. During high-pressure events, don’t hold on too tightly
Most leaders can point to both high and low moments throughout their careers. When facing tough times, it’s important to maintain perspective, according to Suzan McDaniel, chief human resources officer at Edward Jones.
“When things are intense, or there’s a lot of things that are going on, hold it lightly, don’t hold it tightly,” McDaniel shared as advice she once received from a colleague that she now repeats to herself as a regular mantra.
When facing a difficult moment, she reminds herself: “This too will pass, breathe, hold it lightly, don’t hold it tightly.”
4. Be a lifetime learner
A growth mindset is an invaluable asset for leaders. Staying open to new experiences and focusing on opportunities to learn new skills can lead to remarkable places.
“Be a lifetime learner,” recommended Diane Cafritz, executive vice president and chief innovation and people officer at CarMax. “The role that I have now, I had no functional expertise when I was put in that role … I had to learn all of it. And what I realized about myself was, I am at my best when I’m learning.”
Even better, Cafritz said: Keep learning and enjoy the lessons.
“Joy is such a huge piece of being engaged at work, engaged in life,” she said. “That would be my two pieces of advice: Have some fun and make sure you keep learning.”
5. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken
Authenticity is a superpower, shared Ty Breland, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Marriott International.
“I had an opportunity early in my career to meet David Novak, who was at the time the CEO of YUM! Brands,” Breland said. “He made a statement that really stuck with me, and I think I have tried to live it every day, and it was: ‘Really be yourself.’”
For leaders, self-knowledge and confidence to show up as your authentic self can open doors and ensure that you give your best effort.
“If you feel something and you know it’s the right thing, really lean into it,” Breland said. “Bet on yourself, but be authentic to who you are … That doesn’t mean that you always have to get your way. It doesn’t mean you’re always right, but it does mean that you leave it all on the field.”
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