How to have a difficult conversation. Whether its asking your co|worker to turn down their music, telling your boss youre quitting or letting an employee go, youre going to have tough conversations over the course of your career. Your life will be much better if you get comfortable with being straightforward1. That doesnt mean rude, of course; you can be direct and kind at the same time, but you do need to assert yourself and get comfortable with difficult TOPics. Speaking of direct ...
How to stand up for yourself politely and professionally. There may be times when your employer does something that you need to push back on | for example, offering you a promotion2 with significantly more responsibility but no raise, expecting you to work unreasonable3 hours for months on end or violating a labor4 law. In these cases, its key to know how to professionally advocate for yourself. Usually that means being assertive5 but not aggressive, calmly explaining the issue and being direct about what you need. For example: Im happy to pitch in when needed, but this schedule has me working seven days a week for the next month with only two days off. Im not able to do that because of commitments outside of work, so lets talk about how else we can structure this.
What youre good at and what youre not so good at. Early in your career, its pretty normal not to have a well|refined sense of where you shine and where you dont. But if youve been working for most of your 20s, by the end of them you should have fairly nuanced information about what youre better at than others, what youre much better at than others, what you want to work on improving in and what you should probably avoid altogether.
What to do when you make a mistake. At some point, youre going to make a mistake at work because youre human. When you do, how you handle it will often matter more than the mistake itself. The key is to take responsibility for what happened; dont make excuses or be defensive6. Let your boss know what happened and | this is crucial | how you plan to ensure it doesnt happen again. If you do that, youll have proactively addressed what your manager probably cares about most and he or she is less likely to impress the seriousness of the mistake on you.
Your reputation matters. Your reputation for doing great work and being easy to work with is what will give you more and more professional options over time. Its what will let you avoid bad jobs and bad bosses and what will give you a safety net when you need to leave a job quickly or find a new one across the country. That means that its not worth doing things like leaving a job without notice or telling off your boss, and its worth it to go above and beyond to build a reputation for excelling.
