Get ready for your work life by learning to manage yourself
One of the fundamental skills that ambitious graduates can benefit from is being able to manage themselves.
Self-management is the first step
Self-management requires you to know yourself and be able to structure your own tasks. Self-management is a necessary first step towards becoming a manager, and skipping this step often causes major problems in your career, especially if you aspire to become a manager.
That’s the advice from Mirja Olesen, CEO of Lead Next Generation, who is the course leader of the Future STEM Leaders programme.
“Self-management is all about how you approach a task and use the right tools to both clarify expectations and break down the task. This creates an overview of the different parts of the task and makes it easier to solve in a way that your manager and/or the customer will be satisfied with the result,” she explains.
When you’re able to take responsibility for breaking down a task into smaller chunks that are done well and visible to those around you and your manager, you’ve already come a long way.
A skilled employee makes the most of differences
An important part of being successful in a job is knowing that you don’t have to solve everything yourself. Even if you want to solve your tasks well now, the job is not just about being the most skilled specialist.
Instead, you need to know and understand the people around you so that you can collaborate and bring out the best in others when solving a specific task.
“When you study an intensive STEM subject, there is not necessarily a focus on people and how to create collaboration between different personalities and disciplines,” says Mirja Olesen.
“Perhaps thoughts about people’s differences and who you are in a professional context have been secondary to you, but in the job and especially if you dream of making a career or becoming a manager, you have to think about it,” says Mirja Olesen.
IDA’s talent programme Future STEM Leaders prepares you for a working life where, on the one hand, you have to collaborate with very different people – and on the other hand, you have to ensure that a task is completed successfully, even if it is not necessarily done clearly and well and within a familiar framework.
Along the way, you will be equipped with concrete tools and undergo a personality test to gain a better psychological understanding of yourself and your interaction with others in the workplace.
