Becoming the GOAT in Your Workplace

Traits of Successful Pros

While building Blue Light over the last 7 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a ton of incredible people both within our walls and externally. And through that, I’ve seen some fantastic professionals and ones I’ve felt that maybe haven’t grown into their job title yet. So I wanted to share some of the qualities of the people that have been the most successful within the walls of our agency, and what I’ve observed outside of our offices as well.

1. Effective planning is an understated skillset and an essential aspect of leadership and management.
2. Excellent presentation skills (now very important with Zooms all day) are almost a requirement in most jobs that require any type of collaboration.
3. Those who attempt to “figure it out” before asking for help are greatly valued in fast-paced environments — and let’s be honest, everything is fast-paced these days.
4. Having a plan to overcome a challenge when you present it, even if it’s not fully fleshed out, helps everyone work more effectively.
5. The ability to understand someone else’s needs and adequately address them is crucial. This is empathy — and it’s the driving force behind successful/effective teammates and leaders.
6. The ability to anticipate someone else’s needs and address them before it becomes a problem (read that again if it seemed similar to number 5).
7. Loyalty. I’m not talking about getting your year in so you can add it to your résumé, I’m talking about sticking it out with a team through thick and thin. We live in a culture that’s so “me” focused, we forget how impactful loyal tribes are to our growth and wellbeing.
8. Have a creative eye and an analytical mind. There are so much data and content flying past us we have to be able to understand what works and why it works.
9. Be able to work effectively in teams. Encouraging and facilitating collaboration is a crucial quality to any workplace GOAT since company culture has become more important to founders and leaders.
10. Have an optimistic and nurturing attitude. Your attitude will get you a lot further than your skillset can.
11. The ability to execute on ideas. I’ll be nice and say that there can never be enough idea people — although they are really easy to find these days. However, those who are able to bring those ideas to life are the ones that will stand out.

I strongly believe that how you interact with other people is far more important than hard skills. From my lens workplaces are focusing more on culture, and workers are gravitating to companies that promote happy and healthy lifestyles. With that in mind, it’s important to reflect on some of your intangible strengths, and see how they can make an impact in your own career.

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