Best Career Advice by ThingsAt CEO Ruy Franco

Credit: Ruy Franco, CEO ThingsAt | www.thingsat.com

​Be ambitious and don’t be afraid to share your ambitions with people around you. Once I had set my sights on where I wanted to go, I was clear on which jobs I would take to stay on this path.

I did my MBA to improve my knowledge, I took on every stretch leadership project or course I could get my hands on, I made a pest of myself with our executive team and CEO to make sure that they knew I wanted to go places and that I wanted to learn from their experience.

Like many leaders, to start with I had the view that control can be commanded downstream, and I very quickly came to the realisation that did not work. I was blessed with an experience where my team was brave enough to provide very clear feedback that they supported me, but my style needed to change. From that point my awareness and ability to motivate and lead developed more and more. Some of the greatest support has been from my team. Giving them permission to be honest with their feedback and sharing my aspirations allowed them to provide me direction when I needed it most.

Also, make sure you enjoy the journey. One of the best pieces of advice I got was that I was so focused on the next role I was not enjoying the current one. Smell the roses.