How to Advance Your Career as a Senior Business Professional

Whether you are the manager or owner of your own business and have painstakingly worked your way up the proverbial career ladder for many years, or else you are currently studying business and business management and are interested in looking forward as to where your qualifications will take you in the future, then you have certainly come to the right place.

So, with this in mind here, for your information and of course reading pleasure, is a guide on how best to advance your career as a senior business professional. 

• Networking

Fundamentally, one of the most effective and exceedingly important tools at your disposal as an individual who has been working in the world of business for some time and has acquired a myriad of different skill sets is your ability to network, both in terms of the professional connections you have already made and potential ones. 

There is a wide plethora of benefits to professional networking, whether that be arranging your own through your company or else attending a pre-organized event, including but not limited to the following:

• Unprecedented access to career support, advice and guidance 
• A way to gain a fresh, new and often even innovative perspective on both where you are in your career currently and where you can advance to next 
• A way to rise your profile, both within your own company and close connections and amongst rivals and competitors too
• Leave the networking event with every single question you both came up with beforehand and any questions you come up with whilst at the event itself answered 
• A fantastic way to steadily build your confidence, both in a personal sense and obviously a professional context as well
• A simple way to advance your knowledge in both your specific field of business and in other areas of business too
• The most productive way of discovering about both current and soon-to-be announced job vacancies and career progression opportunities 
• Doctorate in Business
  

Another exceedingly challenging yet beneficial way to substantially advance both your levels of knowledge and experience in a wide range of aspects of business is to successful acquire a doctorate in business or business administration. 

Furthermore, when choosing to study an online dba you will be afforded the opportunity to carry on working in your current business career role whilst simultaneously studying for your doctorate. 

One of the most fascinating and rewarding types of business doctorates to pursue is that of a doctorate in business administration, which usually involves the following key components: 

• Global Business Strategies
• Business Principles of Microeconomics
• Business Principles of Accounting 
• Business Management & Theory
• Communication in Business
• Critical Thinking in Business
• Computer Systems, Software & Applications
• Business & Business Administration Research

• Dedicate Time to Developing Your Soft Skills

Essentially, the term ‘soft skills’ refers to the emotional intelligence and indeed the social intelligence levels of an individual and for you, as someone who is looking to advance and progress your business career even further, it is imperative that you focus on developing and improving your own. 

The most easily quantifiable soft skills involve the following:

1. Creativity
2. Time Management
3. Innovation
4. Leadership
5. Adaptability
6. Delegation
7. Problem Solving
8. Critical Thinking
9. Work Ethic
10. Teamwork
11. The Ability to Perform Under Intense Pressure
12. Listening
13. Communication

Obviously, you can now see both how important soft skills are in the world of business management, as indeed in any career pathway, and also that there are always areas of improvement to be found. 

There are a number of tried and tested ways in which one can improve and advance their soft skills, including:

• Acquiring a Business Coach

The beauty of acquiring a professional business coach is that they are able to customize and tailor make a learning program focused on soft-skills advancement to suit your own personal needs and the direction in which you want to take. 

• Actively Seek Constructive Feedback

Another fundamental way of actively improving many of your core skillsets is to start, immediately, to actively seek constructive feedback. One of the main issues that often plagues business owners and managers is that you often tend to be surrounded by proverbial ‘Yes Men’ and as a result, you never get the actual feedback you need.

• Take A Project Management Online Course

Skills in project management are some of the most crucial skills to have and if you feel as if this area is somewhat lacking, or else you haven’t had to use such skills in a long time, then an excellent and productive decision to make would be to start an online course in project management.

• A Business Mentor

There is a wide plethora of genuinely impressive and fruitful reasons why it would make logical and productive sense to make contact with a business mentor, either within your business itself or else through a reputable third-party company or specifically designed service.

There a wide range of reasons why, as a senior business professional, you should consider a professional mentor, which include the following:

• A way to increase your general daily levels of motivation as well as your ability to concentrate and focus on one specific task at a time.
• As previously mentioned, networking is a key component of a progressive and proactive professional in business and one of the biggest advantages of successfully seeking a mentor is the unprecedented access to people who can significantly influence your position, both with your present company and beyond.
• The best way to identify your specific stand-out skill sets and individual, unique attributes which make you both an exciting yet safe and assured bet.  
• A way to enhance the process of your decision-making blueprint as well as speeding up your ability to make important yet split-second decisions which carry significant proverbial weight 
• Someone in a position of power and authority whom you can discuss your new ideas and innovative new product or service designs with and gain constructive and valuable feedback