Initiative forms part of your Self Management toolkit, we have explored it before but if you missed it or want a quick refresh then take a look here.
Initiative is being able to work without always being told what to do. You can show initiative by thinking for yourself and taking action when needed. Think how much time you are wasting if you are always sitting there waiting to be told what to do!
The more you work on initiative, the easier it becomes. The key is finding ways you can be useful and take action.
How do you grow your initiative skills?
Using your initiative skills is going to take a little bit of confidence and self belief, you are going to need to push yourself forward that little bit more. Just getting up and being constantly busy doing the jobs other people haven’t got round to yet isn’t the best way to show you have initiative. To really have initiative you will be taking things one step further, here are 4 ways you can start to show and grow your initiative skills:
Ask more questions
Understanding how and why things work the way they do, or why things are done in a certain way allows you to think about how they could be done better. Also, the more you know about a subject the more you understand what might need to happen next. Be curious and ask questions about processes and think longer term too, it is likely that you will have a responsibility for one part of a process but finding out what happens before and after you do your job will help you to think of new ways to make the next person’s job that little bit easier.
Never be afraid to think outside of your job either, seek people out who have different responsibilities and interests than you and think ask them about how they do things.
Speak up more
Make sure you are sharing new ideas, well thought through ideas shared at a sensible time show you are taking initiative. You don’t want to interrupt the team manager in full flow but if you have a new idea for how your sports team can score more goals or better defend then there will a time for sharing that for sure!
Take an interest in the topics you are working on, talk about new articles you have read and interesting, relevant things that are happening. If you are supporting social media for a project talk about recent campaigns that have gone well and keep up to date with the new apps and channels that are being created.
Speak up when you have a challenge and encourage others to do the same, take an interest in projects and encourage discussion about how problems can be solved.
Be organised
Using your initiative can be about challenging yourself, you will be putting yourself forward for new tasks and you’ll be challenging yourself to think differently about how things work and the way things are done. To take on new projects or increase your workload you are going to need to be organised, you will need to make sure your tasks are 100% in order and that you’ve got the time and capacity to do that little bit more or work that little bit differently.
Take action
The key to initiative is in the doing, you should ask questions, you should speak up more and you should be organised and ready but if you do all that and still don’t actually do anything you’ve failed at the final initiative hurdle. Seeing what needs to happen and telling everyone without then taking action can make you look more like a whinger than a doer! There are some good examples in team work situations, there will be one thing you are really good at and that you pick up faster than other people, why not organise a training session for your team on your key skill, share what you know and get other team members to train on their best skill too. This can work just as well if you aren’t in the world of work yet, organising a training session where the goalie or the defenders talk about their skills and training can help the whole team to work better together.
Your challenge:
This weeks task is going to involve you taking the initiative. We want you to set yourself 2 initiative goals (if you need a refresh on how to set a goal then take a look here). Think of two things you can be doing to practise your inititative. We have placed some ideas below. Set yourself a target and some reminders to check in on how you are doing.
Examples:
If you are in school:
- Volunteer to lead an assembly, the teacher might already have a topic in mind already or you can use this challenge or one of our other challenges
- Set-up or volunteer for the school council
- Seek out a particular issue for your school, litter, cyber bullying, mental health and build a campaign to support it
In work
- Organise a training session for a subject/skill or process you know will help the team
- Ask if you can support another project, put yourself out there to gain new friends and new skills
Extra curricular
- Organise a training session for a skill that will help your team
- Organise a share the knowledge event, all of the team players talk about their roles and skills
- Find new opportunities to play, a new league to enter, additional training sessions you can undertake
- Volunteer the team to support a community project, teach young or older people to play football, dance or sew!
