Want to Reach Your 2020 Career Goals? First, You Need to Hear These Leaders Share Their Best Advice

Recently, the Harvard Business Review found that despite stereotypes, women are not out to get each other in the workplace. In fact, most women want to help other women succeed. We know how tough it is out there — and that it takes a village to grow a great career. 

It’s in the spirit of helping other women succeed that we recorded Season 4 of Fairygodboss radio. This season, seven women from across organizations sat down with us to share their career experiences, provide special insight into what the workplace is like for women and provide guidance for how we can improve it in the future.

Along the way, they gave us their best career advice. Here’s what they had to say: 

1. Mentorship matters.

“Surround yourself with great mentors.” — Hannah Yang, Senior Vice President, Head of Subscription Growth, The New York Times

2. Think about the bigger picture.

“Bring a sense of otherness. It isn’t fundamentally about you or any one person, it’s about what the collective can do and make happen for one another.” — Meredith Kopit Levein, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, The New York Times

3. Define your dreams.

“Having crisp responses and clarity to the questions ‘what do you want to do?,’ ‘what fuels you?,’ and ‘when are you at your best?,’ even if you don’t know the specific job you want, is important. Because in a world surrounded by tremendously talented people, having that ‘I’ll do anything!’ is not instructive. It’s difficult for people to help if you don’t have some specificity in terms of what skill set you are trying to grow and what experience you are trying to gain.” — Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Chief Diversity Officer, Microsoft

4. Fix your attitude.

“The next time you hit a wall, think you can’t or are struggling with something, remind yourself ‘not with that attitude.’ Hopefully you’ll put yourself in check, shake it off and say: ‘I can do this.’ All you have to do is fix the attitude.” — Jine Etienne, CPA, CGMA, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, EtiennePartners

5. Don’t shy away from ambition.

“Own it. Own it. Own it. You have to go get what you want. You have to let your aspirations be known. And you can’t sit and think someone’s going to bring it to you.” — Michele Meyer-Shipp, Principal, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, KPMG

6. Know your worth.

“Know your worth. Understand your worth. Whenever you catch yourself questioning your worth, really take a step back and think about a time when you felt your strongest and your best, and step into that space and let everything you do operate within that space.” — Neelam Chohan,  Global Inclusion & Diversity Leader, Honeywell

7. Be intentional with your time.

“Be intentional with where you spend your time. I think a lot of times we feel busy or we feel like our calendar controls us and it does not have to be like that. I’m regularly self-auditing how I allocate my time. I look backwards at my calendar and say: ‘Am I giving my customers enough attention? My team members enough attention? Am I focusing on operations enough?’ Do it intentionally, because time is the most important resource that you have.” — Jill Anderson,  Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Power Supply, SCE

For more advice and insights on women in the workplace, listen to Fairygodboss Radio (available on Fairygodboss, Blogtalkradio, iTunes, and Stitcher).