Work Ethic

By Frankie

Having a great work ethic will get you employed. Imagine you're an employer, the candidates you look for the most are the ones who can get the job done, be able to overcome setbacks, and be accountable when they make mistakes. A strong work ethic is summed up as how you approach your job, and here are three skills that you can develop to build a stronger work ethic and also a brief guide on how to develop them.

Resilience

Setbacks are inevitable in work, and being resilient is a great way to overcome them. But there are two types of resilience; brute force—where you instantly try to overcome a setback without changing your plan and trying to do so by simply working harder—and strategic resilience, which is when, after a setback, you take a step back and think about what went wrong, and adjust your plan accordingly. By a mile, being strategic about your resilience is the best way to go, as it will save you time and is more likely to result in success. Employers love to see someone who can encompass these problem-solving skills to rebound from a loss and it’s something that gets looked at as being part of a great work ethic.

To improve your resilience, I’d encourage you to try and work with "Forced Destruction"—where you intentionally set yourself back in a small project that only has an impact on you. I'd recommend doing it with something like Jenga blocks, building them into a certain thing, destroying it, and then thinking about a new way you could build that certain thing via a different process. This will simulate the experience of overcoming a setback strategically.

Accountability

Admitting when you made a mistake is the first step to accountability—but the hardest part is giving yourself feedback by being honest with yourself about explicitly what went wrong that led to the mistake. Being able to pinpoint the root of certain issues isn’t only a highly-valued analytical skill, it’s also going to help you develop in your career faster. Even though nobody will see this side of your self-reflection, employers will notice that you have a genuine desire to get better at your job—which they really look for in young employees who they hope can one day take on management positions.

Accountability isn’t just about admitting your mistakes, you should also hold others accountable when they slip up, as long as you can do it constructively. This will shine through to employers because it shows you’re focused more on the team's performance than your own.

Dependability and Discipline

There’s a fine line between a toxic culture, where you’re overworked, and a job where you are a productive employee. Please never let any boss try to overwork you, and never burn yourself out by putting too much pressure on yourself. However, stress is a natural part of work, and at times you will have to work with this stress to get the job done by being disciplined. The beauty of having discipline is that it should increase productivity which can help you overcome stress as your workload will become more manageable. Being dependable is also a big part of work ethic, and it’s similar to trust, where your employer knows that you can get the job and task done to your best ability 99% of the time.

How to Develop Your Work Ethic

Building a strong work ethic isn’t a difficult process, and you can improve it very easily. Just remember to keep on working hard, keep looking for what led to mistakes, and then most importantly, try to improve based on what led to a mistake being made.