Ever wonder what sets successful business leaders apart from employees with more ordinary daily achievements? Is it education? Is it luck? Some CEOs trace their success to important life lessons or a piece of excellent career development advice. A recent CNN article highlights some of the best tips to boost job performance.

4 Career Development Tips

1. Hire Talented Employees

Most of us know by now that we can’t change people. And yet many of us do try to do it on an everyday basis at work. We can supervise, we can nudge, we can advise, we can mentor, we can teach, we can preach, we can persuade. But at the end of the day, if people don’t want to change and grow in that way, they just won’t. Mindy Grossman, the CEO of HSN, was struggling with this phenomenon many years ago when she received an important piece of advice – hire extraordinary employees from the beginning rather that spending so much time and energy trying to turn ordinary into the extraordinary.

2. Listen to Your Employees

In the article, Doug Parker, CEO of US Airways, shares another piece of crucial career development advice for everyone in leadership positions. You will get further if you talk less and listen more. To be truly successful in your job performance as a manager, make sure that you take the time to really listen to – and hear – your employees.

3. Work Your Way Up

Not many people would argue with being presented with instant success on a platter. But in reality, that doesn’t happen for most people. Most people do need to work their way up to the position they desire, and they learn a lot of crucial lessons along the way up that will ultimately contribute to their success. Ron Johnson, the CEO of J.C. Penney, encourages employees to work from the bottom up in order to create a strong foundation for lasting success.

4. Follow Your Passion

One of the most important career development lessons and one of the best predictors of job performance is very simple: follow your passion. Success in a job you loathe is harder to come by, and it is ultimately less meaningful. If you truly care about the direction you are going in, then listen to Scott Griffith, CEO of Zipcar, and simply figure out what your true passion is and follow it.

Join the conversation and share your best career development advice in the comments!

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