Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian has some simple advice for those looking to advance in their careers: don’t think too much about the next promotion or job, and focus on fulfilling your current responsibilities.
Mr. Bastian, 67, credits this simple mindset for his professional success, which has seen him rise from an auditor at PwC to an executive position at companies including PepsiCo, Acuity Brands and Delta.
“Do the best job you can with what you have,” he recently said on LinkedIn’s “This Is Working” podcast. “I learned early on in my career that your job is the most important job to you at the time, and do the best job you can in that job.”
Ambition is a desirable trait for employees, Bastian added. But sometimes being too eager to move up within the company can make people “take their focus away from the job at hand.” To your boss, you may appear distracted or uninterested in your current role, which could make you a less attractive candidate for promotion.
Bastian’s advice comes from personal experience: He said that doing his best at each job he took and focusing only on the opportunity in front of him is what ultimately got him to where he is today, noting that if there was a dream job early in his career, it wasn’t running Delta Airlines.
“I never thought I’d be sitting in this seat,” Bastian said. “I never dreamed of being an airline CEO. I had never even been on a plane until I was 25.”
One word trait that successful people have in common
Ultimately, Bastian’s advice comes down to one word: effort. How much effort you put into your role will determine what you get out of it, he says.
A good boss will notice the effort, Bastian says. A bad boss might not, or worse, might view you as irreplaceable and not promote you from your current position. If you find yourself in that situation, re-train a colleague or even an intern, and your boss will eventually recognize that they can take your place, suggests author and leadership expert Joe Miller in a 2015 LinkedIn post.
“Don’t be that guy who climbs the ladder and then kicks it away, causing it to fall on someone else,” Miller wrote.
Bastian isn’t the only successful executive who preaches hard work: Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban, for example, recommends taking the initiative to solve problems without being asked and exhausting all options to find the answer.
“The only thing you can control in life is effort,” entrepreneur and venture capital investor Randall Kaplan said in a LinkedIn video post last year, “and having the will to do so is a huge competitive advantage, because most people don’t.”
For Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, the key is to jump at the opportunity to learn how to do your job better. “You have to be voracious and hungry to find ways to learn,” he said in a video posted by Amazon last month.
Regardless of how you manifest your effort, Bastian said it can set you apart from your peers and make you a good candidate for a raise or promotion in the future.
“I guarantee if you do a great job you will be seen, you will be heard and people will take notice in Delta,” he said.
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