Reflecting on my career lessons so far

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I have subscribed in the past to having a yearly word, phrase or setting goals, but if I’m being honest, I haven’t gotten around to any this year.

While scrolling through LinkedIn this week, I paused on a couple of posts where colleagues shared the four lessons they learned throughout their career in PR and communications.

It got me thinking more about the ways I have grown and what I’ve learned throughout my career. It’s made me consider which of those lessons I should keep at the forefront of my mind as we get stuck into the New Year (can you believe it’s almost February already?). 

1.Work with people you like

I have had a lot of wonderful bosses and mentors over my 15+ year career.

The key thing that has stood out for me among the leaders who continue to guide and inspire me, is that they pushed me to do better and were always in my corner.

Regardless of whether that was supporting me through challenging projects, or defending me against bad behaviour. 

In the early days, one of my bosses had the cardinal rule “we don’t work with jerks” (the language may have been more colourful) and I saw this demonstrated every day through their genuine friendships with clients, professional relationships and them staying true to their word by walking away from accounts where they thought the fit wasn’t right. 

2. Outsourcing is crucial

My good friend and colleague, Angela Cross, has taught me so much, but this one has really stuck over the years in both my personal and professional life: no one is an expert at everything, and you will never get everything done on your to do list. 

When it comes to juggling both home and work life, she has always encouraged me to pay for the cleaner, pull someone in to manage tasks that consume your time but you aren’t good at (hello bookkeeping and BAS) and if someone offers to help you, say yes.  

Gilly Paxton was my director of communications for a long time, and she also lived by this ethos. She surrounded herself with people who had complimentary skills, which served two purposes. It got the work done to a high standard, but it also made people feel like they were a crucial piece of the team puzzle. 

I am now more critical about where I should spend my time. And I see this in others — in fact, it’s often the exact reason people bring me into their business (see, outsourcing!). I struggle with simple finance-related tasks, but ask me to draft content or provide advice on stakeholder engagement, it comes to me naturally. 

3. Genuine relationships are crucial

As a general rule, I like human beings, so I have always enjoyed this part of working in communications. It’s genuinely of interest to me to get to know the person behind the colleague, client or contact, and it has always been what I enjoy most about my job. 

Building genuine relationships helps me work with people better — it’s that simple.

It’s easier to understand what they really need when they ask for it, it helps when you need to have challenging conversations and it has also produced incredible friendships in the workplace. Over the years, this has led to a much more fulfilling and enjoyable work life. 

4. Back yourself and demonstrate strong leadership

These two go hand in hand for me. I have already mentioned working with really inspiring leaders. I also had the pleasure of being coached by Kellie Tomney during 2020-21, which completely changed how I viewed myself as a leader (if you’ve never done leadership coaching and want to amplify your career purpose, I highly recommend it!). 

As I have grown in experience and confidence over the years, I have become a lot better at backing myself. Backing my skills, experience and ability to get the job done to a high standard — whatever the job may be. 

Understanding my leadership style not only helped me lead and inspire my teams, but it also taught me so much about myself and what I want out of my career. 

Taking moments of reflection and learning from others really gets my wheels turning, so if you feel inspired, let me know what your biggest career lessons are in the comments. 

Julie is an independent communications and PR consultant, who is at the helm of Anchor & Co Communications in Sydney.