Being a good employee

**** Personal Development Wisdom **** When I train younger firemen on work ethic and being a valuable part of a team … The two most important concepts I try to impart to them are “initiative” and “asking what needs to be done”……. There are 3 levels of worker…. an unrefined or lazy worker that stands around and waits to be told what needs to be done… a more refined or evolved worker that, once completing a task, askes what needs to be done or suggests the next task based off of their leaders or organizations intent. Then there is a highly conscious and aware worker who has an exceptional work ethic that actively assesses the leaders/organizations goals and starts new tasks in alignment with those goals without being told to do so.

The definitions of “initiative” are:
The ability to assess and initiate things independently.
And
The power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.

Acting in this way will make you an extremely valuable part of your workforce or community. It is important to take pride in what you do. as it is an outward representation of who you are as a person to the world.

Asking “what needs to be done” is extremely helpful to busy leaders who haven’t had the time to properly assign you tasks. It helps maintain the flow of productivity so you can accomplish your goals on time. It shows you are taking the initiative and makes you stand out from the rest of the people who just stand around and waste time. Leaders do not get bothered when people ask this question frequently, in fact, we highly appreciate it. It snaps us out of our focus and allows us to re-evaluate and find new assignments. it’s important to ask this often as a lot as completion of tasks by other team members can open up new task that didn’t exist a couple of minutes ago.

I personally place a lot of value on friends and people in our community that have these character traits. Surrounding myself with people like this helps further co-create our empire. Being that I am a person that places a high value on productivity Its almost impossible for me to get close to someone who doesn’t have these mindsets. reddit