How to get ahead and not overshadow your colleagues

We live and work in a world of cut-throat competition. Every employee wants a hefty pay package and the much coveted corner office, but not every employee gets to fulfill his dreams. In the process of making a mark and achieving our goals, we often tend to use unethical ways to get ahead. While you may get where you desire by using unfair means, you will lose all respect amongst your colleagues in the long run. Through this article, we show you how you can get ahead without putting down or overshadowing your team members.

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Help whenever you can

When you lend a helping hand to your team members and give them credit for the work they've done, you establish yourself as someone whose main focus is to get tasks completed without stealing the credit in the process. Everyone wants to work with people who don't hesitate to offer help and this opens up opportunities to work with diverse people on several projects. This will ultimately lead you to getting noticed by supervisors and managers as a natural leader who has the ability to work with everybody and lead a team.

Offer to lead a project

When there is discussion of a new project coming in, tell your manager that you would value the opportunity to take lead on the project. Your senior will already have a lot on his plate and will be glad when you offer to help out. However, while doing so, work with your manager in assigning specific duties to team members so they don't feel like you suddenly have an upper hand over them. This way, you will stay in the good books of your colleagues by praising them for the work they've done and come across as a natural leader to your superiors.

Make wise use of downtime

Every business has a lull period and how you maximize productivity during that downtime depends upon you. You can use the spare time to learn a new skill or update old documents that are pushed to the backburner when things are moving fast. Demonstrating productivity when the rest of your colleagues are enjoying the break can help you secure that promotion you've been vying for without overshadowing your colleagues.

Build positive relations with your colleagues

This takes us back to the first point where we mentioned that it will do wonders for your career to help your colleagues whenever you can. Build a relationship of trust and respect so that your team members always have the confidence that you will never back stab them. You can give credit wherever due and be a nice person in general so that when you get promoted, those around you are happy for you and won't try every trick in the book to pull you down.

In addition to the above, you can also have an honest conversation with your co-workers where you assure them that you will never outmaneuver them or pull any cheap tricks and that you expect the same from them in return.