To improve your professional capabilities, the single most important thing is working under the right leader. A good leader not only helps you grow — they also brighten your career prospects considerably. So how do you tell a good leader from a bad one? When your own experience is still limited, it’s genuinely difficult to assess someone else’s caliber. If they’re skilled at presenting themselves, your judgment alone won’t be enough. Here’s a small trick: look into your leader’s past track record. A good leader has always come up from the ground level — or at minimum, has meaningful frontline experience. A good leader will personally roll up their sleeves and get things done. Even when picking up frontline work, they’ll do it with excellence. A leader like this may not be guaranteed to be outstanding, but they are at the very least qualified. Many leaders are brilliant — high-achieving, top-school graduates, impressive on paper in every way — yet their lack of frontline experience will inevitably cause problems.
I’ve met many such leaders whose résumés and intellect put mine to shame, yet time and again they make decisions in practical matters that leave everyone baffled. The primary reason, more often than not, is a lack of firsthand frontline experience. So for those of you just starting out and doing the most basic work — don’t complain too much. Put your heart into it. Every operational detail you absorb will compound into real capability down the road. After all these years in the field, I still maintain one habit: whatever my team is doing, I make sure I can do it myself, from start to finish. A leader who obsesses over every detail is not a good leader — but a leader who lacks the ability to get on the frontline is absolutely an unqualified one.