I may not be the best person to write this. It has been 20 years since I came out of the university, and at that time,i was an employee for 2 years, and an entrepreneur for 18 years.

However, having worked with hundreds of people, I would like to give my 2 cents on the working of a career and the process of moving up the corporate ladder.
First, Choose the right boss ( and the right company and the right industry), that is if you have a choice. There are strict bosses and not strict bosses. The best bosses are the bosses that wants to be better than what he is yesterday. If you are working for a boss who wants to arrive somewhere, it is best - when he goes up, you do too. That boss would most likely be strict and set high standards on himself and his people.

Don’t go for a boss who is strict on you but not on himself — he has this attitude that his people will make him succeed. Of course, the best boss is the one who is strict on himself, but not you. That means you will constantly be benefitting from what he is accomplished — but don’t go for that. It is not only rare, but also it means that you will not be able to get sustainable success — after all you are hitching your wagon to success, but don’t think you can be successful without you also carrying some or most of the load! You are looking for a circumstance which makes things easier, but it is still by no means easy, and not willing to do the hard work will not get you anywhere.
Don’t wait to be prodded or reminded. People who are busy hates that kind of attitude like a bullet in the head.
Now the proper way to work with this ’strict’ boss. Again, the first thing you want to see is that if the boss is going for above average results, he will most likely be above average busy.

Remember the old adage of Ben Franklin? The way to wealth is as easy as the way to market. Waste neither time nor money.

Although I believe, as Franklin does that you have to be frugal with both, but sometimes, and ocassionally, you see people who are crazy in spending money ( although you will see that there could be some method on the madness ) who also make it, but very very seldom will he who waste time.

Time is what makes success, and the proper way of using time to create results is the foundation of most success!

So, that being said, be careful with your boss’ money, but be even more careful with his time! Never never ever give your boss the impression that you are wasting your time or more important - his time. For myself, and many of the people I know, that is the cardinal sin — Most people tend to be more covetous of their time than their money, and they are not very forgiving of people who waste it for them.
If you are cannot make a good report that is succinct and clear, if you are a person who constantly need to be pounded or reminded to be able to accomplish things, if you are a person who still needed to be handhold in order to accomplish most basic tasks, then you should try to work out the skill. You should also try your best that your skills in the tasks that your boss prizes a lot is good.

In short, different managers have different attitudes as to what makes them succeed. Some believe that it is communciation and negotiation skills, some believe that it is the technical skills, and some believes it is selling and marketing, and some in financial and human resource management. It should not be too difficult to know that - and make sure you put in extra time to improve your skills on that.

Without being obtrusive, try always to give him the updates on the tasks you have been assigned. Busy managers tend to forget to ask for updates ,but they tend to appreciate most a proactive stance that the report is there, and the update is there for them to read when they are ready to go back to your task. One of the tasks I particularly hate is that the task assigned has come and go, and unless you ask for it, you are left chasing and calling people as to what happened?

One thing i have learned from working with customers and partners for all these years — when you are expected to be doing something , and you are not giving them a report or update, the first conclusion that they will think is not that you are doing the job, and just forgot to give them a report — the conclusion they will first think of is that you are not doing it!

Avoid sticky situations like this — understand the way your boss works, and make sure that you are proactive in helping him, and on the process, yourself in moving forward.

We don’t have to succeed alone — and sometimes the best and fastest way is to hitch your wagon together with a good boss, or a good company or a good customer, but it does assume that you do your best to make that cooperation or partnership work mutually.