Whether you are a long-tenured leader in your organization, a new manager, or an individual contributor with rising responsibilities, it’s always valuable to take stock of your career path and make investments for the future. These five strategies offer practical steps for motivated employees looking to stay ahead of the pack.

Research shows that giving advice is key to restoring confidence and motivation, which are two important factors for achieving long-term goals. So, instead of having struggling employees seek advice, it’s helpful to have them give it to others.

Colin Schiller, president of Everwise Corp., explains how the company’s mentoring solution improves employee development.

Here’s a new year’s resolution to consider: Build a personal advisory board that meets your current needs. “A person’s developmental network can’t be static but needs to evolve over time,” noted the authors of a 2015 article in MIT Sloan Management Review. Yan Shen, Richard D. Cotton, and Kathy E. Kram make the case that a professional mentor is just one element of a fully formed personal board of advisers, which might also include a personal guide and a career adviser, among others.

The notion that one mentor can meet all of an individual’s developmental needs is increasingly outdated. Instead, many people now draw from a “personal board of advisors,” which can encompass a range of individuals, from friends or family who provide emotional support to role models the person may not personally know. The authors identify six types of personal advisors who, together, provide a broad combination of psychosocial support and career support.

Executives become isolated if they don’t get on-point coaching and honest feedback. But too often, their “coaches” are people outside the company who don’t seem them in action. Robert S. Kaplan of Harvard Business School says that the better tactic is to get coaching from direct reports.

In his book Managing to Learn, John Shook deconstructs the problem-solving journey of one manager and his mentor, and the management mechanism that guided them. The backstory? Shook knows the journey firsthand.

How does Toyota solve problems, create plans, and get new things done? Company managers use a tool called the A3, named after the international paper size on which it fits, as a key tactic in sharing a deeper method of thinking. This tactic and style of processing information lies at the heart of Toyota’s sustained success.

A new survey of U.S. teens finds some encouraging signs in their beliefs about careers related to science and technology — but also finds a substantial number of the teens lack role models in those areas.