Leaders,
It’s been a while. I’m back fresh off of vacation,
refreshed, and ready to go. Hopefully you all have also had a chance to
get some vacations in over the summer. While the importance of vacations deserve a
discussion on its own, we’ll talk about that topic at another time.
Today I wanted to reach out and remind you all that you and
only you are responsible for your career. Our company and any company you
work for has an obligation to ‘help’ you progress your career but it’s not
actually the company’s responsibility. This obligation can be almost
nothing to extreme and it will differ based on the company, your position,
recognized talent, or needs of the company. While the company can ‘help’
the true obligation and ultimate responsibility falls on you.
I recently found myself in a discussion on career
advancement with some very high potential employees. It was
astounding to me that some of the people in the group did not seem to know how
to get promoted nor did they seem to fully understand that they were
responsible for their own career. After some direct and passionate
discussion (primarily by me) several comments were made to the tune of “why
hasn’t anyone ever told me this?” and “I never realized that.”
All of you should know these things but if not, I’m going to
go over them again with you.
· You and only you are responsible for your
career. Nobody is going to help you if you don’t help
yourself. You should not wait for the company to send you to
training or tell you what your next promotional step is. You should
identify it and start getting yourself ready for that position, whatever it
is.
·
Tenure alone is not a ticket to
advancement. You cannot sit idly by and expect to get
promoted on tenure. While it may have worked in the past, and maybe it
works within the government, this is a horrible strategy for your career as
well as the company and one that is going to most likely lead to your disappointment
and wasted years.
·
You should be developing for your next
position, not your current one. Unless you’re just a technology
focused individual who wishes to stay technical, you should be training and
learning the skills for your next position. If you’re a supervisor you
should be training and developing to be a manager. Your development
should always be on the next job, not the current one. When you get the
promotion, you should already know how to do the job and hit the ground running.
I should point out that you must continue to do an outstanding job in your
current role but you need to be developing for your next role. If you do
this right, you will stand out as overqualified and ready for advancement in
your current role.
·
There are only so many leadership jobs
available, you must be ready when one becomes available.
Bluntly, if you’re not ready, you likely will not get that job – it’s really
that simple. You have to be ready when the job opens up. This goes
back to what I mentioned previously, you have to train for the next role not
your current one. If you haven’t developed your skills, someone who
has will be rewarded the open position. Leadership positions are few and
far between and by the time you do acquire the skills, IF a position opens up,
there will likely be even more candidates applying for it.
·
Have a conversation with your leader and
tell them your goals. Your current leader is your biggest
opportunity for advancement of your career. They can tell you where you
need to develop, they can help you develop, and they can promote your
name/brand to other leaders. None of that is possible if you don’t have a
discussion with them and tell them where you want your career to go. On
the same topic, if your leader doesn’t help you or doesn’t see leadership in
your future, you must understand why they feel that way and what you need to do
to change that perception/truth. If you completely disagree, you need to
move to a different leader or move on if your career is that important to you
because if your current leader doesn’t see leadership in your future,
there’s a strong chance it won’t be in your future unless YOU make some
changes.
·
Be aggressive with your career. There
are people out there, people like me, who will not politely sit by and let you
simply have the next position without contending it because you ‘deserve
it’. If you can’t compete with them you are not likely going to get that
position. I’m not talking about physical altercations or back stabbing or
other negative effects of aggressiveness. I’m talking about letting
everyone know you want the position, talking with leaders about it, doing that
extra work to get it, taking the time (even personal time) to learn about the
area, showing everyone you want that role and you have the confidence and
skills needed. You have to be aggressive because you’re competing for a
limited number of spots and if you’re not, there are a lot of others who will
be.
If that’s not enough for you to take your career in to your
own hands, think about this. I love this diagram and I’ve shared it with
many of you over the years. One of my mentors shared it with me and
it’s had a lasting impression on me.
Of the workforce we have, only a small portion will ever be
front line leaders (supervisors.) This is hard truth and one that is not
really discussed publicly. Of those, only a few will be mid-level
leaders. Of those, only a very small portion will be executive or senior
leaders. I’m likely being generous with the size of the pools in this
diagram but if I made them any smaller or more realistic you wouldn’t be able
to see them. The pools are small and they get smaller as you progress and
this is why you cannot afford to let someone else be responsible for your
career if you have ambitions for advancement.
One other thing I’ll leave you with. It was brought up
in the above mentioned discussion that because times are tough, should people
be focusing on development for leadership jobs as it seems a lot of leadership
roles are being eliminated. YES YES YES! YOU MUST CONTINUE TO
FOCUS ON DEVELOPING YOURSELF EVEN WHEN TIMES ARE HARD. If some of our
leadership positions have been eliminated that means there’s even fewer for you
to apply for which means more people just like you applying for those
roles. Instead of 3 good candidates it may mean 6 or 7. You have to
be ready when these positions become available, more so now than ever.
Just because we’re in a downturn does not mean you put your career and career ambitions
on hold, now is the time you develop yourself further!
Your career is your responsibility. While it’s not
marketed as a competition, it is and you need to be prepared to compete for
those limited number of positions when they become available. All of you
have been identified with leadership potential or leadership ambitions, all of
you should be preparing for your next role!
I hope the summer has been good to you! -don
