My mom wanted me to have choices in life, so from an early age she instilled the idea that if I wanted to achieve a goal, I had to do everything within my power to make that goal happen. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for life to happen to me. “You’re in charge of you,” was her mantra. It’s a lesson we all need to be reminded of from time to time. I sometimes meet women who have leadership talent to burn, but whose careers have stalled and who tell me they feel powerless to change the situation. I’m not naïve about the entrenched cultural and systemic barriers that stand in the way of women’s advancement. Nevertheless, when I dig a little deeper, I often discover women could be doing more to influence their career destinies. As my mom taught me years ago, if you want to reach your destination, you have to get behind the wheel and own the road. Here are a few ways I think you can.
MAKE A PLAN
It may seem self-evident that you need some kind of career plan, but I meet many people who simply bob along without having one or take a job because it sounds “interesting”. Great careers don’t just happen: they’re planned and pursued with purpose and intention. Hollywood actors are deeply aware, for instance, that if they accept certain roles, they’ll be typecast, or that if they play the same role again and again, they’ll get stale. The most successful actors think very carefully about how a particular role will help them develop as actors, and how it will affect the public’s perception of them. Of course, your path may zig and zag, but if you don’t chart your course, somebody else will chart it for you. Why would you leave such an important decision to others? Set your compass, then check it regularly to make sure you’re on track.
LATERAL MOVES MATTER
I’ve spoken before about the importance of taking lateral promotions, but I think the point bears repeating because a lot of people think taking a lateral promotion will just slow them down. That certainly wasn’t my experience. My first lateral promotion was going from marketing manager to product development manager. I’m more of a right brain person, so, for me, the world of marketing and communications was a much more comfortable fit. I could have happily stayed on as marketing manager, but I realized taking that lateral promotion would force me to become far more analytical, and if I succeeded in the job, it would flag to my bosses that I also had (or was capable of developing) left brain skills, which you also need as a business leader. Lateral promotions are about diversifying your skillsets, and in today’s business environment, a diverse skillset is mandatory.
STUDY THE MASTERS
If you want to learn how to paint a masterpiece, you study the masters. Likewise, if you want to build a certain kind of career, you’re wise to find people who already have the career you’re interested in having and study how they got there. What stepping-stones did they take? What obstacles did they encounter? What did they discover about themselves along the way? From a distance, the leaders we admire seem to possess some secret knowledge that’s unavailable to the rest of us. But they didn’t get where they are without falling on their faces at times, and often one of their “secrets” is simply that they thought about their careers as strategically as they did about business matters. And don’t just study them from afar. Rub shoulders with them at events and reach out to them for a coffee and conversation. Simply realizing that the people we put on pedestals are mortals, too, and had to figure it out just like the rest of us, can be a real confidence-booster.