Displaying Your Leadership Abilities: A Guide
Disregarding established pathways and carving one's own may lead to professional growth. Such is the experience of a diligent engineer who found herself stagnating in her career, despite demonstrating strong technical skills.
She had hitherto believed that consistent hard work and high-quality output would be sufficient for promotion—a belief instilled by her passion for her work. However, she noticed colleagues with lesser expertise being entrusted with more stimulating projects, while her work became routine. With her manager's departure and a new one unavailable, she felt overlooked and unrecognized, witnessing others taking on leadership roles and receiving promotions while remaining stationary.
Upon reflection, she realized that a simple "hard worker" status was no longer adequate. Although competent, she wasn't perceived as a strategic thinker or leader—she excelled in following rules and avoiding conflict, a tendency she shared with many, particularly women, people of color, and introverts. This "worker bee" mindset, which initially garnered success, often leads to a professional plateau. However, transcending this stereotype and advocating for professional needs can be challenging but is crucial for escaping professional stagnation and achieving success.
To move forward, she adopted strategies that emphasized building relationships, setting boundaries, advocating for desirable work, and showcasing her contributions.
Firstly, she focused on establishing connections with others within her field, shared information about her work, and nurtured those relationships over time. While this initiative may be dismissed as "office politics," it is a crucial aspect of today's collaborative work environments, enabling one to demonstrate credibility to influential people.
Secondly, she set limits on tasks that provided minimal career benefits, such as note-taking or arranging social events. Although declining these tasks might seem uncooperative, they often take up valuable time and energy. By establishing boundaries, she was able to dedicate more of her time to meaningful work and thereby enhance her reputation as a strategic thinker and leader.
Thirdly, she began championing the projects she found most exciting, even if it made her feel uncomfortable. Advocating for herself and her accomplishments was essential in fostering career growth. This required striking a balance between assertiveness and maintaining positive relationships, ensuring she was seen as a valuable contributor without appearing disruptive.
To help others break free from the "worker bee" mindset and advance in their careers, she offered two approaches.
First, she emphasized the importance of building a strong, supportive relationship with one's direct manager, as he or she often plays a crucial role in career advancement. When looking for work, she advised job-seekers to prioritize finding a manager who would be an advocate for her or him. For those already employed, she suggested investing in building trust and relationships with their current manager.
Second, she advocated for promoting others' successes as a less daunting way of highlighting one's own contributions. By celebrating team or individual achievements, individuals create opportunities to discuss shared successes and then transition smoothly to discussing their specific role and the aspects of the work they found most rewarding. This approach enables individuals to promote themselves within the context of collective accomplishments.
While diligence and hard work remain essential for success, career advancement requires more. Recognition as a leader necessitates visibility—a state achieved through building strong relationships, focusing on high-impact contributions, and effectively communicating one's value.
- Recognizing the need for more than just technical skills, she started focusing on developing her leadership abilities through education-and-self-development resources, understanding that such skills are vital for career-development and personal-growth.
- In her pursuit of professional advancement, she saw the value of finance in avenues like strategic planning and understanding the business implications of her projects, as these skills would make her a well-rounded leader in her field.
- As she aimed to rise in her career, she understood the importance of advocating for herself and her achievements, and the value of building relationships with others in her field for long-term success, which goes beyond the boundaries of her immediate business.
