Putting Your Job Before Your Career

‘Putting Your Job Before Your Career’’ - *Marshall Goldsmith & Sally Helgesen say this is the Number 6 challenge holding women back.

This one can be a biggie.

We can be so busy proving our competence that we can become indispensable!

The death knell of our careers?

We need to constantly zoom in and zoom out around our careers.

Zoom in: Are we adding value and optimising our development and our contribution in our current role?

Zoom out: Are we seeing the bigger picture of our career progression and are we taking care of that too?

We see so many examples, of women especially, being hugely loyal to their current role and current boss. And this can be very rewarding – we can be constantly told how important we are to the success of the organisation. We can be Mentors, Advocates, Sponsors for others and yet fail to notice that we’re not progressing in our own careers in the way we hoped.

Sometimes our eyes are opened for us when our ideal next level job comes up, we apply, and it goes to someone else – perhaps someone we’ve actually mentored! Turns out that we have oodles of experience in our current role but while we’ve been passing the years away here others have been off broadening their experience.

Or, we can be so dedicated to our current role and what’s important in that context that we don’t take opportunities that are offered to us.

I remember being offered the opportunity to become accredited in a leadership framework process – a brilliant one. There was an important meeting clashing with the accreditation training and I turned down the opportunity…

I can’t remember what that meeting was about but I know that if I had my time back I would go for the accreditation – not alone would it have been a super piece of personal development but it would have enabled me leverage the introduction of that framework in the organisation in a more effective way.

I prioritised my job in the immediate short term but I was not prioritising my career – or even the medium term impact of my role.

We need to see these things as they’re happening – not in the rear view mirror as I’m doing now!

So, Zoom Out! - What opportunity are you not spotting?

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*Marshall Goldsmith & Sally Helgesen's book, 'How Women Rise: Breaking the 12 Habits Holding You Back' is worth reading over and over.

We're sharing a series of reflections on their 12 Habits based on our own experience; hope we spark some ideas for you!