By Hilary Danelian, Former WIG Programme Director and Career/Leadership Coach
First Published in July 2016
I started to write this article when I was busy developing the WIG’s Women’s Leadership Programme and our one-day seminars for women leaders, so it’s not surprising that my first draft of this newsletter focused on how women sabotage their careers.
I was also drawing on my own experience. When I left my HR job in the civil service 17 years ago, my boss, Paul, gave a speech listing all the occasions during the past 4 years when I had not been given credit for my achievements. Although I had improved along the way, too often I had focused on doing a good job at the expense of building relationships with key people and navigating the politics. Now older and wiser, I am passionate about helping others avoid the same traps.
But it is not just we women who limit ourselves. There are many talented individuals, women and men, who are failing to capitalise on their strengths and opportunities. One of my jobs as a coach, both with my own clients and with delegates who participate in WIG women’s programmes or in the “Take Control of Your Career” seminar I run for WIG, is to help people recognise how they are limiting themselves and then to support them as they develop new behaviours. In this article I share five of the most effective ways to sabotage your career and what you can do to avoid these mistakes.
1. Think that doing a good job is all you need to do to get recognised
People are not appointed or promoted just because they are hard workers. Senior management often prefer to appoint or promote someone they trust whom they know can build relationships with clients and other key stakeholders. If you are unknown to them how can you reassure them that you are the best person for the job? Whilst keeping your head down and focusing on the task in hand may deliver results in your current role, if you don’t make space to build the skills and relationships needed for the next step, your career may stall.
So what can you do?
- Allow yourself to “waste” some time every day. Identify key decision makers, inside or outside your organisation and find ways to raise your profile
- Aim to spend around 20–30 minutes a day building relationships or profile-building. Now, what do you need to STOP doing in order to make this space?
2. Think you can avoid politics in the workplace
Many women, and some men, think they can avoid office politics. In reality politics are omnipresent – you can no more avoid them than you can avoid the weather. In every organisation, big or small, public or private sector, long-established or brand new, politics will play their part. If you try to opt out you will be seen as naive, you will open yourself up to manipulation by others and you will lack influence.
So what can you do?
- Find out the ‘rules of the game’ – the informal way things work and how others play the game to their advantage
- Tune into your intuition – if you sense that someone is untrustworthy, be on your guard. But do check out the evidence and be prepared to change your mind!
- Remember that understanding the politics and using them to your advantage doesn’t mean you have to gossip, manipulate or play silly games. Be clear about your values and know where to draw the line
3. Underestimate the power of networking
Many people shy away from networking viewing it as shallow and manipulative. Then, when they are passed over for promotion or find it tough to secure a new job, they are told to get out and network. Yet the time to network is not when you need that relationship. You have to build a network of relationships with people when times are good. Networking is a state of mind, a way of being, not something you do out of desperation.
So what can you do?
- Challenge your own thinking about networking – if you have negative thoughts and beliefs about networking, you will struggle to be successful at it
- Network in a way that suits you – if you prefer one to one meetings then network that way – it does not have to mean attending lots of events and ‘working the room’
4. Play safe
Are you one of those people who holds back when you see a job that attracts you because you are not 100% confident you can be effectively immediately in that role? Then, when a less well qualified or effective person gets the job, do you kick yourself for not having a go? You can obey all the rules, do a good job and expect to be rewarded but sometimes it pays to take a few risks, step outside your comfort zone and, if you are really excited by an opportunity, to go for it. After all, what’s the worst thing that can happen?
So what can you do?
- Be prepared to fail from time to time. If you have never failed at anything, you have probably spent your life playing safe and are not tapping into your true potential.
- Know your own strengths and personality and develop your own authentic style, one appropriate for your role and organisation but not driven by it. Get to know what works, where you might get stuck and where you can tweak your style .
5. Think you can ‘go it alone’
In running leadership programmes for WIG over the past 16 years, I have chaired many speaker sessions with successful leaders – CEOs and Directors of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies, top civil servants, Directors of leading charities. The majority of them, when asked what helped them on their route to the top, talk about a senior mentor they had early in their career OR the objective professional support of a career or executive coach OR the honest feedback from a trusted deputy, friend or spouse. Many of them cited two or three of these different types of support. So what about you? Who is supporting you. If you do not develop the humility to ask for support and the resilience to withstand being challenged, you will be holding yourself back, personally and professionally.
So what can you do?
- Find out if there is a mentoring scheme in your organisation.
- If there isn’t a formal scheme, why not seek out your own mentor? Who do you admire? Who is well connected? Who understands the organisation’s politics? When you have identified your potential ‘target’...just ask them to be your mentor. Most people are flattered to be asked. Again what’s the worst that can happen?
- Finally, if you have never had any coaching why not give it a try? A professional coach, trained to ask challenging and insightful questions and with a toolkit of practical techniques to draw on, will help you deal with any self-imposed barriers and accelerate your career progress.
Of course you may have found even more effective ways to sabotage your career. I know some of you are REALLLY good at that. So pause for a moment and ask yourself:
How exactly am I limiting myself and my career right now?
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