Attracting the right leader to help you protect your career

When I started out in my corporate career, I dutifully participated in performance planning, development planning, and regular one-on-ones with my leaders. My thinking was - if they cared this much about me, I’d always be safe and I’d always be protected. I had some amazing leaders, but I didn’t realise that actually often those internal people processes weren’t keeping me safe, they were keeping me stuck. And if push came to shove and redundancies were required, no amount of duty would protect my role. 

The impact of loyalty

When I’ve spoken to clients and students, and even in my own career, I’ve found that the thing that often holds us back from making a change is loyalty. This is especially true for women, who are often raised in society to feel grateful for anything, to take what they are given, not ask for more, and not complain. When a company has given you your first job or a new job, trained you, promoted you (sometimes in tasks, rather than title), or kept you on the line with minimal pay rises for months or even years, it can feel rude, disloyal, or even greedy to change jobs or change careers. You want to show that you appreciate the time, effort, and trust they’ve put in you, you don’t want to rock the boat or create conflict, and you don’t want anyone to hate you or speak badly about you. And this keeps so many of us women stuck in a job, team, workplace, or career for months, years, and sometimes even decades longer than we should be.

Your company is a business

I made the mistake at the start of my corporate career believing that my company cared about me, my development, my ambitions, my goals. That was my mistake, not theirs. No one owns my career but me. No one is responsible for my career choices except me. It’s my life and my livelihood, no one else’s. And you own your career and choices, life and livelihood, too. 

Your company is treating themselves like a business and that is right. Your employer has a vested interest in keeping you where you are – in the pay, role, and level you accept every time you rock up to work. The moment that no longer works for them and you’re not needed, they’ll let you go, lay you off, make your role redundant regardless of how long you’ve been there and how much value you add. 

And that’s ok! No one owes you anything. Save your loyalty for the most important person in your life: you. So look for career support and guidance, skill development and confidence, outside your workplace - and perhaps do what I did which was to swap my dependency on my leader to a partnership with a Coach. 

Attracting the right leader

When choosing a Coach, you should opt for a neutral, third-party, and objective person who is trained and certified (keep yourself safe!) to help you release, come up with ideas and actions, and hold you accountable. I can’t stress this enough: this should not be your partner, family, friends, or anyone from your current workplace (including, and especially, your boss). Why? Because they don’t have enough distance to give you objective feedback and information; they know you as you are now rather than seeing the potential of what you could become, they often aren’t trained to properly support and hold space for you, and they may bring their own baggage and beliefs into the feedback, ideas, and advice they are giving you. Find someone outside your circle – someone new, someone trained, someone whose sole purpose is to help you tap into your unlimited potential within and give you the confidence to go after everything you desire, dream of, and deserve.

Case in point

For example, my student Ophemia Bainy attended the first career-focused training course I ever created – the Reimagine You program. One of the most valuable coaching activities for her was when I asked the group to envision themselves in their dream job. Ophemia says it was a very specific and detailed task, and she even pictured the building she’d be working in and saw herself looking and feeling successful. This created a foundation for her to reach her full potential. Ophemia always wanted to get into the Change Management industry, but she first used the confidence she built in my course, and the tips I’d provided to her on getting pay rises, to get a new job, in a new company, with a pay rise in record speed. She then went on and asked for a pay rise in each role she took at her new company. I spoke to Ophemia a few years later and guess what – she was in a secondment as a Change Manager! To this day, she says she feels like she took so much away from the program and really felt that the time she spent with me helped her achieve those goals. She says, “Lata took me on a journey from understanding myself and what truly motivates me so that I am well prepped and ready for my next role. She taught me the secret to success so that not only am I ready for my next role, I know how to attain it.” This is the power of working with a Coach. And when you’re ready for your Coach, they’ll appear. 

Be proactive

So be proactive. Don’t wait until your role is redundant, your profession is expired, your industry has died, or your company has gone belly up. Build the confidence in who you are and what you want now on your terms so that no matter what comes down the line in your career, you’re prepared, you’re empowered, and you’re protected.

If you’d like me as your Coach, I’m running my free Futureproof Your Career Challenge next week. This brand-new workshop will help you become an asset to employers, stay relevant with your skills and services, adapt to disruption in the workplace and the future of work, and champion through change easily, confidently and potentially even lucratively. I’ll show you how to pivot your skills and experience to new career paths, feel self-assured in your transferable skills, and get ahead of the curve in the competitive job market.

Register your free spot here for my free Futureproof Your Career Challenge

Lata xx