Gauri Chhabra
He came, he conquered and he lost the elections… The meteoric rise and staggering fall of Arvind Kejriwal who lost the elections and has been in news over the past few months both for reasons right and wrong, the same person whose career took off as a blitzkrieg in the political quarters seems to be losing ground. Is there any explanation? No.
Same is true with us.We often times lose momentum in our careers without any real explanation. Perhaps we are given feedback from our colleagues and supervisors, but many times the details that lie beneath the truth are missing. Over time you may realize that you just don’t fit in anymore and you are on to the next employer.
Did you not fit because the culture wasn’t right or did you not meet the standards and expectations for success? You must always know what is expected from you for your success at work and seek to understand whenever those behind you pull out in front of you. Never rest on your laurels and assume that success is guaranteed or you may unknowingly begin to disrupt your career before you have been able to create a career.
Every company has an employee formula for success. Your responsibility is to figure it out for yourself so that you are clear with the formula’s translation and how you can deliver upon it. Trust yourself enough to navigate and explore it. It’s like a treasure hunt. You’ll never know what intelligence and insight you will find until you try. Look beyond the obvious and be patient. You will eventually find the key to unlock the code so that you can begin to influence the success formula yourself.
Many times there are unwritten rules for success and when you do not know them, you become unknowingly aware of your own wrong-doings”Be consistent in your attitude and show great leadership through your intentions to exceed expectations; set the tone for others to equally step up their performance to fully stimulate the culture. High-potentials must be tone-setters that can be relied upon as executives become more dependent upon them to deliver the company standards.”
It’s difficult to build career momentum when you don’t know what you are doing well and what continues to hold you back. Here are four things in particular you should abstain from doing and that may harm your career:
Too much dependence on others
Let me share an incident with you. There was an employee we hired at the mid level management. After a few months, we started feeling that he was a misfit in the company and slowly he also found himself moving out of strategic discussions. One thing led to another and we were forced to show him the door. During his exit interview he told me, my leaders / seniors did not enable my success. That set me thinking- Is it a common expectation to have?
We often expect our leaders and colleagues to enable our success. We tend to forget that organizations are mere providers of opportunity. As such, we must enable the opportunities they provide to accelerate our careers forward.
You can never go at it alone. However, when it comes to advancing your career – you not only need to be a great team player, you must equally be an enabler of your own success. Networking and being connected with the right people are extremely important, but you must take stock in your own career advancement by not only doing what is expected of you – but also by going above and beyond whenever possible.
You must have an entrepreneurial attitude in your work. Anticipate the unexpected as you get the job done. Establish a reputation for being a forward thinker and enable others to do the same. Put yourself in a position to earn respect by showcasing your talent and leadership and being reliable. Don’t wait, activate yourself immediately and act.
Over promise and under deliver
One particular trait of our politicians that is often the cause of their being in doldrums is the inconsistency in their performance. They often over promise and under deliver, forgetting they are always being evaluated by the common man- the voter.
Likewise, you are constantly being evaluated by your own colleagues, supervisors and leaders. It’s a ruthless world and your workplace performance is being hyper-monitored by everyone you’re in contact with. If you are not able to manage yourself concurrently with the expectations of others you will quickly lose any ground you have built along the way.
Those that continue to advance in their careers know one of the critical success factors is consistency. Many people are inconsistent at work, whether it is with their own identity and how they best fit or in their time management, quality or manner in which they deliver their work. Typically, if you are out of rhythm, you have not defined the ways in which you can optimally support your colleagues and the teams you serve. It will always be difficult for you to deliver great work with any consistency if you don’t know how to fit within your workplace culture. If you are known for being consistently inconsistent, then perhaps you are good enough to stay in place, but not nearly good enough to escalate yourself.
Don’t ever overpromise and find yourself under-delivering. Perhaps you won’t be repeatedly reprimanded, but it will certainly appear in your performance reviews and people will start taking your ideas with a pinch of salt.
Diluting your own brand value
You carry a personal brand value- your reputation that is the nucleus of your career advancement. Brand management is one of those unwritten rules and regardless of how good of a worker you are,it’s your reputation, how others perceive your value and authenticity that propels you forward.
Just because you are a good employee that can be counted on to deliver doesn’t mean that you are also a good leader. High-performance employees not only get the job done rightly – they are also politically savvy and know how to amplify their impact and influence without self-promotion. You should be emotionally intelligent ones to know that it’s all about people and its they who matter.
Falling prey to hidden agendas
The workplace is saturated with hidden agendas and disguised traps. Getting caught in a few traps may be necessary so that you know what to start looking for to avoid them in the future. Many times these hidden agendas and traps are set by people that are looking to create unnecessary disruption to accelerate their goals and objectives.
You must be much more aware of your surroundings at work than ever before. You ought to have wide-angle vision to anticipate crisis and manage change before circumstances force your hand. Observe people more carefully; become more aware of their behavioral tendencies. Ask more questions. Get to know your colleagues and begin to understand what sets off the political landmines. Start building deeper relationships and begin to notice those who reciprocate from those who get too comfortable with your commitment to them. Be mindful of converting one-way relationships into ones that are more balanced and mutually beneficial.
Associating yourself with the right or wrong people can take you five steps forward or ten steps backward. Distinguish between the people that genuinely seek to help you and those that are hindering your career. In fact, there are four types of people that you encounter in the workplace: leaders, lifter, loafers and leeches. If you were to define the types of people that you naturally seem to gravitate towards and those that gravitate towards you – how would you classify them across these four types?
There are many factors that can disrupt your career that are beyond your control -bad leadership decisions at the top, leaders that don’t understand the unique skills and capabilities of their team members or that don’t appreciate differences and encourage authenticity.
But there are just as many things you do have control over, so gather your wits and rebuild your career before it is too late…
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