Breadth vs Depth in Women's Career Trajectories

My client was a successful senior director at a Fortune 500 company, recently promoted, and on the hi-po list. Perfect life? Not at all. "I just told my boss that I don't think I'm doing as well as I could. What I didn't tell her is I don't think I'm working as hard as I could." she said with a sigh. She'd gone from a transformation project, leading org change, to a BAU role. It was something both her boss and her skip-level boss felt was necessary for her to move further up in the organisation. She needed to start learning the business side of things. There was also a lot to learn in this new role and Learner was in her Top 5 Strengths, so she should be happy right? Problem is, this isn't what she wants. "I need clarity of where I want to go." was what she said when she first hired me. As it turns out, she didn't need clarity. She needed COURAGE. She already knew coming into the programme that she wanted to follow a specialist track in her career. But everyone around her made her feel like it was the wrong choice, that it was a career-stopper. They told her she should learn the business as she was on succession planning pool to eventually become Head of Apac. But she didn't want that. She didn't want to learn the breadth of knowledge it would take to be the CEO. While my client DID have Learner as a top Strength but she learnt from promotion to the BAU role that it mattered what she was learning. She wanted her learning to go deep. She wanted to learn only cutting edge information. It took an immense amount of courage for her to first admit to herself, and then to her bosses, that the golden career path the company had laid out for her wasn't what she wanted. It took time, but she eventually moved to a more specialised role. She took a pay cut but she's happier. More importantly, she's looking at getting her new boss to craft a role just for her - one that was even more in-depth than the one she currently had. If you're similarly stuck in your career, ask yourself, "Is it clarity I lack, or is it courage?" #career #careerpath #careercoaching #executivecoaching #coaching

Recently someone asked me for professional development advice. The subtext of their question was, “Is it bad that I don’t want a promotion, I just want to be really good at what I do?” A lot of people feel pressure for career growth to look a certain way and worry when that's not what they want. Whether thinking about your development, or that of the people you lead, it is a mistake to assume that the only path to professional growth is up and to the right. Instead, we should think about professional development in three directions: depth, breadth, and height. Depth is how we develop skills through time, experience, and repetition. This growth can be slow and more difficult to see. It’s like watching a flower blossom. Unless you’re watching a time lapse video, the process is almost imperceptible – until you see the full bloom. And then suddenly you’re like, "Damn! When did I (or they) get so good at this?!" As you’re thinking about your development, or the development of your team, think about how you are watching for, recognizing, and valuing growth in depth. Breadth is widening our skillset into areas that relate to or influence what we do. For example, I am not in finance, I have no plans to be in finance, and I’m pretty sure our finance team would like to keep it that way. But finance affects and informs my work, so I have focused on learning more. The knowledge is intentionally shallow - what is often referred to as "knowing enough to be dangerous." I prefer to think of it as, "knowing enough to be effective." Height is “movin’ on up” –  the one we tend to think of first, but I put it last for a reason. While we can aspire to a role at a different level, and it looks (and feels) really good to have a goal like, “I want to be the Director of Widgets,” the truth is that we don’t usually achieve Height without focusing first on Depth in our current role, and Breadth in related areas. Career Height growth almost always includes people leadership, and those who focus on Height growth when they’re not actually interested in leading people is one of the ways we end up with terrible, awful, no-good managers. Not everyone is suited to lead or to manage people, but if that is the only way we measure growth...you can see how we set ourselves up to fail. But, guess what? We needn’t have a height goal unless we want one. Managers and organizations need to do a better job of recognizing and rewarding those whose aspirations focus more on depth and breadth than on height. We need experience. We need experts. We need people with curiosity and drive that is not purely driven by a desire for a promotion. If you are a person who wants to seek deep growth in your area of expertise, or shallow growth across related areas: good for you! Put those goals on your development plan, or in your 1:1s with your manager with pride! The strongest teams require a combination of growth in depth, breadth, and height. Let’s celebrate growth in all directions!

𝗡𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 (𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻): 𝟯 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗳𝘂𝗹 Yesterday I had the pleasure of chatting with delegates on the Cambridge Rising Women Leaders programme at Executive Education at Cambridge Judge Business School, alongside Angie French, Jo McCaffrey and Kate Lancaster of Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists | RCOG. The topic? Navigating careers (as women!). It was so inspiring to hear from my fellow panelists about their career journeys and highlights, and so humbling to hear the questions from the delegates. Here are three things we all generally agreed are helpful. What else would you add? 1. 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿. A ladder move is a vertical, upward move in seniority: more of the same role, but likely with increased scope, responsibility, and (likely) pressure. A lattice move is a lateral move. They are useful for picking up breadth and exposure across content, context, and cultures. Although they won't necessarily be a promotion, they will make you a more rounded, capable leader when you do make your ladder move. Extra bonus: there may be less competition for those superb lattice moves! 2. 𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲. Many people (and many companies!) believe that moving quickly from one role to the next is a signifier of high potential. In reality, remaining in a role long enough to understand the role, make challenging trade-off decisions, and then live with the consequences of those choices, and then consolidate that learning requires more than 18 months. If your organisation runs annual cycles, two years is a good benchmark for truly "nailing" a role. If you stay even longer, you may have more opportunities to drive innovation and make continuous improvements (up to three years). You'll know it's time to move on when you slip off your learning edge and into the "I know how to do this and I'm a bit bored" territory. Let your learning guide you for role tenure, not the number of months in the role. 3. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. For me, that's always been the same three things: 1) doing a role where I have clear value - and I can see the impact of my work; 2) working with A-Players - people who are more experienced, smarter, different, and want to mentor me; and 3) being smack on my learning edge - just enough learning to make me slightly uncomfortable and striving to succeed, but not enough discomfort to throw off my confidence and feel like I'm not "cut out for it." When you know what drives your own engagement at work, it gets a lot easier to make choices about where you want to go next in your career. #careers #womeninleadership #inclusion #youbelonghere