As we approach the mid-year mark, and you are either well settled in your current role, new to the role or considering a change in the short or long term, it is important to take some time and assess where you are in your career journey. I believe that before you set out on any career-related move, you must have clarity of your short-term and long-term career goals. Create a checklist of your objectives and achievable timelines and know the resources available to you to guarantee accomplishments (internal and external). Most significantly – be willing to push yourself and embrace change and the challenges that come with it.

Change is paramount:

In carrying out an assessment and review of your career, one of the key outcomes of your assessment MUST be the need for CHANGE! If you do not identify an area in your plan that requires transformation or change, then you might need to re-evaluate your goals or you might be one of life’s lucky few.

‘Change’, to some, equals risk. However, change does not have to be drastic. It does not have to turn your work life off-kilter and give you palpitations. It could be something such as setting out to get some training that will equip you for a desired career move, getting a new skill (career related or otherwise), moving closer to home in the long term, or adjusting your obligation to accommodate a healthy work-life balance.  The list of little and big changes is inexhaustive. So, in reviewing your career at this time of the year, look for that achievable change that will impact positively on your work-life balance.

Oftentimes, we forget that there is more to life than work. Take time to consider your mental and physical wellbeing. Take time to enjoy family and friends. Learn something new outside of work. I guess what I am saying is that changes do not always have to be geared towards getting the next promotion or the next role, important though that is. The bigger picture shows much more than that. There is a whole world out there that you need to fit in and find the space that gives you some joy and satisfaction.

Do not forget life outside work:

We often forget about small successes and accomplishments, especially in our personal life. It is easy to focus on the deal that fell through, the role that was lost, the account that was and is challenging to manage, the impossible and micromanaging boss (an aside, I think if you have one of these bosses, hey presto – this is a signal for a change). There are a host of work-related challenges and it is vital to know that work is rarely free of such challenges. Life challenges us all the time, how you come out at the end of it is what matters. Explore opportunities to fit work around your personal life – family, friends, sports, hobbies and other areas of interest to you. Give yourself the gift of a wholesome life. Sometime in the future you change jobs, you retire and colleagues move on, but all the others remain in your life. Review and assess where you are at with them and plan for your career with them in mind.

Review challenges and difficulties:

I am a keen believer in learning from experience, we see this at work all the time – what have we learnt from a difficult assignment, how do we ensure that we are better prepared to overcome past difficulties, what are the positive takeaways from the experience, what are the comparisons to other similar or relevant assignments. All these questions generate answers that prepare the organisation for the next project, they expose new knowledge and opportunities that may have remained untapped.

Likewise, in assessing your career, look for learning opportunities in challenging and difficult projects, they tend to help you discover areas that you may need to make some changes, acquire new knowledge and identify different ways to achieve your objectives.

Set yourself up for success:

Celebrating your successes, learning from experiences, identifying areas for change and transformation and working towards achieving a work-life balance are areas that can help you assess where you are at this time of the year and plan for the future. A word of caution – change is a constant, planning for the future is planning for success. However, plan to succeed, develop achievable goals and never underestimate the impact of out-of-work activities on your life and career.

In summary, there are so many pieces and articles that tell us how we can work to achieve our career goals. These are mostly focused on what you can do in the workplace to help you be a step above your peers, meet your target, climb up the career ladder at a steady pace and possibly find your niche in your chosen industry. As you review your goals, also make sure to review other aspects of your life as oftentimes, we tend to underestimate the input of family, friends, the environment and other activities on a successful and satisfying career.

Written by: Clementina Mustapha

Executive Search Specialist, InterSearch Ireland

Developing your Leadership Strategy

Oftentimes, aspiring leaders are said to be ambitious and driven – true! But more than anything I think leaders are simply able to identify opportunities, position themselves and play to their strengths.

Written by: Clementina Mustapha, Executive Search Researcher, InterSearch Ireland

In my previous article on Developing your Leadership Strategy, the ability to recognise and if necessary, create opportunities, was highlighted as one of the key objectives of aspiring leaders. With the goal of achieving leadership positions, individuals can have quite different approaches. Some let their actions speak for them, others push their actions to decision makers, while some explore many routes to leadership such as pursuing a multi-faceted approach; by making themselves significant subject experts in the industry, positioning themselves as the go-to person for insights and information.

Do you ever wonder how some names keep coming up at almost every professional seminar, workshop, lecture or event that you attend? Well, those individuals are strategic players in the art of positioning.

As earlier stated, aspiring leaders recognise that they are a unique brand that needs to be developed, positioned and promoted. This brings me to a skill that in my opinion is vital should you aspire to leadership positions – Networking.

“You’ve got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.” – Oscar Robertson

In our daily interactions, we come across people who know someone in our network of contacts. It is important that we develop our network as a resource that can and will work for us. Sometimes, the thought of networking might seem daunting as it is assumed that we need to have a lot of people in our contact list – that was my initial thought! Alas, to my relief, numbers do not always equate to quality!

Strategically developing our network is made much easier when the groundwork of positioning oneself as a desirable brand is planned and executed. Targeting industry influencers may not be an easy feat and oftentimes we fail to consider other avenues to reach them. Great networkers not only have C-suite names in their contact list, but they are also adept at linking up with gatekeepers, headhunters and other not so obvious individuals that are vital sources of valuable information.

It is important to identify the purpose of your networking activities. If the aim is to manage current internal responsibilities, your network needs to be operational. You should identify your current needs, challenges, assigned departmental or organisational outcomes and develop a plan of action on how to use relevant people in your network to achieve desired outcomes.

How you position yourself in the network is key in this instance, this is where you implement your ability to create opportunities not only for yourself but also for the team, showcase your skills and knowledge and be instrumental in the creation of an efficient and functional team.

I believe that to use your network at an operational level, it is also significant that you build personal networking into your strategy. This way, you are able to improve your personal development and create a leadership style that will work for you.

Using a combination of operational and personal networks, aspiring leaders need to recognise that they have the recipe for strategic networking. This is the networking tool vital in the identification of new business or career directions, important stakeholders in the industry and an awareness of prevailing strategic thrust of competing players in the industry.

The goal here is to recognise where and how you fit and positioning yourself as the ideal person to help prospective employers achieve their strategic goals.

It is important to note that management positions are most times not actively advertised and those with the required skill sets may not be actively seeking new roles. Aspiring leaders should not close the doors to Executive Search Firms; that phone call might just be the opportunity to your next leadership role! Have relevant industry Head Hunters in your network, they are important sources of information on roles that may fit your profile. Liaising with Executive Search firms will give you an insight into current skill-set requirements in your industry which is an important intelligence that you need for planning your career progression.

Visibility to Executive recruiters is an important way to keep informed of relevant positions in your industry. However, note that building relationships with executive recruiters is a two-way street. If you are not accessible, you may be missing out on that ideal opportunity, as oftentimes the type of searches carried out by executive search firms are not usually advertised on conventional channels. C-Suite aspirants must ensure that they are visible to industry stakeholders and influencers in order to be considered for senior management positions.

As stated earlier, to make your network functional, ensure that you are involved in industry events either as a speaker or participant, have your publications on relevant professional media channels to position yourself as an industry/subject expert, and join relevant professional organisations. All of these will help to boost your networking capabilities and get you noticed by important stakeholders and most significantly by the Executive Search firms who have been retained by your desired employer to search and find you for your ideal position.