Keeping the Train Moving Smoothly on the Track

What can derail a perfectly good career? Check these examples of people on the brink and determine what behaviors you or someone you know share with these folks:

• You start out hard charging; promoted up the corporate ladder because you deserve it, not because anyone is pushing you. You are known inside and outside the company for your tough, uncompromising, take no prisoners style. Then you hit a wall. For no reason that others can or dare explain, your rapid career ascent gets stuck between floors. You’re sidelined on special projects and given no direct reports to carry out your directives. Have a you hit a speed bump, or is your career with this company derailed?
• You are a problem solving machine; the wunderkind of company handymen. You routinely get salary increases but haven’t had a promotion in three years. The people you lapped when you joined are in the loop that you can’t find. Are you and your search light under a bushel basket or are you derailed?
• You are creative, an out of the box whiz, rewarded for your innovative ideas. Suddenly everyone is beating you up for what you call “the small stuff”, like follow through and meeting deadlines. You push back, saying that anyone can handle the details and the implementation; they need you for the Big Ideas. They respond by hiring some bozo and now you report to her. Is this just a little problem that can be worked out, or have you derailed?
• You joined the company at the invitation of a former boss where you had earlier worked. He said that he needed your talent to help him drive the changes necessary for the success of the new organization. He promised you opportunity, money, and visibility. You got all three and something you didn’t need: your good buddy just got sacked and you’re in the cross hairs of the guy who fired him. Derailed? What do you think?

If you’d like to keep your train on track, apply the following strategies for long term success:

The Hard Charger: An independent, aggressive style can be impressive when you’re young and new to the job. Supervisors sometimes make allowances for coarse behavior if you’re making money for the company. Their expectations of you change dramatically as you mature in your position.

Develop your style along with your expertise. Find people whose leadership styles empower rather than compete. Emulate what you see. Look for opportunities to build relationships, seek mutual gain, and develop trust.

The Problem Solving Machine: A responsive, fix-it behavior is typically more highly valued than it is promoted. Look for management opportunities by helping develop the problem solving skills of others. Become more hands off while sharpening your analytic skills. Demonstrate your flexibility by identifying a variety of areas where you can apply your expanded strengths. Groom a successor while creating your own opportunities for promotion.

The Creative Whiz: Beginnings don’t count for much without endings. Discipline yourself to hang on long enough to get the job done and done well. Make your intentions clear that you are interested in seeing your projects through to a successful conclusion. Recruit team mates who are better than you at process implementation and outcome seeking and who want to do that with you. Develop interdependent relationships with your team mates, remembering that team play is about trade offs. You help them; they help you.

The One Mentor Meltdown: It’s always dangerous to hitch your wagon to a star that can fizzle out. Mentors are important to career growth and development. Identify several, both inside and outside your organization. Look for people who share your values and emulate the personal or professional success that you seek. Be wary of the mentor whose style is counter to the culture of the company that pays your bills.

Derailment is typically a function of lacking sufficient self awareness to know that something is critically wrong. You’re probably getting all the feedback that you need. Your job is to listen to it and do something about what you hear.

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Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts conducted seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.