How hard do you work?
How often do you feel your work is undervalued?
How many times have you been passed over for promotion even though you get great results?
You see there’s something I see, time and time again: women work hard.
Women get brilliant results.
And then they undo all that hard work because they don’t talk about it. Because we don’t want to be seen bragging. Or boasting.
We are brilliant at building our network and nurturing relationships. We love developing those links and working collaboratively with other teams or departments.
We create an amazing network but then we don’t ‘use’ it. We don’t leverage our network because we don’t want to be seen as manipulative or calculating, or worse ‘two-faced’.
Or we’re so busy working hard that we don’t have (or make) the time to ‘network’.
When we’re at school and we’re studying hard for those GCSEs, A’Levels or degree, we work hard. We get the results we deserve. It becomes a habit. We think that working is hard and being nice is what we need to do. So we keep on doing it.
But when you get to the work place, working hard and being nice are not enough.
I heard a story just this week of a woman who’d worked hard, got great results, didn’t rock the boat …
Every year she got passed over for promotion or the juicy projects went to others with less experience.
One day, she’d finally had enough.
She marched into her manager’s office. “That’s it, I’ve had enough. Why did Jack get assigned to the new project? He’s got no experience in that field. I’ve been working here for years and you keep on ignoring all the work I’m doing and the great results the clients are getting. I’m quitting.“
Her manager reeled back, clearly shocked at the outburst “I’m so sorry Jess. I had no idea. I thought you were happy at work. You’ve never said anything. You never said you wanted more responsibility or to change sectors. I thought you enjoyed your work. That it suited you. Why didn’t you say something before. Jack’s been on at it me since he joined 8 months ago that he wanted to work on this product line.”
“Oh” said Jess, “I thought you’d realise.”
Once they’d cleared the air, Jess and her manager sat down together and worked out a new career strategy for her.
Jess learned that she needed to speak up – she needed to speak up and make sure the management team knew about her skills, talents and experiences.
Jess learned that she needed to talk about her ambitions – to express her desire for more responsibility and bigger projects.
Jess learned that she needed to leverage her network and to let go of the idea that leverage is a dirty word.
I see this same story over and over with my clients.
Even when I’m coaching clients on how to manage their career with confidence and purpose.
They work hard, do all the homework I give them, go through all the leadership modules, identify their skills gap … rather than SPEAK UP.
STOP WORKING SO HARD.
You don’t need to always work, work, work.
I know. I get it. I absolutely get it. Because I’ve made this mistake myself. And I still do.
The perfect solution to get promoted is to STOP WORKING SO HARD, SPEAK UP MORE OFTEN and LEVERAGE YOUR NETWORK.
If you’d like some help with HOW to do that or getting the CONFIDENCE to do it, let’s talk.
You can book a free 20 minute call with me or if you know you need more support and help than you can get in 20 minutes, you can book a Career Power Hour for £199.
p.s. if you like this and want more tips & tricks on how to manage your career with confidence and purpose, subscribe to my weekly newsletter.
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