Career Limbo Trap

I once issued a challenge: are you working in a Kingdom of Mediocrity? I now challenge you to question if your career is stagnant. If so, do you know why? Do you know what you want to become? Have your organization told you how they see your capability gaps, your leadership potential or your promotion opportunities? Have you held the same role for a long time without a view of a career path? I propose here some ideas to get out of that trap.

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In previous articles, I have focused on positive leadership and improving organizations. This is my first article directed at the individual, on how to avoid becoming a cog in the wheel.

At one point in your career, you either chose to pursue a professional career by seeking a job in an organization instead of launching and running your own business. There are significant trade-offs between these two paths, including financial stability, regular work hours, job training to develop specific expertise, etc. The most striking trade-off is a choice of who controls your success or career prospects: your boss (and organization) or your stakeholders. Stakeholders are not shy to provide their feedback in the form of complaints, further business, or further funding. But the story is different with jobs in organizations.

If you are working in a Kingdom of Mediocrity (KMs for short), my best advice is to look for a new job or a placement in a better organization. Of course, this recommendation does not apply if you entirely trust your political prowess, you are fine with an unfulfilling, uninspirational work environment and just want to ensure you get paid and keep your job. I won’t judge you (just a bit ??). What’s worse, KMs tend to rely more on experienced external hires than to trust and bet on internal talents for promotion, which significantly limits your ability to grow.?

Otherwise, your lack of knowledge about what awaits you career-wise might just be that you haven’t yet taken initiative to visualize and act on realizing your next steps, you don’t have a trusting, open and candid relationship with your boss, or that your organization still does not have structured processes for performance review or career path development. Or worse, because you don’t feel confident in your potential to grow since you haven’t had constructive feedback to understand where you stand vs. expectations.

The first step is an honest self-assessment. I would recommend finding good benchmarks to measure yourself against: individuals who are praised and recognized for the skills and competencies required for your job as well as for your next desired role. How do you measure yourself against them? What is your “Ikigai”or “Hedgehog” ability? Use that as an exercise to improve your self-awareness, so as to avoid overconfidence, or to build confidence in your abilities to overcome fear of failure.

The next step is setting your own ambition and career goals. Are they clear for you? Be careful not to expect that others come up with them for you. You should take ownership of developing your own career plan. If it is too hard to define a longer term goal, what are your potential preferred next steps? Based on your benchmarking, what do you need to improve on or further demonstrate to your organization to show that you are ready? If you have good communication and trust with your boss, make it known that these are your objectives.

I also recommend seeking frequent feedback. Not only from your boss, but also your internal clients and other stakeholders who you interact often with. Most companies don’t have formal policies or processes dedicated to providing that feedback, so it is incumbent on you to get it. And you should always seek feedback on your gaps (or, more euphemistically, “areas of improvement”). These are by far the most valuable and the hardest to get, since most people seek to avoid confrontation. Then, you need to act (and demonstrate you are acting) on that feedback. I also recommend seeking training opportunities and projects or assignments that can help you bridge those gaps and/or demonstrate expected skills.

I would argue that your most important relationship is with your boss. Having a bad relationship with your boss is one of the worst hurdles for career development. Your boss is the person most trusted by the organization to assess you and to position you for other opportunities. You should seek to establish an open and transparent communication with your boss to understand their expectations, seek feedback, and align your work with their vision. It is also helpful to observe and understand how your boss operates, their preferred methods of communication, and decision-making processes, so you can adapt your communication and work style accordingly to complement their preferences. If you have a difficult relationship with your boss, then taking ownership of your career is definitely more challenging, requiring even more professionalism, emotional intelligence, resilience, and empathy on your part to try to bridge the gap. Ultimately it might require seeking guidance from other people in your network to overcome the situation, or to move to another job.

Another helpful behavior is to act as someone who wants more, and showcase your readiness for promotion. Understand your boss’ needs and fulfill them, anticipate upcoming projects, provide solutions, offer assistance whenever possible. Initiative and proactiveness go a long way. You should act and talk like the next senior level, so people can visualize you in that job.

Finally, although this might be unnatural to some, you should actively build your internal network, building trusting relationships across the organization: the more people know you, the more you are remembered and the more you learn about how you are perceived.?

More importantly, it is important to understand if you have a “Champion”. I can’t emphasize enough how critical that is. It might be your boss, or hopefully someone even higher up. People with strong champions get better guidance, more access to opportunities, more leniency on failures, more publicity and rewards for successes, and ultimately faster career development. If you don’t have one, look to develop one.

Unfortunately, most companies and bosses do not share timely and structured feedback, thus keeping you in the dark about your prospects. It is easier for them, at least in the short term, since they avoid difficult conversations, confrontation, as well as making and delivering commitments made to develop and promote you.

According to a report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), only 18% of surveyed organizations indicated having formal career development programs for all employees. A study published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior found that companies often focus more on organizational needs rather than individual career aspirations, leading to a lack of alignment between employees' career goals and organizational opportunities. The Association for Talent Development (ATD) reported that only 39% of organizations surveyed provided sufficient development opportunities for employees. A study conducted by Towers Watson found that only 47% of employees surveyed believed that their organization provided adequate opportunities for career advancement.

I am a firm believer that great organizations and leaders thrive on recognizing, nurturing and elevating talents. But even in those organizations, employees should take ownership of their careers and not leave their future completely in the hands of others.