The Growth Circles

Every company thrives and survives because of two roles, Individual contributors, and managers. Both these roles are significantly important and yet vastly different.

Both roles are critical to the success of a company, and companies need a balance of both to achieve their goals. However, it's important to note that managers and leadership roles often require a separate set of skills and competencies, such as strategic thinking, communication, and decision-making, while individual contributor roles may require a deeper level of technical expertise and attention to detail.

Both roles are essential and contribute to the overall success of the organization and company.

If you are aspiring to climb up the ladder either as an IC or as a manager, consider transforming yourself as a #leader. Below are few critical learnings of this transformation from my personal journey.

Growth is:

1. Your work should impact and influence all or most of the circles.
2. You should thrive for the growth of your team, company, and industry. Your impact and growth are directly proportional to the growth of your company and the people on your team.
3. It's a mind shift transformation from ME to WE.?
4. You should stop expecting your organization to tell you about goals and assignments. Conversely, you are expected to identify core problems, turn them into opportunities, and deliver results.
5. Demonstrate thought leadership by fostering creativity & innovation.
6. You mastered the art of debugging code and are now venturing into debugging people, process, and organization.
7. Be vulnerable?and take risks, fail, and learn. Rinse and repeat this process until you master this art.
8. Genuinely, provide candid feedback to your leadership chain and help them realize their blind spots.
9. People will start judging you based on what you do - "not what you say/preach".
10. Start mentoring young talent.
11. Deeply care about the culture of your team and organization and contribute to improve it.
12. Stop complaining and start solving problems.?
13. It's a change from writing "hello world" program to solving "world's problems"
14. Navigating from one circle to another will take time and that's okay.

Tips to grow out of your current circle:

1. Be an SME of your circle.
2. Make sure to exceed expectations of your circle
3. Find Mentor 1 (Person outside of your current circle): A person who can provide honest feedback and has a personal stake in your growth.????
4. Find Mentor 2 (Person outside of your immediate next circle): A person who can provide a preview of the roles & responsibilities of your long-term career goals.?

Growing up into the ranks is "not for everyone".

Many factors such as upbringing, culture, academics, social skills are deeply rooted in your personality and may act as hurdles for your progression and growth.

Fixing or healing such gaps will take time and needs heavy investments in reskilling.?

If you are not comfortable, it's okay to pause and be happy with yourself.??

Note: Though this article heavily talks about titles of #softwareengineering discipline. The concepts of #growth and #leadership principles are the same to any discipline and industry.

#growthmindsets #promotion #growthmindset #growthtips #growthhacking #growth