From the Top, At the Bottom…
Remember the board game “Life”? You have two choices: go to college or get a job. Which did you normally choose?
Despite earning a bachelor’s degree, a Masters of Business
Administration in Leadership and being a part-time time college
professor, I always chose to get a job. Why? When I was nine years old I
probably couldn’t articulate how I viewed the world, but always
understood the power of being the CEO of your own life. I’d like to
apply that philosophy to this article and transform the way you think
about your career, your mindset and your approach to all of it.
This post is….
Look, let’s be clear about what this post is and what it is not. This is a post about how you can capitalize on acting as your own boss, even if you’re not. You can make decisions, set goals, build impactful habits and even flip the business pyramid around so that you and you your boss work together, rather than you simply working for them.
This post is not a tirade about organizational structure and how you can become the CEO of your company is 30 days or less, or some other click-bait scheme to hold your attention hostage. Nope. This is a post about a mindset shift. Period.
What’s the difference?
Being your own boss and being the CEO of your life are different things. Being your own boss is running a business and owning the responsibility of the bottom line and serving clients. There is a financial investment required to putting your name on that door. Being your own CEO is something you already are. Think about the decisions you’ve made in the last 24 hours, or the last year, or the last 10 years. You as the CEO of your life made those decisions. Why not apply that to your career?
What’s the difference between choosing between pizza or salad, and choosing between feeling fulfilled in your career or just simply being decent at your job? Ultimately, both are your decision. Both come with a set of consequences and over time when the same decisions are repeated they become habits, which lead to outcomes, which impact your happiness, and so on.
The bad news is if you’re still reading this, you likely aren’t quite sure where I am going with this. The good news is if you keep reading, I am confident that you’ll walk into work tomorrow with an adjusted mindset and a shift in how you approach your career.
Your Performance…
I want you to pause and think about the last week at work. The wins you had, the frustrations you endured and how well you think you performed. Now that you’ve taken stock of your week, let’s talk about your boss. Your performance is based purely on someone else’s subjective view of how well you do your job. Or more specifically, how well you performed against someone else’s expectations. If you’re lucky, you and your boss have spent some time mapping out goals and objectives for the year. If you’re really lucky you have periodic meetings with your boss to check on those goals. And if you’re outrageously lucky, you receive feedback on your performance so you so know where to adjust and where to keep pushing.
However, if you’re like most, the entire package listed above is not available to you as a courtesy. This type of service is also likely not available to everyone within your organization. But, wait. A Package. Service? At work? Yep. You likely work for a boss who is judging your performance and impacting your future earning power based solely on one thing: What’s in it for me? What have you done throughout your year to make your boss successful?
Sound about right? Yeah, let’s flip that, m’kay?
Your boss has obviously done something right over the years – they have likely made their bosses look good and is relying on you to continue helping them in that space. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz word-laced comparison of what a boss is versus what a leader is. It was cute for a while, but now people just throw words around like “lean in” and “synergy” hoping they sound like a leader at the end of the conversation. Woof.
Here’s the truth. What I described above is a boss. Someone who believes you work for them. However, a leader, especially one with a title that carries the privilege of directing others, knows they work with you. So, here is your first step to becoming the CEO of your own life and making decisions that put you in the best position to succeed. Determine if your manager is a boss or a leader based on the above. Do you work for them, or do work with them? Some questions to ask yourself that will lead you to your answer are: Do I receive honest and consistent feedback from my manager? Can I present them with feedback? Am I free to present ideas, implement workflows and fail with no consequence? When ideas do fail, can I spend time learning and mastering skills that will ultimately lead to successful implementation of ideas? And finally, the biggest one for me, can I learn from others, even if that means stepping outside of the proverbial box my department has placed me into? If you answered “no” to any of those questions, your boss has some work to do. But good news for them: You’re reading this!
Side note, if you answered “no” to some of those questions for deeper reasons other than your boss isn’t a good leader and you feel you are being silenced as an act of bias or discrimination, I want you to feel empowered to talk to anyone that will listen within your organization. Those who on that level of incompetence should be held accountable. And if you think you’re guilty of this, please call me or any other leadership coach and get that corrected. Seriously.
Next…
Once you’ve determined if your manager is just a boss or is actually a leader, your next step is figuring out what is important to them. Hint, your growth is the only answer here, regardless if you determined their bossiness or leadership status.
Let’s focus on the boss for a minute. Obviously what is important to them is their own professional and personal well being. That’s okay, we can work with that. Part of becoming the CEO of your own life is making decisions based on the information that you have. Also, part of being a CEO is finding answers to questions by enlisting other people.
When you become a business owner, a CEO in the literal sense, the very first thing you learn is to identify the problem you’re solving for other people. If you’re a CEO but you have no mission, no vision, no audience and no solutions to questions, you’re just an employee.
Your boss surely has questions that need answering. Your strategy is to be the person to answers those questions. One of the best ways to do this is by learning new skills… Wait! This isn’t what you think. I am not suggesting you spend $40,000 on another degree to please your boss. God, no. Your new strategy is to build skills by enlisting other people, like the CEO that you are. Incredible tools like Skillshare.com are online platforms that provide insight and clear training for dozens of areas, including business and leadership skills.
Using these tools and learning the skills your boss or your organization lacks is the first step to becoming your own CEO. Enlist other people to help you solve one problem. Simple.
Finally…
Okay, so we’ve identified that your boss may or may not be the leader for you and that you are well capable of gaining the skills needed to succeed in many different roles, not just your current role. Maybe it’s time for you to move up. Or maybe it’s time for you to move out. Let’s go leadership shopping. That’s not a typo – we’re looking for a role change, sure, but changing jobs without changing leadership styles is simply occupying a different physical space without expecting a different result.
What we are getting at here is that people don’t leave jobs they leave bosses. I am sure you’ve heard that before. It was once a very insightful and empowering rallying cry. Now, it’s just words that sound like something a leader would say unless that leader provides an actionable plan on how to find a leader, rather than look for a new job.
So, let’s go shopping for a leader, shall we?
The most effective way to find a new leader while looking for a job is to network with leaders who already oversee the responsibilities you’d like to handle. Currently, the traditional way we change jobs is by leveraging a search engine and hope that we can match our job title with one or two job openings in our area. Don’t get me wrong, that technology is still a fantastic way to change jobs. But we’re shopping for a new leader, so a traditional search engine likely won’t help us.
Many leaders are looking for other leaders to fill roles, not new followers. This is the pool of candidates you should jump into. You know what you’re looking for and how your skills can and will align with a new job – that’s the easy part. Making the connection with someone and finding out if they are the right leader for you is the real work.
One of the best ways to do this is by networking with the right people and being crystal clear on what you are looking for. You are the CEO of your decisions, interests and strategies, after all. Implement some action plans that will bring consistency to your search. My favorites are getting on LinkedIn, volunteering in your community, offering pro bono consulting to people in your industry, working with a career coach and perhaps the most effective if you’d like to stay within your own organization, inviting a couple of the leader candidates in your own company to grab a coffee. Finding a mentor within your own organization and sharing your leadership traits and expectations with them lets them know you’re not simply running away from an old job, you’re running towards a good leader.
I’d like to revisit that LinkedIn networking suggestion to close this out. Raise your hand if you downloaded LinkedIn onto your smart phone, check it once per month, feel intimidated or overwhelmed with the content and jump off of the app and into something lighter, like Instagram or Facebook.
No doubt, LinkedIn offers a lot of content from a lot of people all looking to market themselves to the right audience.
Amazingly, LinkedIn offers a lot of content from a lot of people all looking to market themselves to the right audience.
If consistent content on LinkedIn sounds like a lot of work, I have good news – no, great news! I can help you. I created a one-page LinkedIn Optimization Guide that will guide you through the best practices to networking on LinkedIn. It doesn’t require you to spend a ton of time creating the perfect professional post day after day. That sounds a lot like writing an email for work, which is why so many people shy away from this type of engagement. It’s too much.
Nope, this guide focuses on you and how to create the most optimal profile. It will also give you the tools to find good leaders and help them find you. A guide like this makes it easy for you to network and have the option a CEO would have when they are looking for the next big solution that propels their business and life into the next stratosphere of success! When you schedule a 15-minute discover session with me, this guide and the session are free. I wan to help as many people as I can get to where they want to be. I’d love to hear from you and give you the tools to succeed in your career.
Click here to book a free session.
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