Ask 10 people if they want to grow in their career, and 10 people will say yes.
That’s because they haven’t taken a hard look at what “growth” means.
Growth doesn’t just automatically occur over time as you get incrementally better at your job (at least not the kind of growth you want).
You want the fun kind of growth. The kind that forces you to become a new and different person.
If that's exciting to you, here are 8 things to understand:
GROWTH IS CHANGE
Every few years, a growing company will enter a new maturation phase, sometimes forcing a reexamination of its workforce — the common “what got us here won’t get us there” moment.
The employees have become a family, and now that family becomes divided. Fixed-mindset people will part ways, sometimes bitterly, nostalgic for the old days before “the owners got greedy.”
The rest will do something even more difficult: level up and see things differently.
GROWTH IS FREEING
As an individual contributor, you’re trading your time for money. You want more money, you do more work.
As a leader, it’s different. You now have the agency (to varying degrees, depending on the company) to start building a system that can slowly move you out of the weeds.
Many leaders don’t do actually do this — because it requires front-loaded effort (teaching and training things that would be quicker to just do themselves) for a delayed return (a less frantic life) and also because they’re addicted to being busy. But there is plenty of living, breathing proof that advancing your career can also advance your lifestyle.
GROWTH IS UNFAIR
I remember in my youth, getting bumped up into a position overseeing a few direct reports. I was ecstatic about my promotion, until I was informed that my bonus was no longer about my own performance, it was about theirs. Not fair!
As a leader, you’re responsible for the outcomes produced by people you may not have chosen, and may not fully trust. Instead of simply delivering quality by yourself, you must build a machine that can spit out that same level of quality, as thoughtfully as you would, sometimes in your absence.
Understandably, this is difficult for people with an artisan mentality who like to be close to the work.
It’s also difficult for control freaks, people who don’t get along with other people, and people who want life to be fair and predictable.
GROWTH REQUIRES CLARITY
I’ve met very few effective leaders who don’t have a reading habit, and some sort of writing habit.
This matters, because a leader’s job is to think, decide, learn and teach.
Reading and writing are the act of developing those four skills.
GROWTH IS MESSY
I was chatting with a CEO friend this week, and she was giving me examples of bad leadership from her past. She spoke of an ex boss, a domineering type whose leadership style was all about “Pass / Fail”.
Meaning, you did everything exactly his way, or you got fired, and it was that simple. This made it impossible for his people to learn through experience and mistakes.
"That's rough" I said. "Where is this guy now?" She chuckled. “He asked me for a job the other day.”
GROWTH IS A TRADE-OFF
If you hate being overworked, but you also hate delegating, you are at an impasse with yourself. This impasse is only solved by making a decision.
Making a decision involves saying a difficult goodbye to something. Defer the decision, defer the reward.
GROWTH IS MANDATORY
We are designed to grow. If you’re fortunate enough to do work that you find meaningful, then your work is linked to your identity.
That doesn’t mean your job is your personality. It means that personal and professional growth are inextricable. They propel each other.
GROWTH IS A BET ON YOURSELF
Kevin Kelley has a great saying: “Only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.” It summarizes what I believe to be the best career growth strategy there is:
Get in slightly over your head, then figure it out.
This can be scary, until you realize: people almost never get fired for getting in over their heads — they get fired for not rising to the occasion.
