Career progression planning: It all starts with you

We all want to progress in our working lives. We are looking for more responsibility, more empowerment, better salaries, learning opportunities – all the things that help us to build a career and fulfil our ambitions.

It’s also common, when you are not progressing as well as you feel you should, or when you are presented with particular challenges, to look for external explanations. Perhaps the culture doesn’t suit you. Or your line manager ignores your potential. Or there’s a team member stealing your limelight. These are all things I hear from people who choose to work with me on their career progression.

My first response to this is to talk about the importance of self-awareness. In fact, successful career progression always starts with you. In order to move forward, you first have to understand yourself and the impact you have on your own professional life – and those you interact with at work.

Why does this matter?

No matter what you do at work, you interact with others. From the phrasing of an email to the way you act in meetings, you give a certain impression, and other people form their own perception of you. So your personal impact is important – not just for accomplishing your current day-to-day tasks, but for your long-term career progression.

Your personal interactions also reflect how you feel about yourself. So if you are confident in your abilities, that will come across. If you are nervous, have more than a healthy dose of imposter syndrome or are over-confident at the expense of ability, it will show.

So, in order to look at career progression and planning in the most holistic way, you need to start by developing your self-awareness, understanding how you impact others and looking for ways to work on the areas where you can improve.

What impression are you making?

It may seem unfair, but people who make a positive impression have a head start when it comes to progressing their career. That’s particularly true when you interact with the people who have a say in your career – your line manager, senior leaders, recruiters and your network.

I like the theory of Strength and Warmth – you can read about this in Compelling People, a book by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut.

The theory is that, when you meet someone for the first time, particularly in a work setting, they are assessing you based on two measures: strength and warmth.  How competent do you appear to be? Do you give the impression that you are comfortable in your role and can meet job expectations? This helps people assess your strength. And warmth is all about being personable – so smiling, a comfortable and open stance, and a genuine interest in the conversation.

Think about this in your own working life. Who do you work with that you feel is very competent but not at all personable? Who do you like, but wouldn’t put them in charge of a task? And who meets the balance of both? They are likely to be your go-to person.

Now, think about the impression you might make on someone new, using this approach. Is there something you could work on to make a better impression and work on improving relationships?

Time to get started?

Of course, there’s much more to personal impact than this – and there’s much more to building a plan for career progression than how you shake hands. But self-awareness is always the best starting point, and it sets the scene for all the other things you need to do to put yourself in the best position to progress.

My forthcoming book, Getting On: Making work work is all about how you can manage your career progression. The first section of the book focuses entirely on self-awareness and how you can improve it for great results. The rest of the book then looks at how you turn that self-awareness into practical actions that can help you move up the career ladder. Subscribe to receive updates on my forthcoming book.

In the meantime, why not take a look at my Nine Skills assessment tool? It’s a quick and easy way to see where you may have gaps in your non-technical, or ‘soft’ skills and improve those areas to help boost your career planning.