When we talk about our careers, we think all about the successful milestones that helped shape who we are professionally. What did I enjoy doing? What are my strongest skills? What makes me an asset within my current job or the next one? We can’t help it but think about these questions as we navigate our professional path. As a leader, your ability to paint that career picture for each individual is what shapes the type of professional you are. A leader that is capable of helping others discover their strengths and make a career out of it. A leader that can instill confidence and help people see the long lasting value of their work. A leader that can decorate any job with vibrant career strokes.
As individuals, we think a lot about what makes us feel valuable and needed. Our accomplishments define our image and guide our future choices. We love getting paid for doing our job, but we also love the prospect of advancing and becoming our better self. A job that makes us a stronger asset is a job that helps define our career. Understanding the lasting effect of what we’re doing is what makes us committed to do it right. A leader that can unlock potential by driving career goals rather than job goals is a true leadership artist.
Passion can be built from our strengths but doing a good job doesn’t necessarily require passion. We can meet our job expectations because we have to do the job we’re hired for but we’ll only exceed expectations when we find our strength and passion in the job we’re doing. A picture may look nice from one angle but look even better from a different angle. By doing this task, I did my job, but what if doing this task meant investing in my career, then was it just a job or a career milestone?! If a backend software developer is asked to work on a frontend task, then delivering the task is technically the job, but in order for them to become senior, they need to learn other parts of the stack, so I guess this was a career-driving task after all!
As an individual contributor (IC) and a leader in the tech industry, I understand that we don’t always get a choice on the tasks we do. However, we can almost always view most tasks from a career perspective. I always appreciated leaders that helped me visualize my career picture given the job that needed to be done. As a leader, I also strive to help others see the picture from a better angle, the career angle. The angle that not only gets the job done, but also creates individuals who are ready to invest in their career and deliver beyond the requirements of the job.
I have led individuals who were always ready to express their dislike about tasks that fell outside their comfort zone. For those ICs, painting that career picture was even more important as it helped them break these high guards of resistance. It helped them understand the lasting effect of going outside their comfort zone. For example, writing better documentation, allows you to become a better communicator, which helps you have a stronger influence on others. Working on the database optimization task helps you have a better understanding of performance issues, which eventually makes you a stronger asset. Creating these pictures helped people realize that it’s not just a job after all, it’s an investment opportunity!
Most of the time when we resist doing a task, it’s either because we don’t know how to do it, we don’t like doing it, or we don’t feel that it’s useful to do. If we see that learning how to do it can be of great benefit, or we find a way that makes us like doing it, or we understand why it’s useful to do, then it would change our perspective altogether. A great leader should always be ready to draw pictures that will help individuals fight that resistance and discover the hidden and long lasting benefits of doing their job. A job that is seen as a career milestone is a job that is worth the investment. A job can create learning opportunities, grow our experiences, or turn our weakest skills into our strongest assets. It is the gateway to discovering our future self.
Leaders can struggle at times to portray that good looking picture, and at that point, a great leader should question if the current job is defined in a way that creates motivated individuals. Can the job be redefined to maximize outcome while delivering a lasting impact on the ICs doing it? If the answer is “yes”, then it’s time to put on the transformational leader hat and invest in your leadership career by redefining the job to attract individuals who are also ready to invest in their own careers.
My job, or my career? The answer is both. It takes a job done right to build a career. A job is not just a job, it’s a career investment. Leaders who are capable of adding career strokes to any job are leaders who know how to create strong investors that are willing to go above and beyond to get as close as possible to that attractive career picture.