“Toughness doesn’t have to come in a pinstripe suit.” Diane Feinstein

Jessica Chivers, career Coach, sShifting your career

Hankering after a career shift upwards, sideways or just anywhere other than where you are right now…but feeling desperately immobile? Confidence is the number one emotional barrier to women climbing their career ladder as quickly as they might. More specifically there are four low confidence behaviours women exhibit significantly more than men which have an impact on our careers: 1) Not asking, 2) Being overly modest, 3) Blending in and 4) Remaining silent (see Jill Flynn et al’s paper Four Ways Women Unintentionally Stunt Their Careers in Harvard Business Review, 2011).

I coach women to find the confidence to apply for their next step. I help women formulate ways of asking for what they want. I help women through the swirl of career ideas dancing round their heads and accelerate their shift up the ladder or into something satisfyingly new. Confidence grows, focus is found and the resolve to take actions we’ve formulated together is what clients typically experience from our 1:1 coaching relationship.

Click on the “Take Away” icon for the ten competencies of successful women career steppers.

So many jobs are never advertised either because the recruiters’ network found it for them or the successful candidate created and convinced of the need for the job. Coaching with me will help you think and behave more powerfully to get recruited, rewarded and respected for doing something you’re good at.

Stepping into leadership

Stepping into leadership

Need to hone your leadership skills to get on? I’ve been working with big brands on the not-so-much-soft-as-essential people skills of business for seven years. You’re not the first and won’t be the last to come for coaching to help you develop the management skills you might think you should have by now.

I’ve seen a number of good practitioners move into management and leadership without adequate support. Managing a team of people who do what you do (or did before you rose into the leadership ranks) is often seen as the next natural step and naturally, you’ll pick up how to manage a team and adapt to your promotion.  I disagree.

Being a great practitioner – be that managing marketing campaigns, designing new products, winning court cases or whatever it is you do – does not necessarily equip you with the skills to be a great manager or leader.  Anyone with a smidge of self-awareness knows that.

That’s why smart organisations with savvy HR practitioners  invest in learning interventions, including 1:1 coaching, to help their managers and leaders inspire, motivate and retain their team members. I’ve worked with people stepping into people management roles for the first time through to those who’ve been doing it a while – there’s no shame in it.

Some women invest in coaching from their own income, others are sponsored by their employer. Here’s a flavour of the kind of issues clients and I improve or resolve through coaching sessions:

• Not being comfortable delegating to people within or outside their team
• Feeling like an imposter
• Lacking confidence to challenge colleagues who were once peers and are now direct reports
• Needing to up their presence in meetings
• Not knowing how to give feedback that makes a difference
• Working out the ‘level’ at which they should be operating now
• Balancing ‘doing’ with ‘leading’
• Lack of confidence to challenge upwards
• Working ‘silly’ hours
• Working through 360 degree feedback

What next?

You might find the Stepping Up Your Career Resources page useful and be in the frame of mind to drop me a line or pick up the phone to start doing something about what’s going on for you (or not) at the moment. Many ‘career steppers’ I work with have their coaching paid for by their employer – invoicing is done with discretion.

Share this: