I recently attended a lunch held by Professionelle (an online network for professional women) based around the topic of Career Strategies For Women. As I am in a period of career transition this was a timely topic for me.
If you haven’t heard of Professionelle yet then I would definitely recommend you take a look at their website. It is run by two very interesting women, Galia BarHava-Monteith and Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes, who share a wealth of ideas for professional women.
We had been asked to do some homework before the lunch and to ask ourselves what career success meant to us. I wrote down:
- sufficient money to fund my lifestyle
- the freedom to enjoy my lifestyle
- being intellectually stimulated
- sharing or teaching my knowledge
- having an impact in my chosen field.
What does career success mean to you?
Those talented women at Professionelle had been conducting interviews of successful women for Global Women and they had found that there were three common factors among these women:
- Self awareness
- Trusted advisors
- Working hard – having drive, zest and grit.
Self awareness
This is an area that I am particularly interested in as I have not given it enough focus in recent years as I was very focused on developing the “hard” technical skills of my legal profession.
This ingredient was said to be the most critical for a successful woman (and man for that matter!).
The elements that made up self awareness were being in control, having strategies in place to provide themselves with a self check, saying no if issues/projects were outside of their focus, being fit and healthy, being able to adjust how they came across to different people, having a clear definition of what success meant to them, being open to feedback and always looking to learn and develop themselves. Also, retaining their sense of curiosity was essential.
Trusted Advisors
My initial picture of a trusted advisor was a lawyer or accountant. I know that not all of you would start off with that picture! After years of practicing law I know that was the relationship that I developed with my clients.
For these successful women however, the role of trusted advisor went much further. It essentially included anyone with whom they had a meaningful relationship and with whom they could be authentic with. This group included mentors, peers, coaches and friends.
Working hard
I have some resistance to the idea that if we all work hard we can be successful. I am a firm believer in working smarter not harder and have seen many instances of lawyers working very long hours but not necessarily being as productive as they could be. This is not something that their clients, who are usually being charged by the hour, would be all that thrilled to discover.
The concept of working hard for the interviewees was not just related to time that they spent at work; it also extended to the need to work hard at prioritising their health, fitness, general self care and their families.
An essential element of this ingredient was being positive and surrounding themselves with positive people. Also, being future orientated (not spending time thinking about a negative past), having a passion for what they were doing and using self awareness to recognise if they lost their zest for their work and then doing something about it.
I found the lunch invaluable as I was able to compare the 3 key ingredients for career success with what I am currently doing and note where I could improve. Also, I was fortunate to share my table with some great business women who had fantastic insights of their own to share.
Do you have any thoughts on what career success means to you?
