Even the best leaders and most experienced executives sometimes find themselves “stuck” in a position where they may feel unhappy, unfulfilled, and unappreciated. In her March 13 “It’s Race Day” video, Bobbie LaPorte shares three leadership tips she recently gave to a client in this exact situation. With a little help, you too can get “unstuck”—and use your personal agency to get moving again.
Transcript: Use Your Personal Agency to Move from Thinking to Doing
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly leadership tips for 2023 called “It’s Race Day,” where I help you close the gap between thinking and doing. There’s a time to train and a time to race.
The majority of professionals will make anywhere between eight and twelve career moves. Seems like a lot but there is so much opportunity that creates mobility in today’s market. Very unlike the career path I chose early in my career when I joined IBM right out of college at a time when most people considered that lifetime employment.
And you can bet that at least once during your career, you will land in a job where, despite your best efforts to really vet all aspects of the job, it turns out to be definitely NOT what you expected.
Maybe the person who sponsored your hiring leaves shortly after you arrive; or a key initiative you were hired to lead gets scratched; or the company misjudged the market and are now in survival mode, not thriving as you understood.
Whatever the challenges, circumstances, and disappointments might be, the weight of all of them can put you in a state of suspended motion: you constantly worry about what else might happen, about if you can turn this around; you ruminate and catastrophize; every small issue becomes magnified to the point where you don’t feel you have much control of anything, and you just – feel – stuck.
It happens to all of us, and it happened to one of my clients recently. This accomplished, savvy senior leader with a strong bias for action was in a tough spot. There is no quick, easy answer to a (very common) situation like this, but I’ll share some of the guidance I offered to use her personal agency to get her from stuck to movement, from thinking to doing.
Use Your Personal Agency to Move from Thinking to Doing
First, it’s important to realize that this is just one point in the arc of your career..albeit a very challenging one. There were many positive experiences before this one, and there will be ones to follow.
Second, define the parts of this job that you do enjoy, where you are using your strengths. Spend more time doing those, if possible, so you can balance out the good feelings with the more frustrating ones and experience more satisfaction in the job.
Lastly, set a date – maybe 60-90 days out – when some of the challenges will have been resolved, when you are possibly feeling more optimistic about the job. That establishes a formal checkpoint where you can reflect, reevaluate and decide your course of action from there…and creates at least one point of certainty for you.
In these continuing times of change, it does often feel like things are happening to you, not because of any action on your part. Don’t let that take over your thinking. You do have agency to act: use it where you can.
I hope your week is one of doing, of taking action. Remember: there is a time to train and a time to race. It’s Race Day.