WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT REALLY?

When this hurdle first came into focus, I initially referred to it as “ambivalence.” From female doctors working in academic medicine, to women in various functional jobs in financial services, to women working for technology and automotive and consumer packaged goods companies, I observed a clear hurdle rearing its ugly head: When the topic of “what do I want next for myself professionally” came up, women expressed a good bit of ambiguity, or even ambivalence. At first, and because I was asking for women to raise their hands in a group setting if they knew what they wanted their next professional step to be, I thought perhaps so few raised their hands for fear of being called on. So, we switched our approach, asking for confidential written polls in our webinars and other work. The same result presented itself: The vast majority (95% +/-) of women who we asked if they knew what they wanted next simply said: “not really” or just “No—I don’t have any clue.”

This phenomenon made me pause. Could this be why women aren’t advancing into positions of leadership? Is it because we’re unsure or unclear about what it is we want for ourselves, and thus, we aren’t advocating for ourselves? Worse yet, are we promoted into jobs we don’t want and decide to leave? Will we get the advocacy of others if we remain uncertain about our aim?

I think this is part of why some women aren’t advancing, but sadly, it alone doesn’t come near to answering why those who get clear or who have always been clear about what it is they strive for aren’t stepping into leadership at the same clip as men. The answer for why women who do have clarity about what they want, but who aren’t seeing the progress they want in their career, can be answered, in part, in the chapters ahead.

Linkage Global Institute for Leadership Development® faculty member, Rhodes scholar, and author of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, Michael Bungay Stanier, refers to the question of “what do you want” as “the Goldfish Question,” noting that this question “often elicits slightly bugged eyes, and a mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out.” While a hilarious description, it’s in sync with my findings, too.

In my experience, if you are clear about what you want, yet you aren’t advancing, you may be:

• Doing too much, and thus proving your value in the job you have—unintentionally refraining from letting go, equipping, inspiring, and enabling others. (This is the hurdle of adding too much value, to be addressed in Chapter 5.)
• Implicitly or explicitly believing that you are not deserving, ready, or capable of the next step. (This is the hurdle of recognized confidence, to be addressed in Chapter 6.)
• Believing your brand and presence speaks for itself or has impact that may be different than your desired intentions. (This is the hurdle of brand and presence, to be addressed in Chapter 7.)
• Thinking that the right people know what you want when they don’t. (This is the hurdle of asking for what you want, to be addressed in Chapter 8.)
• Assuming that building and leveraging relationships among those who are in positions of power is not as important as that all-consuming to-do list, and consequently, pushing networking aside as a nice-to-have; therefore, you may not be on the radar of those who make talent decisions. (This is the hurdle of networking, to be addressed in Chapter 9.)
• Or, lastly, you may be facing more than your fair share of bias from those who have the ability to create the movement you want for yourself, or you may not have the sponsorship needed to manifest what you want professionally. (I addressed the hurdle of Bias in Chapter 3.)

Yet, as I work with and learn from women from all over the world who have participated in experiences taken from Linkage’s Advancing Women Leaders educational experiences, I find that clarity is a journey, and “checking in” with yourself on a regular basis really matters. Tapping into the same muscle (conscious awareness) used to notice your thoughts and feelings, you must ask yourself, “What do I want for myself?”

Interestingly, when it comes to desire, women are much more inclined to ask what others want and adjust their schedules, assets, and strategies to meet those needs on an epic scale. Are you one of the guilty ones?

In his piece for Forbes, “4 Skills that Give Women a Sustainable Advantage Over Men,” contributor Glenn Llopis describes one of these skills: “Women are natural givers: … Women enjoy living their lives through a cause that serves the advancement and acceleration of societal needs. This is why in the workplace women are great at inspiring and lifting those around them. This is why most women leaders are such excellent long-term strategic thinkers.”

Sarah Bettman, a diversity expert and leader, advocates that there can be a cost to all this giving if you don’t have a strong foundation of clarity to help set the boundaries. “I like to joke that I took an accidental detour out of college from being on a management consultant path and ended up as a firefighter paramedic. After 10 years in emergency services it became clear that the hurdle I needed to scale was also the biggest life changer and that was clarity. I didn’t know what I wanted for my life in high school and college. I retrospectively understand now that I based what I wanted on what I thought others needed or expected from me. Because I tend to be a driven person, I accomplished many of the things I set out to do, but without clarity around the things I truly wanted, I did a lot of things that never quite fulfilled me. When I was in emergency service, I found the job to be compelling and the community to be my family, but it was not what I wanted to do with my life. I remember thinking, ‘I save lives for a living, but it’s not enough, and then wondered what was wrong with me. I was a high performer, I had sponsors, I had a future in that career, but after I retired, I found I needed to figure out what I was about first. Ten years later, I am happy to say I have figured it out, but it was work. I have since learned that I want to be of service and to help people live better lives. I was doing that in emergency services, but it was the right idea in the wrong place. When asked about clarity, many think about the role they want, but it is not about role; it’s about the activities. It’s essential to think about the activities you like doing, what you’re good at and want to do more of. If you share that you want to do those activities, it makes it easier for others to help you do more of that. For example, prior to my most recent career move I shared with others that I wanted to build something. I didn’t know the title, but I knew the work. I was able to use that information as I considered new roles and then as I negotiated for my current role. Now I am building a diversity and inclusion program within a large organization. I finally feel like I am the person I always wanted to be. It just took clarity to get there.”

Linkage defines clarity as knowing who you are and what you want as you advance. It rests on knowing the value you bring. As leaders advance and engage in new assignments and responsibilities, their sense of themselves as leaders expands and grows. We assess in our Women in Leadership Assessment for “clarity” as follows: “Projects a compelling future vision for who she wants to be as a leader and/or how she wants to contribute in the working world.”

CLARITY AND SERVICE

Clarity is freedom from ambiguity, which may come from not knowing your priorities or not identifying your values. For some, these values include love, health, family, community, and making a difference in the world. For others, achievement, wealth, creativity, and success are high on the list. For the sake of this book, let’s assume most people who have identified their top values uphold a combination of these. The reason that priorities and values intersect here is that they tend to drive most of our decisions. If you are secure in your decision and the outcome is undesirable, the disappointment isn’t nearly as intense because you always gain further clarity and continue to walk through open doors. You are resting strongly in your priorities and values. However, when you lack clarity, you’re tremendously vulnerable. This is the vulnerability that comes from being in the big, bad world of whatever area you are stewing in uncertainty around.

You’re on the road to clarity though, as soon as you are self-aware that you have to get clear.

As with all of the hurdles, I have tripped over clarity repeatedly and in a fairly meaningful way. I found myself in my mid-thirties with two kids under the age of five, engaged in the same kind of work I had been doing for most of my working life: helping to market, sell, and grow someone else’s idea, brand, thought leadership, book, concept, and/or business. I love representing ideas that make a difference. I love working with others to galvanize revenue-producing participation. I have had the good fortune of working for organizations that bring game-changing experiences to individuals and organizations so they can better their relationships, their goals, their leadership, their impact, their lives, and the lives of those they love and/or serve. The people with whom I have worked have been the best in their business. I have had roles in business management, strategic marketing, business development, and product and solution development. My favorites were when I was able to create something that had not yet been created—or build on something that existed, and engage others in manifesting the vision. Yet, at thirty-five, I found it hard to tune out what was a nagging (albeit, whispering) voice inside my head saying: “What about your voice, your learning, your ability to teach?” Usually, when I heard this “inner whisper,” my Inner Critic was at the ready to shoot it down with a swift, “Seriously, Susan, you don’t have your PhD, you didn’t go to an Ivy League school, you aren’t teaching at an academic institution; you are the one who builds the business, but you can’t be the one who has the idea that sells.”

As if that weren’t enough, I was told a few times in a variety of ways that this critical voice was accurate. I was told that I was good at my job (which was awesome because it was affirming that I was effective), yet I wanted to do more than what I was being affirmed for (namely, marketing and selling). One former thought leader with whom I worked actually said: “Susan Brady, you’ll always be second banana. You’re not the one who people want to hear from. I am.” I have heard from other women that they, too, have been encouraged to keep their heads down and continue to perform at what they are tasked with. This is discouraging, as it gives us permission—even encourages us—to squelch the whispers of our heart. It is also why some women can’t or won’t articulate what they want next for themselves. It can feel too risky to admit that there might be more you can do than what you are working on currently.

Hearing that I wasn’t the one others wanted to hear from was an early indication that working for thought leaders/authors/experts was a sure way of keeping my inferiority complex intact. It was becoming clear that my Inner Critic was loving her new job: to dash any hope of having a unique voice or contribution to the field of leadership and relationship management other than learning and selling the greats.

I couldn’t shake it. I had been a business partner to some of the best teachers in my field. The synthesis of my learning from all of these people had to count for something! Even when a close friend asked me, “What would you say if you were at a podium, looking at 500 people?” I didn’t have the answer. I had never thought about that before, but the question intrigued (and tortured) me. To find the answer, I read lots of books, talked to lots of people, and decided to take on the discovery of the answer as if it were my job. Things didn’t begin to get clear for me until I realized one thing. My clarity came when I set out to use my gifts and talents in service of others.

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Pay attention to that whispering voice telling you what you want.

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I believe that, at some level, we know what we want for ourselves. We know what our unique gifts are. If you are saying to yourself, Really, Susan? Because I don’t, stay with me. Often, the clues about what we want are all around us. We just haven’t listened or seen them or allowed ourself to believe them. A great place to start is to think about what it is you have done in the working world that has made you joyful. What are the two or three times in your career when you were fully engaged and feeling like you were bringing your unique value?

Fast-forward to 2014, when the president and CEO of Linkage Asia, Sam Lam, encouraged me to serve as one of Linkage’s keynotes at Linkage’s Women in Leadership Institute. I gave Sam a million reasons why this was a bad idea. He was adamant and got others to encourage me, too. And I was terrified. I wasn’t terrified to get on stage. That part came naturally for me after years of acting in theatre and emceeing work events. I was terrified to be on stage to share my own thinking, to deliver lines that I wrote. I know what makes for a great speaker—usually a blend of a helpful model or framework combined with great storytelling. What was it that I was uniquely qualified to talk about, that would be in service of 600+ women and their advancement? My Inner Critic was having a field day.

This last question around being of service to the participants ruled out a number of no-brainer talks, including: how to feed kids and never use anything but the microwave, how to work with high-ego individuals, how to do too much …

Around the same time, I facilitated a Linkage public virtual webinar on the things women leaders must deal with—one being their Inner Critic. The webinar itself had an astonishing 800+ registrations, and in one of the webinar polls, we asked what trips you up the most. The majority (over 80 percent of respondents) voted for their Inner Critic. This gave me an idea: What if I act out my Inner Critic and show women leaders how to get back to a place of Compassionate Center? I could tell stories of moments when I second-guessed, bashed, put-down, judged, was merciless, and generally contempt-filled for myself. I could also admit to moments when I thought others just didn’t get it and how good and natural my own self-righteous indignation feels. We could laugh! And learn! I could use myself as an instrument for what MUST be a dialogue in the minds of more than just a few. The opportunity for all could be the notion that if I can master my Inner Critic, anyone can. I would teach them what I have learned along the way from the best relationship and leadership thinkers in our lifetime about self-awareness. (Let’s not confuse this newfound clarity about how I could use my unique gifts to help others with the level at which I was dreading being vulnerable in front of hundreds of people.)

I decided to do what bestselling author and nationally-acclaimed shame, vulnerability, and courage researcher, Brené Brown, calls “dare greatly,” and I stepped on stage at Linkage’s Women in Leadership Institute and delivered my very first keynote address ever to a ballroom of 650 incredibly impressive women in business. What I didn’t know was that, over the course of the coming years, the stories women would tell me about their Inner Critic voices would lead to clarity about common themes where they struggle most, and ultimately, result in the seven hurdles in this book.

PURPOSE AND CALLING MATTERS

Richard Leider can best be described as the “father of the purpose movement.” Richard is a purpose guru and the author of 10 books, including three bestsellers, and his work has been translated into 21 languages. Repacking Your Bags and The Power of Purpose are considered classics in the personal growth field. He also serves as the cochair of Linkage’s Global Institute for Leadership Development, a deeply immersive leadership journey built on Linkage’s Purposeful Leadership™ model.

Full disclosure: It is Richard’s work on calling and purpose that helped me on my journey of clarity the most. And it is Richard’s work that I return to in moments where I have a decision to make about what’s next for me.

Richard was kind enough to chat with me about the hurdle of clarity, answering four questions that I believe will help you the most with the hurdle of clarity.

Q: Why is it important to know our purpose?

A: “Knowing our purpose is essential; it is not a luxury or only for the affluent or the wealthy. It is, in fact, fundamental to our health, our healing, our longevity, our productivity, and our prosperity.”

Q: What’s the difference between a calling and a purpose?

A: “Everyone has unique gifts (talents). A calling is the vocational expression of purpose; your calling is your gifts at work in your life. Your calling is how you are bringing your purpose into work every day. Your calling is your contribution. Being clear about your calling gives you a reason to get up in the morning beyond yourself and it connects with your work. Given that we spend 60 percent or more of our lives in the workplace, we want to be sure we are contributing using our gifts.”

Q: How can we efficiently find out what it is that we want for ourselves professionally?

A: “I have two ‘efficient’ ways anyone can get clear about their purpose. I call the first quick way the ‘Gotta Minute School of Coaching.’ Here’s the formula: Gifts + Passion + Values = Purpose. Write down your 1) Gifts (talents you are born with or acquired that are still with you), add your 2) Passions (your interests) + Values (where you love to use your gifts; where you have voice in matters), and this equals your Purpose at Work.

“The second quick way to get clear about your purpose is universal and something I call the Mirror Test: Take out a yellow Post-it note. Write the words ‘grow and give’ on it and stick it on your bathroom mirror. When you wake up, ask yourself: ‘How am I going to grow and give today?’ At the end of the day before you go to bed, ask yourself, ‘How did I grow and give today?’”

Q: What are your favorite questions to get folks to the answers they are seeking?

A: “I researched elders—people 65 years old and older—and asked them, if they could live life over again, what they would do differently. Three themes emerged from the research: they would be more reflective, they would be more courageous, and they would be more purposeful. The questions that I believe are most helpful include: What is success to you? What is the good life? What are your practices? Why do you get up in the morning?”

One of the tools in Richard’s vast arsenal is a deck of fifty-two cards he calls “Calling Cards™.” These cards can help users discover an increased awareness about their unique gifts. As a result of working with the cards, I became clear that my calling (and thus, what I ultimately need to be able to give in any job I have) includes: Awakening Spirit, Getting Participation, Getting to the Heart of Matters, Making Connections, and Advancing Ideas. This book is a direct action of this clarity and synthesis of ideas that hopefully crystalize for you.

Part of getting clear about what you want is accepting your gifts and talents and loving yourself. (More on this in Chapter 6, Recognized Confidence.)

HIDDEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR CLARITY

Cynthia Tragge-Lakra is the chief talent and transformation officer for Synchrony Financial, a consumer finance business with 16,000 global employees. You may see terms like talent and transformation in her “chief” title and assume that her road to clarity was a short one. It was not. Because her mother was an entrepreneur who started a family business in telephone and telecommunications, Cynthia grew up thinking everyone just played roles that were needed to get the job done. Everybody did everything. Some people were better at one thing than another, but everyone just figured it out.

“Especially when you’re young and trying to fit in and you don’t know what you don’t know, it is hard to distinguish learning to be a good leader versus learning to fit in in a strong culture,” explains Cynthia. “I didn’t always distinguish the two. Even when you ask for what you want, the answers are not as clear, so you go along for the ride of people tapping you on the shoulder with, ‘We’d like for you to do this, we’d like for you to do that.’ Before you know it, you’re in a spot where you’re not really sure how you ended up there. That is probably my weakness on clarity. I’ve always had clarity for everything except my career. Even if I would ask for what I wanted, I wouldn’t stick with it. In corporate cultures, I think it is seductive because there is so much infrastructure and support around you, it ‘appears’ you’re learning a lot.

“If I were to give advice to younger people: every couple of years, you should do something completely different. Change companies. I don’t think anyone should stay more than 10 years max. You can always reinvent yourself cross-functionally, but the organizational culture slows down your learning in any company because you start to lose that external perspective. Adapting to new environments keeps you on your toes. It refreshes you. It reminds you of skills you probably had that you weren’t using somewhere else, and it makes you work harder. Moving between environments will continue to challenge you. That truly builds leadership skills. In my role today—with clarity—I tell employees to make themselves uncomfortable and to always have something outside of work that keeps them engaged and interested. That balances out the Inner Critic a little bit. It’s not as loud if you have a full life professionally and personally.”

CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR GETTING CLEAR

Dr. Tara Swart is a neuroscientist, leadership coach, award-winning author, and medical doctor, as well as a Linkage Women in Leadership Institute faculty member. In her research about what conditions our brain requires to become clear, she’s found that each and every one of us can take specific actions that will set us up to be in peak condition so that we are able to have clarity about our purpose and lives.

CHOICE REDUCTION

Sadly, we can’t do everything all the time, and if you do feel strongly about showing up for others, it’s important you pace yourself and realize you have limited hours in the day. Dr. Swart’s remedy for the depletion of brain power that occurs when we’re doing too much and/or are stressed, is something she calls “choice reduction.” (You will see in Chapter 5 on Proving Your Value, I am a self-professed do-too-mucher—you probably know the feeling.) On this, her advice is to, “Understand you have a limited amount of resources for thinking each day.” Let’s repeat that statement with the most important word emphasized: “You have a limited amount of resources for thinking each day.” Like others, you probably get tired and stressed sometimes. I do. I believe that my time is my most precious (diminishing) resource, but often think my energy, including mental, is plentiful. It never occurred to me that I had a limited amount of resources for thinking. Dr. Swart recommends a strict morning routine and making relatively minor decisions the night before (what to wear tomorrow, what to have for breakfast, if you have children, planning out the same for them, etc.). “This simple planning leaves you with the brain space to focus elsewhere.” Planning ahead for the often mundane things we do each day and having a routine means we get to spend more brain energy on things that bring us joy and make us feel on purpose!

CREATING CLARITY

You’ve been reading about clarity and learning exclusive keys to it, like identifying your values, owning past successes, detoxing from devices, and determining how a lack of clarity may have prohibited you from advancing in your career or life as a whole. Now it’s time to conquer this hurdle!

1. Get in the right frame of mind.

In addition to the very helpful advice provided by Dr. Tara Swart above, here are a few simple activities that have helped me and those I coach to help you discover how your own gifts and talents can best be used in service of others—at work. Like many, you may find yourself at times spending more time doing things that zap your energy and/or don’t fuel you. It is usually on these ever-so-exhausting days that you may be confronted with the question: “What do I want?” This is when you know you need to schedule time to reflect on the answer.

Chances are you will be naturally motivated to “get clear” about what you want when you can’t stand the inner (or outer) level of complaint you hear yourself engaging in about your current reality. Perhaps you’ll be more intrinsically motivated to take on clarity if you don’t feel satisfied with your current state. My hope is that you can be more proactive. There doesn’t need to be anything wrong with your current situation in order to take time to think about what it is that you want.

If you need a five-minute fix on any given day to take yourself from a Negative Nelly place to one where you feel personally inspired and empowered, find Carla Harris. (This may be when you notice that your Inner Critic is going OFF on someone or something that annoys you. When you push pause and begin to get curious, you can then ask yourself, “Okay, if not this, then what?”) I especially like and recommend, “Carla Harris Gives Career Advice to Her 25-Year Old Self,” a video she did for women in her home workplace of Morgan Stanley.

Oh, and if you need to journal and get off your chest all in your current state that annoys you, have at it. Get out the ugly so you can turn to the good stuff. If you aren’t “seeking” clarity already, I encourage you to do so. At the heart of your life and your leadership is you. Take the time to think about your future.

2. Make time for reflection.

As with anything we want to manifest, getting clear about what we want requires our intention about how and when we devote our time to it. I am an early riser (I get up with the sun on most days) and this peaceful, quiet time in my home is when I have done my best reflection about what I want. Sometimes I need to officially schedule time in my calendar for me to think, write, reflect, or do one of the many vision exercises we at Linkage invite our coaching clients to explore.

One of the most helpful assignments I received from my former coach, Joanne Brem, who I feature in Chapter 6 on Recognized Confidence, was to get some colored pencils and a blank piece of paper and draw pictures of what I wanted in my life. That was her only direction. Though not “pretty,” this exercise was very insightful. Try this on your own journey: Write words and circle them. Draw pictures of things you want to do more of. Have fun with the colors. You may be surprised by what you put on the page. When I was done with this exercise, I tilted my head to one side and thought to myself, Wow, for someone who says she isn’t clear about what it is that she wants, you sure did fill this page!

3. Ask for help.

It can be from your best friend, from a trusted colleague (or a few), or from a professional coach. Frankly, asking for help for the purpose of gaining clarity about what you want is a great way to practice asking—something you’ll need to do when you figure out what it is that you want. Asking (when it benefits you, specifically) is a hurdle that emerged from our work, and so I devote an entire chapter to it in Chapter 8.

What were you doing the last time you felt joyful at work (engaged and happy and feeling like you were making a difference all at the same time)? Be specific. Where were you? Who were you surrounded by? What specifically were you doing? If this is hard for you to answer, you may be doing too much. The racing around to get it all done may be preventing you from seeing the moments that bring you fulfillment with clarity.

And this is why we need to address the hurdle of Proving Your Value.