Find your CLAN
To put your leadership mission into practice, you need to choose your company carefully, love what you do, aim high and network with purpose
Once you have an idea of your leadership purpose, you need to find ways of putting it into practice, and applying it to real-world circumstances. That could be by shifting gear within your current job, and finding new ways to make an impact and develop your leadership skills. Equally, it could mean finding a new job, moving to a different role within your current workplace, or starting up something of your own.
To purpose, you need to add a place and people that can help you make it happen. That may already exist in some form, or you might have to create it yourself from scratch. All of which, of course, is easier said than done. How can you know what you’re looking for before you’ve found it? Well, in many ways you can’t, but what you can do is understand some of the criteria you will need to assess different opportunities and routes to goal.
In whatever form it takes, you need to find what we like to call your CLAN. It stands for four things:
- Choose your company carefully
- Love what you do
- Aim high
- Network with purpose
This is advice that holds whether you’re looking for a new start or keen to make the most of your existing career circumstances. Here’s what we mean by CLAN:
Choose your company carefully
Whatever you choose to do, you will need the help, trust and belief of other people to make it work. That will include everyone from managers and mentors, to your peer group of colleagues, and a wider network of people you meet online and through events.
The people you work with and alongside are so vital in helping you grow and develop as a person, and ultimately into the leader you want to become. Do they push and inspire you? Are they honest with you about how you could do things better? Are they fun to work with and be around?
I’m often asked for advice by people considering starting their own business. When they ask me what the most important decision is in the early days of a business, I can say with confidence that there’s no more important decision than your choice of co-founders (and the same stands for colleagues if you are looking for a job rather than a start-up). Get it right and they’ll help you step up and the business scale up; get it wrong and the whole company can come crashing down. My rule of thumb is this: if you’re arguing over the name of the company and percentage of company shareholding on Day One, then you’ve got to wonder what the relationship is going to be like further down the line. Regardless of whether you’re looking for co-founders or new colleagues, if you’re keen to step up and take on new responsibilities, then working with people who stretch you, challenge you and bring out the best in you will accelerate your development and help you to develop mutually supportive relationships that will underpin your leadership journey.
Of course, ’choose your company’ has several meanings here. Sheryl Sandberg famously said that a woman’s most significant career choice is her life partner and it’s certainly the case that stepping up is a lot easier if you have a supportive partner who champions your corner and backs your ambition with practical support.
The other ‘company’ you need to be choosing carefully is your place of work. Does it have a good track record of promoting diversity, innovation and professional development? Will there be opportunities to relocate or work across different areas of the business? You need a hospitable environment in which your leadership potential can flourish, so this is the moment to look before you leap!
If you’re considering jumping ship from one business to another, before you sign on the dotted line be sure to base your decision on available data (‘Best places to work’ awards or diversity data for larger corporations), social recommendations (such as Glassdoor), and, wherever possible, face-to-face intelligence from people working within the company now. With LinkedIn, you’re a click away from meeting prospective colleagues and understanding what makes them tick and how they feel about the company they work for. Don’t be afraid to reach out. Find someone who’d likely be in your team or thereabouts and ask if they’d be happy to meet for breakfast or beers. They’ll be pleased to meet you (if they’re good prospective colleagues!) and will give you a clearer sense of whether you’d be likely to fit in and flourish in their world.
Love what you do
This may sound like an obvious point, but it bears repeating. Quite simply, you have to be passionate about what you’re doing if you want to make a real success of it. The work is too hard, the challenges too numerous and the setbacks too frequent to have it any other way.
You need to be doing something where you could have a bad morning, even a few bad days, and not be discouraged from carrying on. Loving what you do is core to having the motivation to keep going, whatever hurdles you may face.
And that’s why having a leadership mission is so important: meaningful success isn’t just a series of milestones to be ticked off the professional bucket list; it’s a burning desire to succeed at something you actually care about that makes it worthwhile getting out of bed on a cold, dark morning when the last thing you feel like doing is emerging to face the day.
So find a job, create a career or build a way of working that you can pursue with passion and then give it everything you’ve got. Because you’ll need everything you’ve got (and more than you ever thought you had!) if you want to keep on stepping up.
Words of wisdom: Show the fire in your belly
To inspire, you need to demonstrate you are absolutely passionate about your job. Let people see the fire in your belly and the light in your eyes. Speak with real conviction. To inspire others, you first need to be inspired yourself. Be interested and interesting. Step up and step in front of the work. Let people look into your eyes and buy into you. The content of the work is important but what really matters is you, your integrity, your work ethic, your personality – this is what sets you apart as a leader.
LINDSAY PATTISON, GLOBAL CEO, MAXUS WORLDWIDE
Aim high (but appreciate what you’ve got)
Be ambitious in the long term. Don’t just think about what your immediate next step is. Jump forward a few moves and consider what the landscape will look like from there. What trends and changes are affecting your work; which competitors both existing and potential should you be thinking about; what does your dream client or customer market look like and how could you get there? Be ambitious for yourself too: where do you ultimately want to end up and what are the stepping stones that will get you there? At the same time, don’t expend all your energy looking for the next role. Never forget to do your current job with grace and gusto!
In your current role, don’t be satisfied just to do what works, think about what else you could be doing to deliver brilliant things that move you and your business forward. This means developing a mindset where you’re never entirely satisfied or settled, and are always looking for a new way to improve, innovate and do even better next time.
That’s as true for dealing with immediate business issues as it is for thinking about your own career trajectory. How can you turn a solid client relationship into a great one? A satisfactory product into a market-leading one? A well-honed team into an award-winning one?
As a leader, you have to be living in the ‘now’ while keeping an eye firmly on the future: the opportunities, innovations and threats that tomorrow will bring. When you’re figuring out your next leadership move, don’t settle for something you feel entirely comfortable with; go for the ambitious option that will challenge you and take you to a new level. Always be aiming high. And stepping up!
Action: Think about your ’now, near and next’. Pen a two-line answer for these three questions:
- How is the work I do now giving me opportunities to develop as a leader?
- What are the near opportunities to develop that I could take on?
- What is the next step for me in my leadership development? How do I reach it?
Network with purpose
Networking makes many people shudder, but with the right mindset it shouldn’t be a chore, a bore or a bogeyman. In fact, we’d argue it’s one of the single most important routes to unlocking and accelerating your leadership potential. If you want to be an effective leader, you’ll want to be well networked both within your organisation and beyond, across your sector. You don’t network because it’s fun to collect business cards, you network because you need to meet people to build business context, procure market intelligence, spot patterns, meet potential clients, source the best colleagues, influence decisions, and look around corners to see where the next big ideas are coming from.
Whether you’re trying to hire the best talent into your team, looking for a new role, or seeking someone to mentor or advise you, it’s generally a good plan to get out there and start networking. If you’re someone who finds that a bit intimidating, take it from us: no one is entirely confident going into a room full of people; everyone has social anxiety on some level, and the only thing you can do is be yourself, be interested in other people, and be clear to yourself about what you’re hoping to achieve (yes, it’s back to our old friend purpose!). Having said that, if you’re not too time constrained, then attending events with an open mind and a view to letting serendipity take its course can sometimes yield surprising results. Either way, now that you’re stepping up, it’s time to conquer your fears and throw yourself into it. If you want more networking hacks flick straight to Step 3 where we really get into the nitty-gritty of how to build a network with purpose.
Sarah says: Taking your next step
Too many people think about their careers as a game of snakes and ladders. You’re either up or you’re down. It’s better to see it more as noughts and crosses: moving pieces sideways, forwards and diagonally to build a winning position; going in different directions at different times depending on the circumstances. Here are a few different moves for you to consider on your own leadership board:
- Move up: when did you last get promoted, change role or take on new responsibilities? If you’re not feeling challenged in what you already do, it’s probably time to start thinking about – and asking about – what else you could be taking on. Don’t wait around, hoping to be recognised or tapped on the shoulder; begin a conversation with the people that matter in your organisation. Start with a clear idea of what you want to do and how else you could contribute beyond your current role. Make suggestions about how that could be achieved, with a view to creating a win–win situation that gives you additional responsibility and gives the business additional value, whether that’s a straightforward promotion or involves creating a new role or team to grow a new area of the business.
- Move across: It might not be the right time to move up and you could benefit from taking a sideways step. This doesn’t have to mean treading water. You could be developing skills and experience in a different part of the same business – or on secondment at a sister company or different geography. In an age when collaboration and cross-functional working are prized capabilities, this could be an incredible opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people and gain a more holistic view of the business. A lateral move to broaden your experience and skill set can very quickly provide the launch pad for your next upwards leap.
- Move diagonally: left-field moves are often worth considering too. It could be a move into an adjacent industry, a shift from practitioner to academic, becoming a freelance consultant or setting up a business of your own. You’ll still need to weigh up whether it’s right for you: will you love what you do and does it allow you to aim high? Does it match the leadership mission you’re shaping for yourself? Many leaders reach a point where the only way to pursue that purpose without compromises is to create your own vehicle, a business where you set the mission, culture and values. That’s a big step, and shouldn’t be taken lightly, but for many people who do, it’s the best move they ever make.
Words of wisdom: Climbing the grid
You may be driven to ‘get to the top’ but sense-check that desire. Ask yourself, ‘Why do I want it? What does “the top” look like to me? What does it mean to me?’ Do you only want to be the boss because you think you should, because you think that’s where the ladder goes? Perhaps you are better as a specialist, an independent contributor.
I like to think about a career as a grid instead of a ladder. You want to balance your functional specialism with leadership hierarchy. Where do you want to be on the grid? Where are you happiest and can offer (and receive) the most value out of the relationship you have with your employment? Have an honest conversation with yourself about what motivates you, what you want in your life. Leadership, like a specialist capability, is a skill and not everyone has it naturally or enjoys doing it.
DEIRDRE MCGLASHAN, CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, MEDIACOM
Step 2: Values—On a page
Takeaways
- Understand why it is you want to lead: what combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are making you want to take this step? Start with your personal values and ambitions and go from there.
- Define a career purpose that can follow and grow with you throughout your working life, as you take on different jobs, roles and responsibilities. Purpose should start with something that matters to you and the impact you want to make. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have all the answers to start with; work out a direction of travel and the rest will follow.
- Think about finding your CLAN: Choosing your company carefully, Loving what you do, always Aiming high, and Networking with purpose.
- Don’t see your leadership journey as a game of snakes and ladders either, where you’re always either up or down. Think of it more as a noughts and crosses grid: you might have to make some sideways or diagonal moves to keep progressing and that’s absolutely fine.
Assignment
Define and write down your own leadership mission. It should be sufficiently ambitious that you won’t be able to achieve it next week or next year but practical enough to be attainable in the next few years. List some immediate steps that you can do to take you in the right direction of travel.
Read and listen
Books
- Michael Hayman and Nick Giles, Mission: how the best in business break through, Penguin 2015
- Seth Godin, Linchpin: are you indispensable? How to drive your career and create a remarkable future, Piatkus 2010
- Adam Grant, Originals: how non-conformists change the world, WH Allen 2017
- Mamas and Papas, Make Your Own Kind of Music
- Fleetwood Mac, Go Your Own Way
- Puccini, Nessun Dorma, from Turandot
Up next
The new leadership intelligences: digital, entrepreneurial and inclusive
The principles of Stepping up leadership
How a leadership network can take you further, faster
The central importance of building your confidence and safeguarding your well-being