Who is Ultimately Responsible for Your Career?
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The short answer to this question is YOU!
But, like most things related to human resources, it is not really an easy answer, nor it is really a short answer. So, let’s dig in a bit more.
The person who cares more about your career, your professional development, your salary, and your future than anyone else is, again, YOU. And as such, any career challenges or decisions of any sort will always fundamentally rest with YOU.
Whenever I am faced with a professional challenge, I think it is so important to seek input from others. I will imagine chatting with what I like to call my ‘Personal Board of Advisors’ (PBA). I quite literally close my eyes, and picture a boardroom table. I imagine chairs around that boardroom table, and then I think about the people I respect most and who are best positioned to help me, sitting in those chairs, and I think about what advice that they would give me.
And, I do more than just imagine them there. I actually call upon them too.
Developing a PBA is essential to managing your career. While your specific PBAs will likely change over time, I always look for people who are kind yet firm, clear yet compassionate, mission-aligned, and whom I trust.
Your PBAs will change based on what stage you are at in your career, what industry you are in, what company you are working for, what job you are in, what project you are involved with, as well as any other number of factors that are impacting your career at any given time.
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I have had the pleasure of cultivating and learning from several PBAs over my career. I vividly recall one PBA that I built when I was recruited into my first director-level human resources job for a global high tech company in the early 1990’s. I felt completely out of my league - talk about imposter syndrome! I recall sitting in executive meetings barely understanding what was being discussed - between tech words and financial words and globalization - and sales process descriptions - I was overwhelmed - and on top of it all I was the only woman on the executive team. I felt like I was doomed to fail. But I was determined not to fail. And I knew that the only thing standing between my success and failure was me. So, to mitigate my lack of understanding, I would write down every word I heard that I didn’t understand. Whether I was in a meeting, on a conference call, or having a friendly chat with a colleague, I wrote in my notebook. I would then meet with one of my advisors later to ‘pick their brains’. Mike was the head of sales, and I would take Mike out for lunch and ask him questions. I would also meet with Mario, the controller, to learn more about how to read financial statements. I would meet with Garth, the technology director, to better understand the technology. And I would meet with Dave, the national consulting director, to better understand the challenges of the global marketplace. I knew that my career development was in my own hands and it was up to me to do whatever was needed to succeed.
As I progressed in this job, my PBA evolved. I no longer needed Mike, Mario, Garth, and Dave as much, but I needed instead to hone my leadership skills. So, I hired my own executive coach, Susan (with my own money), to help take me to the next level. And she did - and I even outgrew her - which is normal, and frankly, it means that she was a great coach.
It really is important to take your career into your own hands, to understand what you need, to fill whatever gap it is that you have, and to fill it with people who can help you. In some cases you will be best served to formalize a relationship with someone who you would like to sit on your PBA, and in other cases, it may be less realistic to do so. It is important to consider the pros and cons of doing so in each circumstance.
All of this is not to say that the organization you work for has no responsibilities for your career development - they do. They are most certainly responsible for several components of your career development, the most important of which, in my view, is being honest with you. They need to be honest with you about the career development programs that they may or may not offer, about any form of training or formal mentoring they offer, about tuition reimbursement programs they may offer, about the purpose and the process of their performance management program and how it may or may not be tied to career development, about the kinds of jobs that exist in the organization, about their track record of promoting from within, and, about opportunities that may or may not exist in other regions or countries.
In addition, good organizations facilitate your career growth by:
Asking you what your career aspirations are,
Providing you with opportunities for training,
Offering up external educational opportunities and tuition reimbursement programs,
Providing you a platform to have an honest discussion about your career goals with your manager,
Being clear about the skills and knowledge that are required in order to be qualified for other jobs that you may aspire to within the organization,
Allowing you time to job shadow someone who might have a job that you are interested in,
Providing flexibility if there is a course you want to take which may cut into your standard working hours,
Being supportive of your desire for a career change, and
Creating opportunities for mentoring both within the organization and even outside of the organization.
And, your organization should also support you if you decide that it is time to seek opportunities elsewhere. Ultimately we all work for the animals. So keeping you in the Movement working for animals is more important than keeping you within one particular position or one particular organization.
So, who is on your PBA? What gaps do you need filled? Do you know how your organization is supporting your career growth?
I want to help to empower you to be the best activist you can be. Please reach out with any questions and I’ll try to answer them in future blogs, anonymously of course!
Always for the Animals,
Krista
The following information is provided for general information purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice or opinions of any kind. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon the materials provided on this website, any hypertext links or other general information without first seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.
The intention of this blog is to promote the longevity and engagement level of the ACTivist community within the Animal Advocacy Movement (AAM). The majority of the advice will be geared towards employees within the AAM in Canada and the United States, but may be applicable to other countries. All information provided assumes that the employee works within a non-unionized environment.
Krista is the Executive Director of For The Greater Good where she consults with animal protection organizations across North America on matters of organizational development and governance. In addition to holding five degrees and designations in human resources, including a master’s degree in organizational development and leadership, she is pursuing her doctorate focused on the employment experiences of animal rights activists in Canada and the United States. Krista first joined the Animal Advocacy Movement as the VP of Mercy For Animals in Canada where she led twelve undercover investigations into factory farms and slaughterhouses. Krista also served as the President of the Board for Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary for over five years, also now serves on several other Boards including One Protest, The Rancher Advocacy Program, Egg-Truth, and Dairy-Truth. Krista is also a member of Womxn Funders in Animal Rights. Krista is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Critical Animal Studies. Prior to joining the Movement, Krista founded a boutique employment and labour law firm in Toronto where she consulted to employers across Canada and the U.S. for a decade, and before that she spent fifteen years in human resources including as the Vice President of HR for one of the largest software companies in the world.