Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 1: “Why Am I Not Getting Promoted At Work?" Why it Took Me 10 Years to go from Director to VP

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1: “Why Am I Not Getting Promoted At Work?" Why it Took Me 10 Years to go from Director to VP · SisterSmart Leadership

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  Jill Avey: It took me 10 years of trial and error for me to finally get promoted
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  to VP in my career, and now I help women make that move in just one year.
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  So if you've been struggling to get promoted to the VP level, you'll
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  wanna tune in to hear are the seven pitfalls that you'll wanna avoid.
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  I'll also share three shifts that you can get started on the right track today.
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  So you'll wanna stay with me till the end.
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  I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister Smart Leadership, the
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  show that explores how women can rise from director to vice president and beyond
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  by fully leaning into their feminine energy as their biggest advantage.
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  Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
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  It can be hard to figure all this out on your own.
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  Your mentors don't have all the answers for you, and your manager doesn't either.
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  Your boss might not even want you to move up if there's nowhere for you
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  to go in your current organization, but thankfully it can be done.
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  And you can work on your career specifically, especially when you have
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  a coach to guide you so that you don't make the same mistakes that I've made.
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  I've been helping women leaders get promoted for quite some time, and I've
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  noticed that there's a few essential things that can set you up for success.
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  So let's start with these.
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  You need to have ambition to move up into the higher ranks.
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  Maybe you've heard that inner voice that tells you, you have something
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  special to give to the world.
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  You know that you can make a difference with your talents and
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  you're ready to work hard to get there.
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  You've proven that already.
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  You have the persistence and the grit to do what it takes
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  to get to where you wanna go.
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  Your sense of purpose tells you that you're made for something
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  greater than you are today.
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  It doesn't have to be solving poverty, but in your corner of the
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  world, you want to make a difference.
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  So the second thing that I've noticed is that you need to have a mission
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  that gets you up in the morning.
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  So you have this vision, something you know that you see for your company,
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  your department, your industry.
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  You want to make that vision a reality.
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  And maybe that vision includes helping others like it does for many women.
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  Maybe that's providing a healthy environment for employees to work.
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  I know that was a big one for me.
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  Or maybe you want to be a role model for young women and girls, or even the
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  boys in your life so that they can see the value of women in the workplace.
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  So whatever it is for you, it's something that inspires
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  you even on your darkest days.
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  Number three, you have a growth mindset.
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  You know that to get somewhere new, you have to learn new things, and
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  you're excited about learning because you need to keep growing all the time.
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  It's just part of who you are.
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  You're ready to do the introspection to develop your emotional self
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  so that you can step into a new, bigger version of yourself.
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  One that takes on the challenges and steps into the limelight more.
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  Even if you don't feel like this, now you're ready to do
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  what it takes to get there.
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  Number four, you have support.
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  One of the most important keys to making it to the top is to
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  have a support system at home.
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  Women who are leading at the top levels have worked out support systems
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  so that they're not responsible for everything at work and at home.
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  And this often means that their spouse or partner, is doing equal, if not more of
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  the childcare, elder care, housekeeping, kid transitioning, all of that.
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  This also might be hired out.
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  And ideally you have the support of your manager.
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  It's a bonus if you also have sponsors already established in your company.
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  If you don't have that support and you can't cultivate this through
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  developing your leadership skills, then you'll have to be ready to look
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  somewhere else outside of your company.
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  So this could be a great option for women who are overlooked because
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  maybe sometimes you weren't the right fit at your company or your manager
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  can't see your growth or potential.
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  You know, It's sort of like when your parents still see you as a
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  kid, even though you're grown.
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  When that happens, you can be very successful by moving to another
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  company where you're a better fit and it gives you that fresh start so that
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  you're being seen as a person you are today instead of what you used to be.
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  So in my case, when my boss got promoted to president and suggested to the CEO
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  that I get promoted into the VP role, the CEO, who was a more traditional Taiwanese
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  man, told him that women can't lead.
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  Yep.
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  You heard that right!
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  And this was in the current millennium.
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  It was frustrating, but eventually I did get the job because I had created
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  these strong relationships with some sponsors who stood up for me and they
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  convinced the CEO that I could lead and that I deserve the opportunity
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  and that support system was really a critical piece for me in the end.
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  So now that I'm a coach, I specialize in professional development, and
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  I can see that if I'd had all the supports that I provide my clients
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  now, I probably would've even been able to stay in my marketing career.
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  You see, I didn't have a storybook career progression.
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  I left marketing for many reasons, but now I realize that I may not have had
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  to start all over to find what I was looking for and go through this lengthy
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  process of starting something new.
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  I'm glad I'm here today, but still, that's why I am so passionate about helping
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  women in the middle of their careers.
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  There are a lot of people out there that are promoting to just leave your career
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  and become an entrepreneur, or sometimes what hit for me was the mission of a
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  nonprofit called, and that can seem really enticing when you're feeling burned out.
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  But I believe that for most it's better to find a new way to work
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  that's more effective than it is to throw it all away and start fresh.
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  Not everybody has the personality to be an entrepreneur, and it's expensive to
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  learn a new craft in both time and money.
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  The nonprofit world comes with its own downsides too.
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  While the mission is strong, the pay is usually weak and the hours can be grueling
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  because resources are so constrained.
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  So now I work to help women stay in their leadership roles so they don't burn out
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  and leave because there is a different way to work than most of us fall into.
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  And the world needs women at the top.
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  We need more gender balance so that our companies can do a better
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  job and our society can do better.
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  So now I can see all the mistakes that I've made along the way,
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  which I helped women prevent.
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  So the first mistake I made was not understanding my strengths.
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  I didn't understand all my strengths, and I didn't know how to focus on them.
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  Instead, I was focused on resolving my weaknesses and
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  turning them into strengths.
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  So this means that I didn't do a complete round of assessments, so I
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  only did the Myers-Briggs, which helped me to understand my personality, but I
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  didn't understand my strengths profile.
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  I didn't understand my saboteurs and how they could hold me back.
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  Also didn't know my values, and this meant that I didn't really understand
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  what it was that I was bringing to the table when I walked into a room,
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  I didn't have that clear vision of what it was that was special about me
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  and what it was that I did differently than other people in my field.
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  So I had a vague feeling about all this, but you know, you live in this skin all
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  the time, you would think we know it better, but what I never did was take the
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  time to just sit down and lay all that out so that I could be very clear on it.
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  This would've allowed me to play to those strengths instead of
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  always feeling insecure about the things that I didn't do well.
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  So the second thing that I didn't do well was that I didn't even know about
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  executive presence and how to develop it.
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  I didn't understand executive presence until I became a coach, and
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  now I've dived very deep into it, and I totally understand executive
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  presence for women, but this was not my strength in my corporate career.
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  As a director, I focused on my communication skills, which
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  helped me to do some of this work.
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  I did the Toastmasters program for a few years and was widely known
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  for great presentation skills.
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  I tried to be more assertive because that's what we always
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  hear that women should do.
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  They should be more assertive, but I didn't know how to do that without
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  being off-putting, and so sometimes I came off too strong and I missed
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  opportunities to collaborate better.
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  I did a lot of other communications training as well, but I totally
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  missed out on building gravitas since.
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  So that's a piece that I could have really done a lot more of had I understood what
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  gravitas was and how women can build gravitas to further their influence.
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  So number three, I didn't develop my self-image as an executive, and now I
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  understand that at each level you have to develop your own self-image so that
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  you can rise up to be a bigger leader.
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  In coaching, we call this new level, new devil.
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  It's, this is the mindset work that you really need to do to
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  be able to think of that bigger version of yourself at every step.
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  So we should be making these steps all year, every year, always a
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  bigger version of ourself and always pushing that envelope a little bit.
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  So what resulted in this for me of not doing this work was
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  a lot of imposter syndrome.
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  I didn't feel confident in my work.
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  So no matter how many achievements I made, and there were many, I mean, I launched
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  many successful products and I was an ace at messaging and really getting into
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  the hearts and souls of our consumers.
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  But even after 25 years of doing this work, I didn't consider myself an expert.
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  This is the definition of imposter syndrome, that you never feel quite
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  good enough, even though there's data out there to tell you that you are.
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  So fourth, I wasn't clear on what I actually wanted to focus on, what was
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  really important for me to do well, and what I did not need to optimize.
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  So Greg McEwen calls this essentialism in the book that he wrote on this topic.
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  I didn't understand what was really important, and so what I
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  did was I threw a hundred or 120% of my efforts into everything.
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  And what this did was sometimes spread me too thin, and I often raised my hand even
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  when I didn't even need to take on things.
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  So it spread myself a little, even thinner as well.
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  So this was a journey that I really went on so I, that I could figure out how to
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  get focused on what I really needed to do.
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  And number five.
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  I didn't have a good enough emotional balance.
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  I didn't understand how to work with my saboteurs, and that left me feeling
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  like I wasn't good enough and I had this critical voice telling me that I
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  needed to do better, which often, left me chasing perfectionism and people pleasing.
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  And I felt that if I just worked harder, I could finally feel like I did enough.
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  I thought that critical voice was actually helping me, but I didn't realize
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  that it was actually holding me back.
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  So now I understand saboteurs, and I've done some deep work with my own saboteurs.
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  And as a coach, I understand how these saboteurs affect almost everything we do.
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  And I clearly see how important this work is in order to withstand the
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  ups and downs of corporate life.
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  And this saboteur work has opened up a whole new level for me personally.
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  It's been really great.
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  And now I help women work through their saboteurs and to see them really quickly.
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  So number six, I didn't focus enough on building trust with
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  my peers and the senior leaders.
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  So I was great at building trust with my team as many women are, but I was
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  too personable with my relationships with my peers and senior leaders.
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  So they liked me, but they still didn't trust me as much as
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  they could have professionally.
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  I left performance on the table because I didn't spend enough
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  time building these relationships through that professional lens.
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  And I didn't understand how to build trust with people who I was sometimes
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  at odds with given our different roles.
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  So instead, I kept my head down and I just focused on producing more and
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  more great work thinking if I just kept producing more, I had more good stuff,
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  that they would finally see the value of what I was doing and that they would be
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  able to connect those dots on their own.
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  What I needed to do was to spend more time out there talking about the work
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  that I was doing and helping people to really understand how what I was
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  doing was helping the company as a whole and their functions as well,
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  and that would've opened up a whole new level of collaboration for us.
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  And finally, number seven, I didn't lead with my feminine strengths.
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  Instead, I watched my mentors and I read all the books about leadership but my
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  mentors were men and the books, they were all written by men about a male leadership
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  model that didn't totally fit me and the style that I brought to leadership.
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  So now I know that this is where our real power comes from as women, where we
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  can be our authentic selves, we can lead in a way that works really well for us.
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  Our teams and our companies and women are consistently rated as being
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  better leaders, yet many times we are told that we're not doing it right
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  because we don't fit into that mold.
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  Now, I help women understand their leadership style so that they can
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  articulate what they're doing, and this helps the men that they work with
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  to see the difference and respect it.
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  They may be able to adopt some of their style, or they may not,
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  but they can see why it works.
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  So those are the seven things that I could have done a lot better in my career.
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  And now I help women to do these things in much shorter time than it took
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  me on the 10 years to figure it out.
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  So if that's something you're interested in, I've got three shifts
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  for you to get started with it today.
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  First, know that there is help out there.
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  There are coaches like me that can help you get there.
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  And when I was doing all this, coaching wasn't even really a thing, so I didn't
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  have the support that you can get.
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  And now there's lots of coaches like me and my sister Smart programs, which
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  focus on women leaders specifically.
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  So the second shift that you can make is to take out your journal and write
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  about what you want for your career.
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  What does that quiet voice tell you?
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  Everybody has that inner voice that's drowned out by all
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  the busyness of the world.
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  But if you stop and listen to that quiet inner voice in those fleeting
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  moments, what does it tell you?
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  What does it tell you that you're made of?
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  How far can you really go?
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  How much potential do you have?
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  I had that quiet voice telling me that I could be an executive, that I
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  could go all the way to the top to the upper levels because I had something
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  special to give to the world, and I thought I could lead in a way that I
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  wanted a role model for other people.
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  Wanted to show people what leadership can do and the power of leadership using
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  our feminine strengths and what that can do to pull people together and create
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  better performance for our companies, but also have more sanity for people's lives.
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  Number three, ask yourself why is it important for you
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  to be all that you can be?
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  Why should you fill your potential?
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  Who benefits by that financially and emotionally?
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  Who are you a role model for?
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  So think a minute why leadership's important for you to pursue.
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  Thank you so much for watching the first episode of Sister Smart Leadership.
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  I'm really excited about this season, and I hope you'll join me
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  for the whole series to learn about what you can do in your career.
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  If you're watching the YouTube video, please leave me a comment and let me
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  know what you thought of the first show.
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  If you'd like to stay outta the traps that I found myself in, you're gonna
• 14:42
  wanna check out my private podcast where I go through the seven step
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  process that I use with my clients to put them on their path to promotion.
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  I'll also share my client success stories with you so you can hear from other women
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  who've had the same ambitions as you, because I don't think you wanna wait 10
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  years to have the influence, confidence, and the ability to create change that
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  comes with leading at the top levels.
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  And if you're a female leader who wants to make a bigger impact by leading
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  at the higher levels in your career, subscribe either on YouTube or wherever
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  you listen to your favorite podcast.
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  I'm on a mission to help more women succeed in leadership, so
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  our world gets the benefit of what women bring to leadership.
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  And if that's aligned with you, I'd love to have you be part of this
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  community and tune into more episodes on women's leadership that will
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  support more success for us all.
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  See you in the next episode.
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  If you're ready to fully lean into your feminine leadership and get promoted
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  from director to vice president and beyond, hit that subscribe button so
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  you'll get all the episodes to come and check out the recommended video here
• 15:46
  to see how women are rising up without playing by the old rules that built these
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  male dominated industries and systems.