In the middle of my career, I kept running into roadblocks, potholes, and speedbumps. To be clear, I wasn't really doing anything differently than I had done in the past 5 years. From a psychological perspective, I sort of expected my continued hard work and commitment to just show up later as being rewarded. Well, I am here to tell you that it was not. You already knew that because you're probably a lot like me. You've been doing the same thing - possibly very well - for the past several years and just not getting through that barrier.
The beginning of my career was fun. Things came easy. I had tasks and milestones. I was a technical person. I did technical things and I did them well. The "elder" crew loved my willingness to take on tasks and crush them. Little did I realize, that elder crew was likely assigning me small little tasks that were beneficial to them in their larger scheme project (put a pin that concept, it's important and we will need to come back to that later). The little accomplishments had a way of building on itself. Many small victories is a huge success.
But then I hit my wall.
I hit wall after wall after wall trying to grow into positions that did not rely directly on my technical skills (those skills and knowledge were there, sure, in the background but not the primary tool).
It's possible that this was the skills to leadership challenge. I ran into the problem of: what got you here will not get you there.
You may as well repeat that line and say it out loud to yourself: what got you here will not get you there. For multiple reasons.
The first reason is pretty simple - you were hungrier when you were younger. You were scrappy. You were fighting to make a name for yourself. By now, you have a reputation that you've been able to live off of, to some extent. One of my calls to action is to go back and find that person. Can you be scrappy again for yourself/
The second reason is that the job is fundamentally different. When we were younger, we weren't trusted with the bigger, strategic and leadership challenges. We were often given a smaller part of a larger project. We excelled in that role. We didn't have to manage people or the stress that came with getting a large initiative to the finish line. In other words, researching and analyzing a topic is very different than being the person in charge of identifying the project, who should be on it, what their roles should be, how to achieve buy-in, how to manage interpersonal disputes, and so forth.
When you were working on your skills, were you also working on how to become a better leader? Most likely, not. You aren't going to do something unless you absolutely have to do it. Well, now you do - you're here. The moment is calling for you to become that better leader. Till next time.