ELI Group's Blog

Taking Charge of Career Success

Many factors come into play when determining career success.  Interestingly, many people simply fall into roles or let their next position be determined by a boss or mentor.  While occasionally this may work out well, truly effective leaders take a personal inventory every 6 to 12 months to make sure that their career is staying on track.

Aligning three key factors ensures that you are operating in your leadership “sweet spot”:

1. Skills & abilities – these are the tasks you naturally do well; the things that come easily to you and would be considered your strengths; areas of knowledge and expertise
2. Organizational needs — these are the things that the organization values or needs accomplished to be successful
3. Passion — these are the activities that you love to do; the things that energize you and bring you a sense of meaning and personal enjoyment

Too often we only consider two of these three important elements.  To truly reap the benefits of operating in your leadership “sweet spot” all three pieces need to be aligned — this leads to the most positive results for both the individual and the organization.

What makes this challenging is that all three components are constantly changing and evolving.

• Skills evolve (or become obsolete) over time
• Organizational needs change based on economic conditions
• Passions shift as we mature and experience new things

Therefore we can not take it for granted that once we achieve our “sweet spot” that we still stay in that state for the long-term.  Constantly be attentive to signs that you are no longer energized or stimulated by your work.  Take action in a proactive manner to explore next steps in your career before hitting a plateau or becoming disengaged.  This will allow your career path to be much more intentional instead of simply a stroke of luck.