Career Management: The Right Way to Climb the Ladder

By Jane Higgins, CSMR

Clinical Career Specialist

When you’re only on the first step, climbing the whole ladder can seem daunting. We want to be at the top as quickly as possible to share our passion and our knowledge with our peers. We crave instant gratification we crave in our careers to be where we want to be when we want to be there. Let us not forget, however, that while our destination is desirable, it’s the journey that will be the most valuable, memorable, and useful to us once we reach where we’re going.

Four Lessons for your Next Career Move

When you think about getting started in your career, or even making a change to a new company, it’s hard to not envision your end goal and become too impatient. Working at a place like FOX, opportunities are abundant, so the temptation is always there. Patience takes a lot of practice. I’ve found some of the below reasons to be the most important lessons I didn’t know I needed:

• Being an ambitious professional myself, climbing the ladder seemed more important to me than the job I had. I was so focused on the next thing I was going for, I wasn’t taking the time to harness the skills of my current job. Lesson number one, you can’t move onto the next position without mastering the one you have.
• Even though you love your field and purpose, it can be hard to find value in your position if you’re concentrating on what’s coming next. Once I started focusing on my current job, a light bulb turned on. I was suddenly more valuable to my peers and more respected by my directors. How can you expect to lead without having the appropriate knowledge to fall back on? Lesson number two, there is incredible value in being able to perform the job of your colleagues and become a resource for them.
• After I began really enjoying what I was doing, becoming a resource for my team, raising my hand for every opportunity, more opportunities began to come my way. There was a change in how I viewed my career in terms of what it meant to me. Lesson number three, there is merit in wanting to genuinely help people reach their goals while you work on reaching yours.
• By nature, wanting to be the best employee possible is always the goal. As I mentioned earlier, the journey is what makes the destination worth it. If you were to jump ill-prepared into a leadership role or any other position for that matter, would you feel as though you earned it? Would you feel you had the respect of your colleagues? Would you feel you had all the tools necessary to do your job? FOX, for example, does a great job of coaching, teaching, training, and providing all the necessary tools to help you be successful. They cannot do it for you, though. You have to be driven enough to put the work in. Lesson number four, climbing the ladder gains you experience, but it takes time. There is great value in taking the time to learn the ins and outs of your job, one step at a time. Ultimately, this will make you a better leader. And after all, leadership is never about your, it’s about who you lead.

Take the Career Journey One Step at a Time

All in all, no two ladders are the same. Everyone’s path will look a little different. For example, working at a place like FOX which promotes internal growth, professional development, continuing education, the opportunities will undoubtedly arise. No matter where you are, I would urge employees to take advantage of the development opportunities available to them, raise their hand for anything that involves diving into unknown territory. Growth is found in places we have never been after all! Enjoy each step on that ladder so when you do reach the top you can look back and feel good about the knowledge you have absorbed. You can then celebrate the initiatives you helped form, the relationships you’ve built, and the hard work you put in. Most importantly, you can reflect on the people who gave a hand to push you up that ladder so that you can now lend a hand to someone else.