How to Find Your Next Executive Role—That Actually Matches Your Values
I recently worked with a woman who was landing interviews for senior roles… and couldn’t move forward to the next step.
When we looked into her situation we found this subtle dynamic:
She wasn’t applying for roles at companies that were really a values match for her.
Now we talk a lot about values and purpose at work—but it doesn’t just mean working on the social issues and causes we care about.
Values run deeper than that—and as a result, they can be more complex to ‘diagnose.’ Let me give you some examples:
-Do you think direct communication is best in organizations or do you prefer a softer, gentler approach?
-Do you believe in moving and an iterating quickly and messily, or use a step-by-step methodical approach?
-Do you think analytic data-driven decision making is a better way to proceed or do you think a more intuitive approach should be more widespread in companies?
Your values are the ways you believe work is best done.
And as we grow more experienced as professionals, our values develop and grow.
We grow into OUR unique way of doing things.
Those unique wasy make us so much more valuable.
But they also mean that not every workplace is the right fit for us.
My client? She was an innovator.
She’d led in startups. She’d worked in one of the most innovative companies in her sector.
She thrived in companies where departments worked together nimbly, and didn’t jealously guard their ‘turf.’
But for years she’d been applying to old school bureaucratic companies that didn’t buy into her way of working.
There was a fundamental misalignment. Which was why she wasn’t getting chosen or rising in those companies.
Sometimes we have an idea of the kind of company we’re “supposed” to work in.
Sometimes it’s based on what our parents wanted for us, or what success looked like in school.
But when we pursue that image in our heads of how things “should” be rather than digging into the unique way we like to add value, we end up stuck—stuck not making it to the second interview, or even worse, stuck in a job where our gifts aren’t appreciated.
Stuck not making it to the second interview—or even worse—landing the job in which we can’t thrive and use our gifts.
Because when you’re clear on that, you soar—just like my client.
So when making your next career move, make sure to ask these questions:
- What is my unique way of working? What differentiates me from other leaders?
- What other companies and teams share those values? How would I know? (eg. what do they do differently that would be a ‘tell’ for me that they have this value?)
Then focus your job search and your networking on filtering and vetting companies that have that alignment.
Once my client got clear on her values, everything changed.
“All the sudden,” recruiters began to flood her inbox offering highly aligned roles.
She ended up taking an executive role leading a highly visible change management initiative.
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