Page 201 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

182 • CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization

The downside of you managing your career is that you don’t know
where to go and don’t have the talent, but you take control anyway
and drive it into a brick wall.
When I track the careers of CEOs I have interviewed, I can accu-
rately and emphatically state that (if you’re on a leadership track) every
2.5 years you need to have advanced yourself with a move to a broader
role with more complex work responsibility and stepped-up risk—a bigger
job, a growth area, additional duties, stretch assignments, a larger budget,
extra people, a chance to be in charge, a bigger subgroup, or a combi-
nation of the preceding.
You manage this by first being objectively aware of where you are,
what you’ve done, what you can do, and where you should go next.
How do you find this out? With communication, observation, and
constantly acquiring knowledge from your feedback sources (e.g., boss,
mentor, peers, competitors, and circle of contacts).
You commit to yourself and learn all you can about your current job
so that you can justifiably move on. You meet company goals and exceed
the company’s expectations, but more important, you meet your own
goals and exceed your own expectations—fostering an environment for
others below and above to do the same.
Then you let people know that it’s time for you to move up and/or
move on. Do not make change for money alone. Make change if you’ve
learned all you can.

Do not make job changes just for more money. That is not the point,
and it would be a mistake to do it for that reason alone. The first five
or six job changes are about learning and getting the opportunity to
show what you’re made of. If you prove you do exceptional work, people
will be fighting to have you and begging you to take their money. All
you have to say is “Okay.” Good leaders are quickly identified, and
they never have to ask for more money. Jobs and money find them.
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Get an appetite for the journey because you’ll never know where
you’re going.
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