Page 33 - Free Yourself From

16 It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor

view of yourself to views of others around you. And you’ll have a
chance to consider whether some of the assumptions or beliefs that
served you well in your early career may be holding you back as you
try to climb higher.
Then you’ll examine your values—what are the things you most
want to contribute to and get back from your personal and profes-
sional lives? Finally, you’ll lay out a vision of the person you want to
grow into over the course of your career. You’ll look at how the things
you want to achieve align with your values, and how your strengths
and weaknesses can foster or undermine your goals.
Finally, I’ll help you to craft a plan for moving forward with all
this new information so that if your career is out of whack with your
values, you can move to align it better, and you can start enhancing
the strengths and shoring up the weaknesses that are most important
to your success.

A Look at Strengths and Weaknesses in the

Executive Suite

The higher you move in an organization, the more important it is to
assess the dynamics of any new role, reassess your skill set, and think
in broader terms about the appropriate traits, skills, and strengths
you are trying to achieve. An executive vice president who is one or
two levels away from being the CEO has different, probably broader,
responsibilities than a mid-level manager overseeing a small depart-
ment, and she is expected to adapt herself and her skills to this higher
profile situation.
Here’s a hint: When they finally offer you an assistant, it’s not
only appropriate, but expected that someone else will make your
appointments and travel plans. You have more important things to do