Your Role as a Guide
One of the comments I hear from employees is that they have an unclear career path and that this is impacting their overall employee engagement. When I talk with supervisors and leaders about this challenge, they’re often not sure how to help the employee - maybe because they don’t understand the full suite of options available to people (what if they ask a question I don’t know the answer to?), the path they took looks very different than what’s more prevalent now or they’re not sure they’re prepared to play the role of a true career counselor. I think supervisors and leaders would benefit from getting past this hesitancy because I believe what people really want is not always a single answer but the dialogue on how they get started or what they should think about.
If you’re being asked by an employee to talk about their career path, I think it’s time to broadly dispel the myth that there’s just one career path…just like there’s not just one answer to most tough questions. The question of “what’s the career path for me” at x company or in the broader world, should be answered initially with “It depends.” Your role as a mentor, a manager, or a leader should be to start with some curious questions:
Do you know what you want to do next or several years down the road?
If the individual does know, ask some of these as the next questions…
What is the driver to do those things?
What skills or experiences do you need to prepare you for that role?
What steps (if any) have you already taken to prepare yourself?
Do you see any barriers in your way?
How can I help you in this journey?
If the individual is not sure, ask some of these as the next questions…
Is there someone’s role/job that you’ve observed that you think might be interesting or exciting for you?
What part of your current role excites you the most?
What part of your current role drains you?
If you could add a few (less than 3) activities to your regular work activities, what would energize you the most?
Based on these items, what comes to mind on what you might want to do next?
The good news for you as mentor, manager, or leader is that you don’t have to have the solutions but just need to ask questions, pay attention, share your insights based on what you heard, and try to connect the dots. Each employee needs to define his/her own path and own the related actions to get there. Good advice that I’ve heard in a variety of different forms and that I regularly pass on to employees is to “Own your career - no one will ever care as much about it as you do.”
So…don’t steer away from the conversation with the individual. Lean in and take advantage of the opportunity to ask great questions and listen intently to what is being said or not said directly.
This is your opportunity to invest in the future of the individual, wherever that path may take them, and they will value the investment of time you have made them.