Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad that you're here. And I hope you're doing well in the last week. I've been having a lot of conversations in my coaching, around this idea of ambition and career growth. And there's one group that I
work with. They are a group of Physicians and they were at Stages of their career and it was really interesting to hear them talk about how much they loved medicine, how much they loved Patient Service how much the industry had changed over the last couple of years and how weird it is. Now that patients can leave Yelp reviews or that, you know, instead of doing the handwritten notes. It's all electronic note taking and I noticed the same conversation was coming up.
Up with some of my one-on-one clients who are now at stages in their career, where they're thinking more about leadership and what that means to them and making decisions about, do I even want to manage people and I had this conversation with my boyfriend. I had asked him, you know, did you ever want to be a manager? And he said no, and I thought
that was. So it was really interesting because like my boyfriend is very ambitious and he's very good at what he does and he's a well, recognized expert in his field. But his particular ambition was not driven in the direction of managing people.
And so as I was reflecting on this on the conversation with him and with my clients and with this group that I'm facilitating, some workshops for It had me reflecting about like I think there are really three stages of growth that we go through in the course of our career. And then ambition is the energy, the emotional drive that ignites us and really like drives us forward into further growth and that can come from a few different places and why this is
important. Tent for you is that you want to know what kind of ambition you have? You want to know what's driving it and realize that that might change depending on what stage of your career in and this becomes important. Because when we don't understand for ourselves, what is it? That's driving my ambition. Then what happens is we can achieve a lot.
But not really feel satisfied or content by that or we can't accomplish a lot and be well, recognized and well, respected in something that we never really wanted. But thought, well, that's what I'm supposed to do at this age that's been coming up a lot too. And my coaching clients are saying, you know, at this age, like shouldn't I already know how to do this, or at this age? Shouldn't I be somewhere? And so I thought Okay, this is all connected.
So let me go back a minute. There are three stages that I'm seeing. I think we all go through this. The first stage in career is like the Workhorse stage. You can also think of this as paying your dues and it's one where new we don't really know what's going on. We don't really know what we don't know. But we're really eager. We're willing to work hard and we think, you know, I just need to do the the work. So for my clients and medicine and might be when you're in
residency. Like, I just need to be a Workhorse and do the work from my clients in the legal profession. It's your first couple years as an associate. Your, it's just about doing the work getting the hours in creating that foundation. So that you understand more about what's going on and how to apply your learning to real-life situations.
This is sometimes the transition between I mean like a boot camp, coding environment, and then actually working, you know, with humans in the workplace building things. So that's that first stage and often that is driven by the desire to get good at something that you are new at.
And it might even be driven by a desire to prove yourself, especially if you are the Only one in your family in that industry or if you are the only one in your friend group or in your community or, you know, you're the person who you think I like. I am an unlikely person to be in this position to be in this career and I am going to prove myself. I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to learn how to do this. I'm going to be good at this. So that's that first stage.
We're in a huge learning mode because there's just so much. That's happening. We're very sponge-like. Absorbing everything. And that stage is characterized by a lot of activity. There is a lot of doing there is a lot of grinding. There is a lot of just working really hard for a, you know, period of time. That's the first stage. Then we transition to a place where you're no longer brand-new. You've been putting in so much work. You have a much better understanding.
Understanding of the domain and of the practice and you're feeling pretty confident and competent about what you know, and I think of this, as the practitioner stage, you are a confident and competent practitioner, and you might also be the person who begins to do a little mentoring. Or when someone new is on-boarded, you get paired with them to help. Get them oriented and up to
speed. You. To understand a lot of the unwritten rules about your profession or about your industry or about your organization and there can be a really satisfying feeling of. Yes, like I am a competent and confident practitioner in this field and I'm just going to do it really well and at this stage to because there's so much, you know, you've also learned how to work better. Better with the systems around you so that things don't take as much time.
You have a bit more. He's a bit more knowing. And so, you know, you're getting to enjoy this competent, confident, practitioner. You're really good at what you do and you enjoy it. And then, the third stage is when we start thinking more strategically and we start thinking about Legacy, we start King about who's next? Like we think about the incoming generation of practitioners.
We think about what is possible for the industry, and where the industry is going, you now have this broader perspective. You also have so much knowledge and you worked so hard for it. That you probably want to cultivate others. You want to share that knowledge.
You see maybe a better way. Way of doing things you have learned through years of work and practice that there are some like processes or systems or relationship building that is just really effective and you may have innovated along the way and thinking of a couple of my clients who, you know, the work we do is the work of, can I really do it this way? Like, can I manage with kindness? Can I manage like being myself or am I supposed to be like
these other people? People and seeing them succeed and Thrive as been so satisfying because I see them and some of the things we talk about is how, you know, you have innovated in your field, your you're leading your team in a way that may not be common but it's very effective and it's now like you are establishing a new model, you are now a living role model of what's possible and of a different way to be.
Successful in this career and thinking of my clients who are parents of young kids and thinking of my clients who have chronic illness and have had to craft their career journey and their leadership journey in a way that they didn't see modeled for them. And now they have walked their path and created, another example for others in their field. So they're really stepping into this idea of Legacy. And what does it mean for them?
And I see also my boyfriend in this in this stage 2 because he cares so much about sharing his knowledge, with incoming, students and incoming coders. He's a software developer. So he wants to really share what he has learned with other people. And that Legacy stage does not require you to be a people manager.
Sometimes it does. But I wanted to distinguish that and I also want to share that these three stages are not linear in the sense that you go through them for one period of time and then you never revisit that. Again, part of what happens is the more you learn, the more you realize, how much you don't know.
So he can feel like you're always a beginner but having this sense of, you know, to some degree like we always Is Will cycle between being that person who wants to work really hard, being the confident and competent practitioner who is
just great at being that person. And then stepping up into the Legacy perspective, where you're thinking strategically, you're having a broader vision for yourself for your industry, for the community that you work in. And and it's so valuable to know what stage you're at. And I've talked a couple of times when we forget that. We're no longer the Workhorse, then we stay there. And we never really embrace the Strategic thinking and the bigger perspective.
And when we don't do that for ourselves, then other people really struggle to do that to like other people will. Just look at you as though you're a really hard worker and that's all rather than like this is a hardworking person who also is strategic, who also has great boundaries who also does not work on the weekends, like like the whole picture of not just what you do, but how you think and how you see And what's so interesting, is because you have had the life experience that you
have had. You will see things that might be quite different than how other people see things. And that's what allows you to be creative and Innovative and to really step into a role model role where you are shaping and redefining yourself your industry. And what's possible for others, which I think is just one of the most meaningful. It's of being a human who works with other humans is the way that we can have that kind of
effect. So the way that this connects with ambition, if ambition is this internal drive, it is emotional. It is not a purely intellectual thing. It is driven by the energy of the Heart, by the emotion, and what drives our ambition can also change. So in The beginning, sometimes you might think. Oh, my ambition is driven by my desire for achievement as simple as that. I achieved a lot in school. And now that I'm out of school. I also love that feeling of achievement.
And so, my achievement Drive kicks in. And I am motivated to succeed and I am, my ambition, is purely hooked up to my high achievement drive and my sense of identity as a high achiever. But what happens is that if that is the only Only source of motivation that becomes quite limiting. It's not sustainable and you can end up in a life and a career that you don't actually want. I'm thinking of a friend of mine years ago.
She and I went to law school together and she was working for this big law firm and one day she said, you know, Kim. I got the dream like I am working for this big firm and I'm making all this money and I also don't get to spend. Nearly enough time with my kids and I got the dream but I think I chose the wrong dream. Like I got what I wanted but
actually did I want that. She hadn't really pause to reflect until she'd achieved that goal and then re-evaluated and honestly, that is something that I can understand and relate to. I went to law school. I was really good at being a law student. I became a lawyer. I'm really good at tests. I took the bar exam, I studied really hard. Felt so good with that achievement. And then when I had it, and I really paused and thought, like,
what am I doing? Is this, is this really, what I want to be doing, is this really like the shape of my life? I decided no, and I went into a different direction. So I'm saying this, because it is so valuable to pause, from time to time to check under the hood. And just see, clearly, what is driving your ambition. And so it could be achievement. It could be money and financial reward. That is not a bad thing. Not at all. So maybe that's what's driving it. Maybe it's a desire for Mastery.
A desire for expertise. I really understanding something deeply and enjoying how it feels to be a very expert. Level practitioner may be what's part of that achievement. And ambition engine is This how other people will see you that feeling of, I need to prove myself can be really hooked into that, that gets tricky to, by the way, because people do a lot of things for status for what will other people think and that ultimately can lead us to all kinds of places.
We didn't necessarily want to go for people that we don't necessarily care about, but that's something to be aware of to we can be Be driven by Legacy. As I was talking about. The desire for ambition, can be a desire to create something. After you, a desire to nurture others, a desire to have an impact to have a ripple effect that far extends Beyond who you are in this moment. Your ambition can be about creating change one of my
clients. Her ambition was, I want to be at the leadership table advocating for our group? I want to be at the table, making decisions about who we hire about compensation. I want to make decisions about, you know, like who this firm works with and who this firm does it work with? So all of these desires of my ambition is driven because I want to be the one who is able to create change because of the decisions that I make. You might choose ambition based on autonomy.
I want to be more in power to make decisions about what I work on, who I work with. And when, and you might be driven by a sense of excitement and Novelty and bishan. As this expansive curiosity, and this hunger to learn more and keep growing. And if you are a human, it's very likely. That your particular ambition Drive is a mix of some of these different things and some years. It might be more of one. And some years.
I might be more of the other because it can change especially as you achieve your different goals. You'll find that the same thing that motivated you for one stage may not really get you energized for the next stage. So, one way to think about leadership. And one way to think about ambition and these three different stages of the Workhorse. The competent practitioner, the Strategic Legacy person with the vision is to think in terms of what are the decisions you want
to make. So at that earliest level, the Workhorse level. We often don't have a lot of choices. It's just about taking what's given to us and executing becoming a really good at doing the thing that other people. People assigned to us, we don't often have a lot of choice about that as we go into the confident and competent practitioner. You may have more decision-making, Authority about how you work or when you work,
right? And then when you're on that Legacy stage, when you're thinking, in terms of big picture, often that's paired with making decisions about what other people will work on. So you're thinking about Staffing, you're thinking about who's Right person to assign this project or this work too, but not always. So I mention this because I think it can be helpful to ask
yourself. What are the decisions that I want to be in charge of what are the decisions that I want to hold the responsibility for making for my boyfriend? He didn't want to manage people did not want to make decisions about Staffing or people. Well, he wanted to make decisions about what he's working on and like when he's working on it. He wanted a lot of autonomy and he wanted to go deep into his particular field, become an expert practitioner there for somebody else, the desire.
Maybe I want to have autonomy and decision-making power over. Who our clients are. I want to make decisions about who we hire. How we hire them, maybe you want to make decisions about onboarding, or you want to make decisions about policies in your organization around, you know, Leah around taking leave or taking sabbaticals, or all kinds of different things, but know for yourself, because it's easy
to get lost in either. Comparing yourself to others and thinking you should do what they do because you're the same age or it It's easy to just get lost in the momentum because life has momentum. And if we're not checking in with ourselves, it's easy to get swept along and then think, what am I doing? Why am I here? And do I even want this? So that is what I wanted to share with you today. These different stages are not
totally linear. They are not exclusive like we cycle between them all but my hope is that As you go through the week. Keep this in mind for yourself. What is your ambition driven by? Where are you in your career stage? And how does that inform? What's next? All right. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time.
If you know, it's time to level F, but you feel All your perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty getting in the way then come work with me. We'll have six months of one-on-one coaching and it all starts by going to my website, chemicalguys.com coaching and joining my waitlist. Talk to you soon.