According to recent research by McKinsey, 83% of leaders think they are unprepared for their new roles. That fully reflects my own observations. Organisations assume leaders are born, not made, and often make very little effort to help people understand what is required of them and how to shine in a new role.

All of the following mistakes come from not recognising that you need to adapt your tactics - either with yourself or others -  when you take on more responsibility:

1. Being too controlling - this comes from a fear that no one can do as good a job as you can, so you tend to just take on the work and not worry about the impact it's having on you or the team. The long term outcome from following this strategy is you feeling resentful and disappointment with your colleagues and them also feeling judged and much less likely to offer to take on anything that has the potential to disappoint you in the future.
   
   Whats the answer? The message you are sending loud and clear to the team is that you don’t think they are up to it. I get that they may not be your dream team but you may surprise yourself by trusting them more and seeing how it goes. People are different when they feel heard and trusted. Start by giving them easy tasks and build both your and their confidence in what they are capable of.
   
   
2. Pushing too hard - As its retirement looms, stories about staff at Microsoft working so hard to produce the Internet Explorer browser that they sacrificed their lives to achieve that seem to be circulating at the moment. There must be millions of identical stories from millions of less famous projects because our culture values short term success over long term outcomes. I once worked somewhere that had “whatever it takes” as the office hours in my contract. I was young enough to not think that was pretty outrageous!
   
   My suggestions? To start with, never ask someone to do something or put in the hours that you wouldn’t have liked to be asked to do when you were in their position. And as a follow up, think about your motivation vs their motivation. Are you asking them to burn the midnight oil so that you look good and get the promotion? Is that really OK with you?
   
   
3. Shiny object syndrome - I think it’s tempting for leaders to believe that a new tool or strategy or even a new team structure will shake out all the old problems and let the organisation (and the leader, of course) ride the easy path to glory. Sadly it never happens. I recently worked somewhere that thought that robots were the answer. I think they got sold some and are still trying to work out where to put the batteries in.
   
   My advice here? Don’t forget that, while the ‘how’ changes with technological progress, the ‘what’ rarely does. Humans evolve very slowly and not all at the same time. Jumping to the new flashy thing seems fun but, unless its a medical breakthrough, its rarely going to be as effective as putting in the hard yards to iron out the fundamental problems that need addressing.
   
   
4. Being too pernickety - Winston Churchill got it right when he said "Perfection is the enemy of progress.”. It’s super easy to get so caught up inhaling everything perfect, that nothing is ever ready. Perfectionists drive everyone, themselves included, totally mad.
   
   You might like to take a tip from the tradition of Persian carpet weavers who make sure there is a flaw in the carpet pattern in recognition that only Allah/God is capable of making something perfect. Another suggestion would be to define the must-haves (spelling, branding, etc) and don’t sweat the rest because no one is looking at it as critically as you are.
   
   
5. Saying yes too much - This one is a killer! Saying ‘yes’ is often what helps us make progress, and over time, we learn to do it as a default. As you make progress in your career, and take on more and more responsibility, this turns out to be less of an effective strategy because, at some point, you will not be able to deliver on all of your commitments. And if you continue to say ‘yes’ and not deliver, you will appear to be less and less capable which is exactly the opposite of what you were trying to achieve, right?
   
   To get on top of saying 'yes' by default, you need to take a moment to think through the impact of either taking the work on - OR - not taking it on. Asking for more detail about what the work might entail is a good way to buy a few moments to chew it over. You might find that saying yes is not automatically the best answer for you - or for them. 
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I hope you have found this helpful. I’d love to hear which of these or other things are getting in the way of your success. Share in the comments or, if you want to talk about it, get in touch!

3. Reframe it
Is there another way to tell the story that you’ve been telling yourself? Let's say you feel that you don’t share the same background or went to a less prestigious university than your peers, you might benefit from reminding yourself that you bring fresh and diverse thinking that they can not offer. Same with not being the same age - your lack or abundance of life experience again offers a new perspective that your competitors lack. Getting in the habit of challenging yourself to tell a negative story in a positive light is a great habit to get into . It may help to make it into a game: how could you retell it so that it sounds like an absolute win? Celebrities and politicians do it all the time. So can you!

Its time to banish impostor syndrome from our lives. If any of these approaches work for you, please let us know in the comments - so that others get inspired to try them!

There are many points in a persons career where finding a job seems absolutely impossible: at the beginning, it feels like you are trapped in the can’t-get-a-job-until-you’ve-had-a-job catch-22 cycle, whenever you want to do something different like change career or refocus, and then at around 50 when it seems no one wants to hire an”older person”. Essentially, we live in a world that makes a lot of assumptions about people formed around basic demographics that really need to be exposed and refuted!

Hiring managers often believe that

1. Past performance (school grades) are an indicator of future (work) performance.
   It turns out, none of this is actually true. Google had to review its strategy of only hiring people from certain educational backgrounds when they realised that sometimes graduates from elite universities actually lacked the skills that were needed in the workplace, like the ability to learn from past mistakes and knowing when to step up when needed. And that approach seems to catching on across Silicone Valley.
2. Younger is faster, more flexible and all around “better” and older is slower, more rigid and “less good”.
   In his book, Late Bloomers, Rich Karlgaard collects all the facts and research and shows us that this is not the case at all. It’s true to say that mental processing power declines with age, but that is often counterbalanced by an improved capability to process complex data, like other peoples emotions, which peaks in our 40’s and 50’s. And we are still gathering and utilising facts and information well into our 70’s. A study of air traffic controllers exposed the fact that while processing speed and short term memory do decline, this is balanced by calmness and reasoning capabilities that only come later in life.
3. Hiring graduates with no experience is risky, so it’s best to avoid that altogether.
   True there are some risks, but they are enthusiastic, don’t expect the pay that their more experience peers will want, are very up to date on the latest tools and techniques of their particular specialism and don’t come with any pre-installed bad habits and expectations.

Here are three suggestions for persuading potential employers to see your potential:

1. Take stock by conducting a personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Consider what you are really great at now (Strengths), what you are less good at these days that your competitors excel at (Weaknesses). Then look at whether there are trends or market opportunities you could exploit (Opportunities) and what new threats might leave you vulnerable, such as trends or your own weaknesses (Threats). Be open minded and honest and you will have a good sense of the lie of the land and how you fit into it. You will see changes you may need to make, maybe to your own outlook or how you position yourself, in order to make progress.
2. Remember that everyone is acting in their best interests, not yours. So make sure you communicate with a WIIFM (whats in it for me?) approach, structuring your messaging around the contribution your skills and experience offer the hiring manager and their company.  Their biggest fear will be making a mistake so focus on reassure them by letting them see how you are the best hire they are going to make this year.
3. Tap into your network. Research suggests that up to 70% of all jobs are not formally advertised its estimated that as many as  85% of jobs are filled through networking. This applies at all career levels, so it’s time to get out more, and reconnect with old colleagues and friends. You never know who knows about that perfect job you are looking for and a personal recommendation carrels a lot fo weight and cuts through many of the preconceptions.

Tried any of these suggestions? Please share how it went for you!