As I mentioned in Are You Coasting?, I have started to work out again. Most of the time, I think my trainer is trying to kill me but she kindly tells me that she is shocking my body to transform it. In the beginning I would protest, but I have to admit I am starting to see results.

Career shocks serve the same purpose in your professional development, they test and eventually develop your ability to lead in different situations.

Career shocks can occur, when you are:

• Released from your company or you have to let people go
• Promoted or passed over for a promotion
• Assigned to a major transformation initiative or special project
• Offered an international or stretch assignment
• Dealing with a toxic manager or work relationship
• Experiencing a crisis that could  impact shareholder confidence or you company’s reputation
• Managing a team for the first time
• Starting a new business or division
• Turning around a struggling product, unit or company
• Failing to grow or resuscitate a business

Research shows that these experiences shape and influence your unique leadership abilities. Over the next few weeks, I will discuss each of these career shocks and share tactics to help you navigate and/or grow through these experiences.

I would love to hear your thoughts on other career shocks that you would like to explore.

Tags: Leadership Development

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 1:18 am and is filed under Career Management, Leadership Effectiveness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.