There is a common refrain that is heard among most employees in most industries related to building strong resumes and the role they play in getting a promotion. That tune is often coupled with complaints from many of us that the great changes and innovations we seek would be possible “if only we were in charge.” While having a great resume is helpful, and while having a fancy title looks good on a business card, the world is full of great leaders who had neither of those. In fact, we have to wonder if a great resume and a fancy title are precursors to one’s success as a leader or the outcomes of it.
No matter what you believe to be true, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that leading is an action one takes, not a position one holds. See attached.
3 Mistakes We Often Make As Young Leaders
- I need to be in charge to impact great change. This is rarely true and is one of the most common misnomers across many industries, especially within education. There are countless examples of principals and teachers who have single-handedly changed the culture and performance of dozens or even thousands of students with little or no direction from a school district leader and without any reference to the district’s strategic improvement plan. In fact, nearly all of the great ideas we have in education (from collaborative work stations to teacher PLCs to problem-based learning) have been designed, created, implemented, refined and deployed by innovative educators who dared to go their own ways.
- I cannot build leadership skills until I am a leader. This is another in a long line of excuses we file away and then pull out when it conveniences us to complain about this job or that one that we didn’t get. We’ve all been there. Still, leadership is not a title. In fact, it’s a chicken-and-egg sort of thing. Among our best leaders, it is more likely that people were listening to them, intrigued by their solutions and following them long before someone asked them to take a leadership role or management job. Whether your current job is a plant operator, teacher, cafeteria worker or assistant principal, you can lead right now by implementing a new idea or process or training and then learning from the mistakes you make so you are growing now as leader and manager long before you take the next job.
- I will stand out from others by building my credentials, having a stronger resume. There is certainly some benefit to completing a training, earning a new certification or winning an award. Those things may help someone’s resume to stand out a little among the pile of them sitting on the manager’s desk. Still, the hard truth is that most of our resumes look pretty much the same, especially among those applying for the same jobs. The difference then in standing out is not found on the resume. The key differences are found in the ways we carry ourselves each day as change agents, innovators, hard workers, and relationship-builders. In truth, these defining characteristics are noticed long before we get the promotions that we seek, and they serve as the cornerstones of our professional reputations that impact how people perceive us long before we end up in an interview room.
The best advice for young leaders in “building your resume” is this: Don’t worry too much about your paper resume. Focus more on your professional reputation. Think deeply about how you are perceived by those you work with and by your bosses, consider the colleagues you spend the most time with and then surround yourself with those who will push you. Work hard, be honest, and lead where you are. Why? Because those are the things that make you you, and they say much more about you than a piece of paper ever will.
