Shaping Your Job To Fit Like A Glove
When a role seems tailor-made to your strengths and skill set, you have a better chance of success. The jobs that fit like a glove can seem rare, but with a bit of intentional effort and thoughtful evaluation, today’s business leaders can shape their position to find the perfect fit.
First, we must take a big step back from our to-do list and evaluate the big picture of our role. Often, when onboarding in a new leadership position, we are given the facts about what the previous occupant did. Historically speaking, what was the person in that role responsible for, and how did they achieve their goals?
While that information during a leadership transition can be incredibly useful, remember that you are not your predecessor. You have your own set of strengths and talents.
For example, one of my former clients—let’s call her Heather—was hired as a marketing director in a company whose main clientele was Hispanic. The person who previously occupied the role oversaw the creation of bilingual marketing campaigns geared toward that specific demographic. He took the already existing English material and worked to translate it into Spanish, so when Heather took on the position, there were already campaigns in place.
She could have easily continued within the parameters that her predecessor had set, but her skill set was different. She identified the need for developing campaigns in Spanish first, as the language felt more natural and represented the company better culturally when the campaigns were written first in Spanish for Spanish speakers—as opposed to simple translations from materials written in English. She worked to gather a reliable team of Spanish-speaking creatives to design campaigns moving forward, which were all very well received.
Do you see the difference? The role required both people to create marketing campaigns, but they did it in different ways. The previous employee was a fantastic translator and worked according to his own skill set, whereas Heather knew that her value came from organizing teams to create and distribute authentic campaigns in the target language. She understood the position’s overarching goals and molded how she worked to better fit her strengths and talents. Following the path that the previous director had taken would have been ill-advised.
So, how can you tailor-fit your position to best suit you? A helpful exercise I encourage my clients to do is to write a job description for themselves in their current role. This is beneficial not only when starting a new role but also when evaluating your current one. As the economy and companies change, roles do, too. Perhaps the original job description that you were hired for has changed or evolved over time, and you need to be aware of those shifts, however subtle they are.
Once you have your job description, discuss it with your team and supervisor. Make sure that you are all on the same page.
Next, look at your strengths. What do you bring to the table to help achieve the benchmarks of this role? Imagine a simple Venn diagram with two circles—one is the demands of the job, and the other is your strengths. Where do those two circles intersect? Focus on that intersection and home in on the areas where you can excel and contribute.
Instead of getting bogged down with the historical “must-dos” of the role, it may be time to evaluate what your individual capabilities can bring to the team to meet the current needs. This simple idea can revolutionize the way that we take on our work. We do not have to get bogged down in our to-do lists, but instead identify and focus on the tasks that align with our strengths, delegating the rest to capable teammates. In time, you too may find that you have shaped your position to be a perfect fit.