On this ask Katrina, the question is:
“Katrina, I just reached the executive ranks, I thought I was finally going to be able to live. Why am I still working my butt off? Why don’t I have this freedom of flexibility that I thought I was going to have?”
The answer to this is what we teach here at Legend Leaders.
So here’s the deal, you’ve been focused most likely, on promotion.
Promotion is what’s gotten you into the executive ranks. It’s required, it’s necessary; promotion is critically important in order to succeed in your professional career.
But what you haven’t done most likely is you didn’t allow for “preparation” in your busy schedule.
You didn’t prepare to exec.
So now you don’t know how to exec correctly.
But what you do know is that you must figure out how to perform at the executive level quickly or you won’t be allowed to stay in that role.
If you’re feeling like this executive role is all a sham; that you’ve set your sights on something and now you’ve realized it’s not true, I’m going to tell you that what’s “not true” about the executive role is that you’re not going to be able to walk in and easily have impact and results without some personal growth.
Freedom Comes from Growth
Every promotion that we move through requires us to grow.
The executive seat is no different.
We thought it wouldn’t require growth and we were hoping it wouldn’t require growth simply because we’re tired.
But the reality is that growth is required.
Growth is required with every promotion. The difference between the previous promotions that you’ve experienced, and your promotion that moved you into the executive seat, is the fact that the preparation required between the promotions on the pathway was minimal.
But the preparation required from management into executive leadership is significant, there is a very large gap.
And you must close that growth gap, and create a high-performing executive brand if you’re going to succeed.
Again, preparation is required in order to perform.
So it’s not a sham and neither are you.
Said differently, there’s nothing wrong with you and there is nothing wrong with the role. You simply didn’t realize that a higher level of growth was going to be required.
Once you move through that growth, once you start performing and execing correctly, then what happens is that you will give yourself the last P that we work through here at Legend Leaders called “permission.” This is what you’re seeking when you say “I thought I was going to have more freedom and flexibility.”
At Legend Leaders, we help high-performing corporate executive women walk through the path of promotion, preparation, performance, and then permission.
You can only enter into the permission phase once you feel like you’re performing well enough at the executive level, to then give yourself permission to live.
What you’re looking for, ultimately, in the question that was asked is this, you want permission to start living because that’s what you thought the executive seat would afford you. And it will, but it will only afford that freedom to you when you’ve prepared correctly and then you are performing effectively.
If you prepared correctly, and then you start performing at a level that makes you feel secure, then you’re easily going to give yourself permission to live. But it’s not going to happen if you’re not prepared.
So if you’re sitting in that seat right now, a seat where you have the title but not the preparation, then let’s go ahead and create your executive brand and strengthen that brand so that you can go from promotion to preparation, to performance, to permission and then start living.