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Personal Power Can Move Mountains

Featured Author:

Linda Griffin

Linda Griffin jumped into the corporate world right out of college. When she made the transition from techie to leader at IBM, she learned that traditional management training didn’t adequately prepare her for the daily challenges of inspiring, empowering and motivating team members. As a leadership and career coach, she now shares what she learned during her successful 30-year career. She helps first time managers, team leaders, and supervisors deal with the expected, the unexpected and the “you can’t make this stuff up” issues that leaders encounter. Linda has an MBA from the University of South Florida and completed training at Coach Training Alliance.

Check out her blog, Career Shock and add her to your WomenCo. network!

More articles from this author:

• Can You Be Too Nice At Work?
• Reap the Rewards of Concentration
• Are You Picking the Wrong Goals?

According to Dr. Laura Belsten, the founder and president of CEO Partnership, personal power is an inner awareness that makes us feel in control of our lives. It is an inner knowing that we can achieve our goals, a calm conviction about who we are and our ability to get the things we want in life.

The first key to creating that personal power is to understand our strengths, what we bring to the job or the family that is unique, special and valued. How they can depend on us. In a job situation, it means assessing your skills against the needs of your work group or department and ensuring that you are a strong resource to the team. Knowing your value gives you that calm conviction described by Dr. Belsten.

Our belief that we lack personal power and are not in control is one of the reasons we don’t achieve our potential. When someone else gets the promotion or plum assignment, it’s easier and more comfortable to blame the boss, the company culture, the glass ceiling or anything else that is out of our control. I don’t discount that any of those things may be real stumbling blocks, but I challenge you to look for things that are within your control that may be preventing your success.

One of my mentors told me to approach any goal as if I had all of the resources available to me to make it happen. This creates a mindset of self-confidence and gives you a feeling of control. You exercise this control by the choices you make on a daily basis as you pursue your goal.

At one point in my career, I wanted a promotion. I was told by some of my peers that I lacked the years of experience that others in the job had. They told me to ‘wait my turn’ because this was how it had always worked. Rather than accept this well meaning advice, I asked for assignments and training that would make me competitive for the promotion.

Unfortunately, when the next opening occurred, it was given to someone with fewer qualifications but more seniority. It seems that my peers’ advice was correct. At that point, I made a choice to transfer to a different group that didn’t have the same mindset. I got the promotion within a year. I made choices that were within my control and achieved my goal.

If you don’t like the direction you’re headed, use your personal power to change direction. Remember that while you can’t change the past, you can change your future by making different choices.