This is why I don't do out of the box leadership skills assessments with my clients. Most of my clients are women and LGBTQ folks who work in male-dominated fields. When they start working with me, they are COMPETENT as fuck. Yet they're not advancing. Here's why (thread):

https://twitter.com/DanielPink/status/1145815604470976515

1. Management skills matter, but they don't get you promoted. When women come to me for help, they're already ridiculously competent managers. They do SO much work behind the scenes, but don't get the credit, compensation, or titles they deserve (yet...more on that below).

“When you look at people who are thriving in their jobs, you notice that they didn’t find them, they made them.” When I talk about “owning” your story at work and in life, this is part of what I’m talking about. Pave that cowpath. (fyi, thread below) nytimes.com/2019/04/07/sma… It might sound daunting, but rearchitecting and reengineering your work life is doable when you put your design, lean, and agile brain to work. Buzzwords aside, the gist is: *What's working? Do more of that*. As an experiment. Get data. If you're on the right track, keep going.

Have you ever wanted to do something and been paralyzed by fear or indecision? What if?? That's a horror story. Tell, write, or draw your story. It might not be so scary. Or it might be! Either way, you'll unlock insights to get unstuck and help you move forward. For example: Maybe your story is not so scary. You need to have a tough conversation at work with a direct report. But you're friends. What if you hurt her feelings? Wait, she's resilient. Bring chocolate? She'll appreciate you help? This isn't a horror story, after all. You've got this. Go.

Something that I learned working for myself that also made my FT jobs better: create your co-workers. Curate you who want to hang out with, support, and learn from. Work isn't a solitary exercise. Having people to "co" with makes everything better. I've been working for myself for 5 years. At first, I was terribly lonely. Here's how I created co-folks:

(btw, I've also done this at FT jobs and it works - you can apply this all to actual co-workers or folks outside your org...ideally both to keep you sane)

I just hosted my first ever group call. Topic: negotiating $. Groups make me a little anxious (I know, I know...I do public speaking as part of my job, what?), so this was a very big deal. If any of you want to join one of these chats in the future, let me know! I might do more. In the meantime, here is what I learned from some of the most accomplished, kick-ass women I have had the pleasure to work with:

1. Always negotiate. The worst answer you can get is NO.