What's The Shape Of Your Career?

Lately we've been discussing a new question: What's the shape of your career?

Most people think of the shape of their career being something like a fused set of triangles, much like this:

The blue part is what you do as an individual contributor. The yellow part is what you do as a leader. Duration of career is along the X-axis.

This is reasonable as far as it goes: we all start as a 'doer', even if you start somewhere new as a leader.

Our conversations are swinging around to thinking of your career as having more of the shape of an amphora, as shown in the lead photo (all pictures of amphorae from Wikimedia Commons, blue/yellow rectangle drawn by Gemini). 

An amphora is very narrow at the bottom, then broadens out, then and only then becomes narrow. Think of a cybersecurity career: starts with skills, then moves to project and program and team leadership, then maybe a few people become higher-/enterprise-level leaders.

Here is what that looks like relative to a career:

The two big differences here relative to the rectangle are these.

First, you can rise quickly -- but top-out, or middle-out if you prefer. Things happen, particularly industry changes and political changes and personal/life/health situation changes. 

Second, let's say this out loud: it's really, really good to be a super-talented individual contributor and not go into leadership. In fact it's much better for everyone that you not go into leadership if your heart's not in it or you don't have the talent. 

The amphora model indicates that either through personal choice or situational constraints there are more opportunities to be an above-average contributor and operational leader (project/program/team lead) than an enterprise-level leader. And let's face it, this is what happens in most organizations.

And furthermore, check out the lead photo again: not all amphorae are exactly the same shape.

The three keys are to learn actively what works for you and to develop your talents to be ready to be a better contributor at the operational or enterprise-level leader levels, all the while maintaining your technical acumen.

It's your career, after all. Listen to your career signals. Take an active role in shaping it.

Ask us how we can help you shape your career.