Spotlight on Future Leadership

In the last of our 5-part series on future female leadership, we discus management.

What does managing upwards mean to you?
Executive coach and facilitator Des Cristofi opened her workshop with this crucial question. It is never too early to begin thinking about your future in your career. Bridging the ‘gap’ between yourself and the senior management role you aspire to requires preparing for now.

Have you ever asked yourself how can you:
· Influence the people above you to make the decisions you want them to?
· Carve yourself out as the go-to person?

In short how do you get your seniors to see your potential and position yourself for promotion?

Solution
1. Blowing your own trumpet is one of the ways to communicate your successes so your seniors know who you are and what you can do. Believe it or not, men do this all the time because they know word filters back to those who matter. Talk about your successes and aspirations proudly. Don’t be shy or see it as boastful.

2. Part of managing upwards includes broadening your reach, because your bosses can be demoted or lose clout etc. if a change in management structure occurs in your company.

3. Understand too that you need to be seen as trustworthy, which means keeping company secrets secret and valuing relationships.

4. If you are very junior, do you have allies who can get word around on your behalf? Start forming key relationships early – they will serve you well in future. One way to achieve this is never to have lunch alone (see piece on ***)

5. Understand your influencing style. Are you assertive? Inspiring? Convincing? Bridging? Negotiating? Put yourself in the shoes of your stakeholders and seniors and understand that the way you see yourself isn’t necessarily how they see you. What type(s) of personality do they respond positively to? To make an impact you need to approach them in a manner they will receive well.

6. Dressing ‘ahead’ (i.e. like the seniors whose shoes you aspire to fill one day is a proven way to be taken more seriously now, stand out from your crowd and ‘pre-groom’ yourself for your future role.

7. Join a group of aspiring women who can encourage you to gain confidence and move to the next level.

Bio
As executive coach and facilitator Des Cristofi delivers stakeholder and employee management results across global organisations in the public and private sectors.

We hope you enjoyed our 5-part series on future female leadership, courtesy of the recent *WeAreFutureLeaders conference for women.