Ten Career Limiting Moves for Executives

As you move up the executive ranks, there are certain behaviors that will give you a boost, and others that are very career limiting moves. Here are some of the career limiting moves and how to avoid them.

1). Getting too close to your boss. This may seem counter-intuitive, but don’t let yourself get too close to the boss. It is especially important not to be friends with the boss. Be friendly. Invite the boss and his/her spouse to dinner (preferably at a nice restaurant). Accept any invitations given to you. But never, never think that the boss is your friend. S/He isn’t. If the choice comes between you and losing his/her job, which do you think will win? And letting the boss know your personal life challenges can only lead to disaster.

2). An office romance. There is an old saying that applies. “Don’t dip your quill into the office inkwell ‘cause someone will come along and cut your feathers off.” Crude, but true. As soon as you enter into an office romance, you are a target.

I tried to tell this to one young friend of ours who started to go out with a senior official of her company while she was consulting there. It didn’t last. Neither did she. If you absolutely must date someone you’ve met at work, one of you should quit and find other employment if it looks promising after 3 or 4 dates. Otherwise there is a very large hole in your armor.

3). Dishonesty anywhere. If someone is dishonest with me they’ve just been dishonest with someone who has a very large Rolodex and isn’t afraid to use it. A moving company did something dishonest to my widowed mom. They didn’t want to deal with it when I brought it to their attention. I let my network know what they’d done. The next day they received over two hundred phone calls from people. They wound up making a fairly large settlement.

Honest disagreements will happen. But cheating someone, stealing from them, or defrauding them will get around very rapidly and ruin your career chances. I know one gentleman who had to move out of town because of a bad reputation. Great guy, but had made a few judgment errors. Run your life and your business with integrity, or you’ll pay the price.

4). Letting your network lapse. I see too many of my clients let their networks lapse once they get employed. This is a very large mistake. In fact, the lack of a network is how most of the transition executives I deal with got in the position of needing to utilize my services in the first place. Keep up your network!

5). Losing focus. Everyone has life issues that arise. There are deaths and illnesses and other unforeseen cosmic noogies that surface from time to time. Take a few vacation days, deal with it as well as possible, but then focus on your work again. Don’t get sidetracked with volunteer work, family issues, and so on.

6). Identifying with the company. One of my clients was a true company man. He had a company shirt, a company ball cap, a company cup, and even a company crest ring. Yep. He was a good company man right up to the time he was laid off. A goodly portion of his identity was temporarily taken away. You work for a company, you don’t live for a company, unless it is yours. Even with the fact that my wife, Nicole, and I are in practice together and our name is on the letterhead, we don’t live for the company. We live for life and work at our company. But we’d still be us if we didn’t have the company. You should take the same attitude.

7). Taking the part of employees. Don’t get too close to your employees. I made this mistake early in my executive career. The employees had some legitimate gripes, and I went to bat for them. That was a very big mistake. Don’t make it.

Do what you can to look like you’re on the side of employees while making sure that your superiors know that you are pushing the corporate agenda. If you want to right injustices, join the Peace Corp or start your own company where you can put your ideals into effect. But don’t try to reform corporate America. It won’t work and it annoys the powers that be.

8). Thinking you know all the answers. One of the most rapidly growing careers is that of Executive Coach. Why? Because intelligent executives know that they need to have an independent sounding board to bounce things off of and some independent advice. If you don’t have one, get one. But watch yourself. Make sure that the individual you’re contracting is experienced and skilled. Often times your company will pay for this.

9). Isolating yourself. Keep up. Read. Watch CNN and other stations. Talk with others outside of your company. Join associations and groups where you can, not only network, but also meet like-minded people.

10). Mixing personal and professional life. Keep the office at the office and the home at home. Don’t let anyone see much of your personal life. I rarely invite clients to my home. My home is my home.

I used to have an office in my home (in Highlands Ranch at the time) where I’d see clients. This did have some advantages. But it also let them see too much of me and my family. It is usually a mistake to bring the office home or the home to the office.

These, of course, aren’t the only career-limiting moves that executives can do, but are a few of the big ones. Watch for my upcoming book Highly Cynical Career Management to be published around the December holidays. In the meantime, watch your back and watch yourself!