Letting the Ladder Down

If you are ambitious and striving for success, you have probably spent a lot of your career figuring out how to climb the ladder. I certainly have. Leaning into opportunities and building a network to help me in my ambitions. I also believe in a scaffolding approach rather than a ladder….but that is an article for another day.

Too often if feels like there are only a few ladders to climb and once you have climbed one, no one else can come up until you climb the next one. What I have been thinking about recently is how do you lower the ladders for others once you have climbed up. 

There are a few things I think all leaders should do:

-         Allow the next person to climb: Succession Planning

-         Teach others how to build and find their own ladder: Mentoring

-         Find other ladders to lower: Utilising your network

A succession plan is incredibly important for you, but also for inspiring those in your business. Having a clear succession plan builds stability for your organisation, loyalty within your team and demonstrates your leadership prowess.   Not all success plans are successful, but having a plan ensures that you have upskilled a team member to climb the ladder successfully and ensured that your learnings from the role are not lost with your departure. For further insights, I did write an article on this a couple years ago: A Good Succession Plan.

I have been so fortunate to have amazing mentors along the way and they have inspired me to pass those learnings, and my own, on. Having a mentor outside of your direct line of business allows you to see a new perspective and not focus on your current role and daily tasks but on your career and ambitions. It is imperative that you know what you are looking to explore and achieve with your mentor so that you can make an actionable plan. As a mentor, I always try to focus on thier ambition and challenge them to act and be brave. 

As a female leader, lowering the ladder is utterly important to me.  To lower the ladder, you must stand at the top and give encouraging advise to those climbing.  If everyone above looks unfamiliar, it can be daunting to climb, we need diversity at the upper levels smiling down and encouraging the next leaders to climb.  I encourage all leaders to be a little vulnerable and share your own challenging climb and that you will be there to support those on the way up and once they achieve thier goal.

At an event last year, a newly promoted manager approached me to thank me for a conversation, I did not even remember. A year earlier I was killing time over a coffee talking about the joys of French vs dutch braids when trying to get out the door for the school run. This new manager said that understanding that I had children and that I too was juggling the mundane everyday things, she gained more confidence in her own ability to take the plunge into management. 

You never know when and why you will inspire someone else, but we should all consciously do it where we can.