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Webinar roundup - Your Career Board of Directors: Stay Visible, Ready, and In Demand

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"Surely capability should be promoted, not connections?" This was one of the questions put to Jennifer Wright by an attendee during Tuesday night's webinar. Her reply? "I wish it were so -- and a meritocracy...but it's not the case."


Acknowledging this depressing truth, the award-winning rocket scientist -- she was the first woman to receive the American Astronautical Society's prestigious AAS Industrial Leadership Award -- Jennifer continued to raise the virtual room with her steps on how to overcome a system which was not designed to work for women.


So, if hard work, reliability and talent aren't the keys to success and promotion, what are? Jennifer based her webinar around the notion of a Career board of Directors. Your performance may be outstanding, but what if no one knows about it? Or the right people don't know about it? She emphasized throughout that visibility is critical to success. Taking on a role with high levels of responsibility but low visibility will do nothing for your career. And here's where Sponsors and Champions come into play - bringing you visibility and a voice when you are not in the room, helping you to secure promotion and to weather inevitable redundancies.


Jennifer expanded on her list of roles for inclusion in your Career Board of Directors, sharing that there are 7 types of support that you should seek in order to build that board: Mentor, Sponsor, Champion, Connector, Truth Teller, Technical Sage and Peer Mirror. All of these 'roles' provide different benefits of insight, support and advocacy which will get your name heard for the right reasons, with the right people and at the right times.


The framework to build the board hung around the four D's: Diagnose gaps in your board, Design it with particular people in mind, Develop the relationships accordingly and then Deploy - set about maintaining and strengthening those relationships by sharing goals and successes. To counteract the reluctance some women felt at talking about their successes and wins, Jennifer was very clear that in all of this, "being visible is not bragging". She also underlined that you too were bringing something to the table. Relationships are very rarely one way streets, and in all of these roles, you have something to offer other person too, be it perspective, insights or new ideas.


Attendees were invited to fill in the roles and use a framework provided by Jennifer in the session so everyone left having made a start on their Career Board of Directors with the tools to then finish it and enact. Not that this is a one-time piece of work, Jennifer emphasized. It should be updated regularly and form a key piece of your career planning toolkit.


Jennifer shared some more personal career stories towards the close of the session, touching upon her move away from 'people-pleasing' towards "lead[ing] from identity, not approval". She asked us: "What do you stand for? How do you want to be known? What do people say about you when you are not in the room?". Big questions, but important ones to answer to ensure that we are all behaving and making decisions which align with our responses and values.


Jennifer gave us more than just food for thought as one of our attendees attested: "Thank you very much for such personal and insightful information! It is really helpful and motivating!".


If you would like to connect with Jennifer or explore her coaching sessions you can find out more via her website or Linkedin profile page:






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