There is a new sheriff in town and his name is: Accountability.
Earlier this week, this blog addressed the fact that executives and managers are encountering higher degrees of accountability, not just to bosses and boards, but also to employees.
Today, I will address the third client in the accountability triad: yourself.
That’s right – you!
You are the one who got you here, and it was your interest (obsession?) with yourself that probably motivated you to accept an assignment as a manager, and maybe later as an executive. Ego – I speak thy name. But then you learned to subordinate ego in place of “service.”
- “I am here to serve my team members, my employees who are really the heart and soul of this operation.”
- “I serve at the pleasure of the Board.”
- “I serve but two masters: my spouse at home and my boss in the corner office.”
- “I work for the shareholders of this great company – and for the tremendous employees who make me look good every day.”
Sound familiar? It should because we’ve all been conditioned to shoulder the yolk of service and subordinate not only our ego, but almost everything else except our paycheck (personal life, physical health, time with children, vacations, recreation). Also importantly, many of us lose track of our career. And with increasing demands of accountability outlined in the previous two blogs, the chance of career consciousness taking a backseat increase.
If you are a manager or executive, you are a Type A, goal-oriented, nose-to-the-grindstone grinder. But while you are busy grinding, and helping an organization worth of employees figure out their career happiness quotient, have you taken the time and effort to assess your own situation? Trust me, nobody else is. You have to be accountable to yourself and not lose that in the tremendous, new levels of accountability you have to everyone else.
The world has changed so chances are your world has changed too.
Have you taken stock? Now’s the time.
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Erik Sorenson is CEO of Vault, the Web’s most comprehensive resource for career management and job search intelligence. Vault provides top talent with the insider information they need to make critical career decisions. An Emmy award-winning media industry veteran, Erik served as president of the MSNBC cable news channel through 2004. His experience spans radio, local and network broadcast television, cable and syndicated TV, and the Web.
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