12 Habits – could one or more of these habits be holding you back?

We know that women represent 51% of the intellectual capital on planet earth and yet women are still underrepresented in the workplace. As a Black woman with a daughter, changing these statistics matters to me both personally and professionally.

At least 4 people recommended a book called How Women Rise to me but when my colleague, Julia Philpott at Management Futures said it was a must read I immediately ordered a copy. I found myself nodding with agreement, verbalising out loud what I had experienced and/or wished was there.

What does success mean to you? This is such a personal question and one that I feel every woman should ask themselves.

Now while I don’t agree with all 12 Habits, I do agree with most of them. This led Julia and I to film a videocast about the 12 Habits and our take on them as women with intersectionality at the forefront.

We’ll be releasing one habit each month for you to view on this dedicated page on our website, and all you need to do is click the links below for a diary reminder to watch the videocast as soon as each new habit is released:

The 12 Habits are:

1. Reluctance to claim achievements - this is about claiming credit for your work and speaking up about your achievements.
   
   Ask yourself the following question/s:  How comfortable do I feel using the word I? How often or how good am I at speaking up about what I’ve achieved?
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2. ‍Expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions - as the title suggests and closely linked to Habit 1.
   
   Ask yourself: To what extent do you believe that my work should speak for itself? How often do I effectively communicate my career goals (i.e to be promoted etc)?
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3. ‍Overvaluing Expertise - spending too much time trying to master every detail of your job, especially if you want to move up in your career.
   
   Ask yourself: What else do I need to be successful? How much time do I spend building connections?
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4. ‍Just building rather than building and leveraging relationships - spending energy building relationships and connections but you don’t utilise these relationships to benefit your own career.
   
   Ask yourself: How frequently do I leverage the relationships I’ve built to advance my career?
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5. Failing to enlist Allies from day one - especially if you are in a new job or the start of a project – women can want to feel fully prepared by mastering the details before starting to reach out.
   
   Ask yourself: Who should I connect with to make this job/project a success?
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6. Putting your job before your career - devoting so much time and energy to doing your job superbly that you’ve neglected to take the steps needed to get you to the next level.
   
   Ask yourself: What steps do I need to take to get me to the next level?
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7. ‍The perfection trap - striving to be perfect, the belief that if you do your job perfectly you will succeed.
   
   Ask yourself: How has this belief served me? How is this belief holding me back? What’s a better belief to have?
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8. ‍ The disease to please – trying to be a wonderful person and maybe continually saying yes to tasks and jobs that will eat up your time and potentially give you little benefit or reward.
   
   Ask yourself: How easy is it for me to delegate? How easy it is for me to say no or have courageous conversations?
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9. Minimising – trying to shrink yourself by using minimising language and/or by taking up less space physically.
   
   Ask yourself: To what extent do I use minimising language, such as ‘sorry’ or ‘just’ a lot?
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10. Too much – can undermine your capacity to be seen and trusted. Feeling that you have to tone down your emotions, get feedback that you’re too strong or too intense, not a good fit or too enthusiastic.
    
    Ask yourself: There’s too much to unpack here…listen or watch the future videocast for more on this and our insights.
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11. Ruminating – focusing on the past, such as setbacks and mistakes, instead of moving on.
    
    Ask yourself: What can I learn from this/what beliefs will I move forward with?
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12. Letting Your radar distract you – broad spectrum noticing also known as the ability to notice a lot of things at once. It’s a strength and sometimes a weakness.
    
    Ask yourself: What’s a better story to tell myself?  

Now you’ve been through the 12 Habits highlights, here is the 12 Habits Wheel^TM which may help you to identify the habit that you most need to work on.

Our 12 Habits Wheel^TM is an adaption, by Julia Philpott, of our Snapshot Wheel which you will have come across if you have done the ICS Programme with us or one of our ILM qualifications.

The 12 Habits Wheel^TM is a useful tool that allows clients to take stock of their current situation in a simple, subjective, yet insightful way. We ask the client to score each habit from 1-10, with 1 (the lowest score) being closest to the middle of the wheel, by drawing an arc. This score represents how satisfied the client is with this habit, and there is opportunity to discuss as the client directs.

For more help with the 12 Habits and the 12 Habits Wheel^TM please contact us at info@managementfutures.co.uk
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Don't forget: we’ll be releasing one habit each month for you to view on this dedicated page on our website, and all you need to do is click the links below for a diary reminder to watch the videocast as soon as each new habit is released: