The process of career growth is fairly simple. Here is a set of steps that outline the major thresholds irregardless of industry or profession.

1. Competence - Learning industry required functional skills
2. Mastery - Mastering the functional skills through experience
3. People Management - Managing of a team people with functional skills
4. Process Management - Managing the operational process of numerous teams
5. Executive Leadership - Leading the organization through the unknown waters of its external environment

No matter what you do, as long as you are a part of an organized group of people, whether you are in a small or large organization, or work for yourself or for others, you end up working within one or more of the layers above. At a large organization, there are frequently enough people to fill roles in each of those steps, but the smaller the business gets, the more necessary it is for fewer people to take on more roles at the same time. At a startup – the Founder can be a leader, manager, and janitor at the same time.

In the natural process of growth, organizations lean towards specializing people in each of the five categories, and sometimes even creating subcategories to suit the needs of the organization. This tendency is rooted in the efficiencies of the human brain and its preference for less complexity.

Career growth should be considered as a factor independent from desires for money and power, because it ties to motivation in a different way. Career growth relates to the top two factors in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs: Esteem and Self-actualization. The value personal fulfillment plays in the development of societies and the happiness of each and every one of us, is immense. As a result Career growth is important and should be pursued, encouraged, and stimulated on all levels.

With the value of the ladder as a whole in mind there is a significant difference between each of the 5 steps that are a part of it

1. Competence

The mandatory first step in joining a trade is learning the basics necessary to perform. The amount of learning needed is an important differentiator between career tracks. The length of Education required for a profession forms the most significant Dips that create unique leverage and scarcity for some professions to generate more wealth than others. Knowing the differences between the 5 career steps in each path, we eventually realize that what matters, is not what or where you learned, but whether you know how to learn in the long run. Learning from experience - your own (good) and the experience of others (much better), is the key step that will lead your Career growth through this and the other four steps.

2. Mastery

This step is the one that usually lasts for a while and adds a significant part of value to society. At this step we are the direct, hands-on, producers of value. This step is also the ground stepping stone for the rest of our Careers. The level of mastery serves as natural filter for decisions on the selection and order in which people will move on to the next step. The best producers are the ones groomed to become managers and leaders of others, and this process of natural selection is intended for the benefit of the entire organization. But, why are the first to perfect the art of production the ones to also be taken away from it? Because, as per step one, they are the ones to have shown an ability to LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE (of themselves and others) – which is the only way in which mastery can be achieved. Not-surprisingly, that same ability is the one that is most needed to transcend more than one career levels. However, learning here after comes with a catch. Your learning does not belong to you but to the entire organization, and it is your responsibility to pass it along to successors before you can move along. A favorite quote of mine says it best: “Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.” /unknown author/. In startups, this phrase goes more in the lines of “If you don’t teach someone how to do the job better then you, you will never have time to do anything but the job.”

3. People Management

The middle layer of career growth comes with a catch, because in its core, it requires us to unlearn some of what we’ve been taught our entire lives, and to learn a completely new set of skills. At this stage independence is traded in for interdependence. The hardest thing for new managers to realize, when moving on to this role, is that they must take the time to TRAIN and DELEGATE - now DO their job THROUGH, and NOT FOR others. This raises a major threshold for many, and eventually those who are able to learn from experience, once again dominate, by learning how to listen, understand, motivate, delegate, organize, control and inspire.

4. Process Management

This step is among the busiest and most difficult to master. It demands maximum effectiveness in the art of managing people combined with new skill of finding and generating synergy between multiple groups in the form of processes, while building and managing networks and valuable relationship across horizontal, vertical and diagonal channels. This career level requires the utmost of juggling skills, but as a result it generates the best kind of growth - one of judgment and reach of impact. - the ability to transcend above detail but still pick up enough information that allow for fast paced and correct decision making abilities. Another critical skill is the ability to coach and mentor, because the more people are competent enough to do their job as well as you do, the easier your own job would become. At that point, the networks build in the process of growth are the ones to support the implementation of those critical decisions. Once able to deliver RESULTS at the highest of levels in the production and management processes, you would be ready to grow to the next step.

5. Executive Leadership

Yet another high threshold transition, the growth to executive leadership merits few and graduates even fewer. This position carries the burden of celebrity-size attention, exceptionally high-impact decisions, and the demands of impeccable fit-for-a-role-model character and ethics. Yet the most important requirement of an organizational leader is Vision. Vision, because at the top of an organization you would be responsible for seeing through the moves of environment, competitors, suppliers, buyers, substitutes (essentially all of Porter’s Five Forces) and all of your own followers. The fast pace judgment and decision-making skills learned at the previous level should help you deal with the punches of this one. You would have to be strong enough to see the path through that mess and to success (rhyme not intentional). If by now you have not been burned out by the attention, stress, lack of free time, enemies, or external factors, you should pad yourself on the back. If you endure long enough to be bored at this level find yourself a new peak to conquer – world hunger, poverty, and world piece are still up for grabs.

Moving through all of these steps is not a necessary requirement for a happy and fulfilled life. Anyone can pick a level at which they feel comfortable and not have to deal with the rest, by choosing to delegate the other tasks to others (if the goal is far up the ladder) or to not learn the tasks needed for the next step.

For those who feel that their future resides higher up than their current position, this article will hopefully provide a list of useful next steps to a learning path that can take them there. Enjoy.

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Posted by: Diana Zink on Friday, 26th Dec, 2008