#137 5 Mistakes Stopping You From Achieving Your Leadership Goals

Lucy Gernon (00:05.006)
Do you ever wonder why some of your peers seem to get efforts to… Cut!

Let’s start again.

Do you ever wonder why some of your peers seem to effortlessly get promoted and new opportunities while you’re still stuck in the weeds working your ass off, someone will notice. I see you, I know you want more. You work hard, you solve problems and with a smile for the most part, you go out of your way to please those influential stakeholders. Yet despite all of this, you might feel like you’re falling behind in your career and you’re ready for more.

If you felt this way, you’re not alone. As someone who coaches our 360 members through these challenges daily to achieve their goals faster, I get it. Which is why on today’s episode of the show, I’ll be showing you the five biggest mistakes you’re probably making that are stopping you from achieving your leadership career goals sooner. Plus, stay tuned as I reveal a powerful strategy to overcome these mistakes and propel your success forward.

Lucy Gernon (01:15.054)
Hello, lovely lady and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. If you’re new here, my name is Lucy Gurnan. I am a triple certified executive coach, multi award winning businesswoman, and most importantly, I’m a mom of three. I was in the corporate world for about 20 years before starting my coaching and training business for women in leadership back in 2020. And I am absolutely thrilled that you’re here with me today.

So if you haven’t done so already, I would love if you would rate and review this show because it takes a village to actually produce this podcast and rate reviews and follows on Spotify and Apple really help us to boost our ranking. So if you haven’t done that yet, I would so, so appreciate if you would.

Now, on this week’s episode of the show, we are going to be talking all about some of the mistakes that you’re making, OK, if you’re not where you want to be in your career. I’m going to talk a little bit about why waiting for validation instead of seizing those opportunities is probably holding you back. I’m going to share the five most common mistakes that I see that stop people from achieving their career goals, because I used to make all of these mistakes myself, too.

And then I’m also going to share some effective strategies for ensuring that your hard work translates into visible success. So how does that sound? Okay. So before we get into it, I’m going to share a really quick story with you that inspired me to talk about this for today. When I was starting out in my career, I made so, so many mistakes. I didn’t really give it much thought at the time because I didn’t realize that they were mistakes.

and they were actually holding me back from stepping up and stepping into my next level. So I remember one time distinctly, I had just got promoted to like my first manager level role and I knew I had all of this ambition inside me and I was super excited for their promotion. But after six months, I knew that I had actually I knew I had more to give and I was already starting to think about the next level.

Lucy Gernon (03:26.734)
So I remember I spoke to H .R. I wanted to understand a little bit more about, you know, how can I climb the ladder? You know, how can I use my strengths? And I remember I was told I was too ambitious and to kind of pipe down a little bit, I was only just in the role. Now, as a leader myself who has been there with my team members who are ambitious and driven, it can be really hard because you have a

department or a region or an area to run. You need team members in those roles. So I completely get the response. However, I didn’t realize that I was actually in full control of my career and I allowed other people to quash my ambitions. And so what actually happened was I ended up staying in that same role for about seven years, seven years in the same role.

Why? Because I was a people pleaser, because I was so good at my job. I loved the fact that I was an expert and that’s I had built a brand for myself around my particular area of business, not realizing that if I wanted to climb the ladder, there was lots of other things that I needed to do. So I allowed lots of things to take me over. But in hindsight, if I was to go back again, I wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. I would have

made my ambitions clear and said, OK, I’m happy to stay in this role for two years. But after that, I’m you know, I want to know what’s next. I always knew deep inside me, I had good business acumen, which is why my business has been nominated for 14 awards over the last couple of years. We’ve won start up of the year and so many other things like that because I had a drive with inside me, but I didn’t know how to convey that to other people.

So I just want you to know that’s my invitation for you today is you are in full control of your career and it’s totally up to you to make it happen. Everyone has their own agendas and you have got to take control. So now I’m going to share the five mistakes, common mistakes that I see when people come to work with me. The first mistake is perfectionism.

Lucy Gernon (05:48.942)
OK, the first mistake is perfectionism. I remember I had an executive level client who was down in the weeds. She had aspirations to make a bigger impact. She wasn’t looking for a promotion. She wanted to make a bigger impact at the level she was at as a leader, and she wanted to reclaim some of her time. Now, when we dug into this.

What we realized very quickly is that she was spending a lot of time formatting presentations, rereading emails, doing things that her team should have been doing because quote unquote, it’s easier to do it myself. Right. We’ve all been there. But as a result of down in the weeds, doing the doing and making sure everything was perfect. She was missing opportunities that were all around her.

to make the impact you wanted to make. So it’s the same for you. I invite you to question where you’re spending your time and are you aligning your actions with the leader that you want to become? The second mistake I see is waiting for permission. Just like I shared in my story, I was like being a good girl. I was in this, you know,

Please pick me energy, like feeling like a little girl asking permission. And that is not where you want to be. You have got to take control of your own career. OK. Now, very recently, actually, just right now as I’m recording it, we have just finished a one percent comfort zone challenge in 360 Leaders Club. So it’s the first time I’ve done a challenge with our new members. And I’m absolutely, definitely going to do it again when we open up the doors again.

for new members in October 2024. If you’re listening to this live, if you’ve been thinking about reaching out or joining us or working together, I would love to hear from you. We’ll have 12 spots available to start in 360Litres Club to start on the 1st of October. And if you want to join the waitlist, I would advise you to get on it because when the spots are gone, they’re gone. So you can just go to 360LitresClub .com forward slash waitlist. Now, during this challenge,

Lucy Gernon (08:07.95)
I’m going to say S, I’m going to give this person the initial S. She had joined 360 because she was, she wanted to advance her career and she had been putting off having conversations with her senior, you know, with her boss and superiors. And she was moving forward to have those difficult conversations with her boss. And she didn’t want to have the conversations. And when she did,

What she ended up finding out was is that her boss had been thinking about a particular role for her in a lateral move, which really was not aligned to what she wanted. So as part of the challenge, I was encouraging her to really stand firm in the fact that she wants, you know, a step up, not a lateral move and to really stay clear on her vision and not allow somebody else to influence her. Because going back to like what I shared about my story.

I really should have pushed that a bit more because I knew I was capable of more. So that’s my invitation for you is I invite you to stop waiting for permission and for somebody to pick you and just make it happen for yourself. The third mistake I see is self -doubt and imposter syndrome takeover. I get it. I get it. If you’re anything like me, I grew up thinking I had to be a good girl and that I had to

do as I was told, and I wasn’t good enough and I struggle with anxiety for a lot of my life and still do at times, of course. But if you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to believe in you? And to build your confidence and your self -worth and to really own your abilities. It doesn’t just happen.

You have got to put in the work required to actually really and truly own your worth. That’s exactly why I founded my business, because I have superpowers in helping you to see your superpowers. I’m just thinking about one of our 360 leaders club members and she was a one to one client as well. Her name is Suzanne.

Lucy Gernon (10:25.294)
And Suzanne used to have serious imposter syndrome, which she shares openly, which resulted in her work in 70 -hour weeks, burning herself out, not feeling like she was capable of doing the role that she was doing. She’s a VP in a Fortune 500 company. And after working together in a one -to -one basis, she completely transformed in terms of her work -life balance.

And then she joined 360 Leaders Club because she knew it was smart to invest in herself so that she stayed on the success balance and happiness path. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to allow self -doubt and imposter syndrome to take her over. She wasn’t going to go back to work in all of those hours, not seeing her children. And she literally just got a new job there in her in her existing organization not so long ago.

And she said for the first time ever in her career, she is in a new role without imposter syndrome. Now, this lady is leading a billion dollar revenue stream and she’s loving it. She’s loving every second of it because she has done the work on herself to build her confidence. She has invested in coaching to support her to get there. She uses her network.

She knows exactly what she wants and she is one of our most active 360 leaders club members so that she can ensure she stays that way. So that’s my invitation for you is you’ve got to get rid of the self doubt and imposter syndrome. The fourth mistake is not branding yourself correctly. Now, you know that you have what it takes to advance your career, right? But you just haven’t branded yourself correctly.

And I know there’s also a bit of self -doubt in there and not fully owning your own in your work. You’re talking the talk, but you don’t fully feel fearless and ready to go yet. Right. I’m literally just back in the door from doing a personal branding session with a corporate and the light bulb moments that went off in the room was incredible as I taught them my brand, Brilliant Blueprint, which is something I teach in my executive presence blueprint course.

Lucy Gernon (12:42.83)
which you can grab at lucygernon .com forward slash EP. There’s an entire module dedicated to personal branding because your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And a lot of the time we’re portraying a brand that doesn’t actually align with how we want to be perceived, especially if you’re trying to step up a level. OK.

You’ve got to show up a little bit differently and that requires strategic thought. It does not require you molding yourself. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, which is so, so exciting. It’s about you really leaning into your strengths, your values, your gifts, getting clear on your mission, your vision, your personal brand statement, what you stand for and how you’re going to bring your team along. And again, if you want to learn more about that, you can grab my executive blueprint course, which will walk you through all of that.

And it’s really, really, really important that you think about your personal brand and that you show up and make yourself proud. Show all those feckers what you’re made of. OK. And then finally, one of the fifth mistake I see, and this is a really big one. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me. It’s all about you not getting visible. Hands up.

If you think if you just work hard, somebody will recognize it. You just want the work and the results to speak for themselves. And somebody one day is going to notice and they’re going to come over and they’re going to tap you on the shoulder and they’re going to say, you’re doing a great job. I want to promote you and I want to give you a 50 grand pay increase. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works.

And as much as I hear from the women I work with about the boys promoting themselves and taking credit for other people’s work and having envy and resentment towards the boys, I invite you to channel your inner man like you’ve got to use that masculine energy that lives within inside you. OK. And again, in my executive blueprint course, I teach you all about feminine masculine energy and how to lean into both, because as leaders, you act

Lucy Gernon (15:07.342)
You absolutely need both. OK, you absolutely need both. So you’ve got to lean into your masculine, get visible and own your worth. One of our members in 360 wanted to work on her visibility and she invested in support because she wanted to progress in her career and she knew visibility was a big kind of part of it, as well as developing her leadership skills, her communication skills, all those kind of things that I help people with.

I did my visibility training with her and all of a sudden she started to post on LinkedIn. She started to, you know, she updated her profile in line with everything that I have learned as a digital marketer, an award winning digital marketer. Actually at that we’ve won awards and in my company for marketing. And I put together a training, which is also in the executive presence blueprint in the module on elevating your online presence. So she started posting.

She started using the strategies that I was teaching her and that she wanted to share herself in alignment with her heart. And what happened was the CEO of her company actually noticed her and said he knew who she was and was very impressed by her. And as a result, she was able to use that visibility to move into a new role that she’s wanted to. She’s been working towards this role for about three years. And finally, because of

how she is showing up, how she’s branded herself, how she’s communicating, how visible she’s getting. She is now advancing her career in the exact direction that she wants. How exciting is that? Right. And I want you to know that this is more than possible for you too. This is more than possible for you too. So that is it for this week’s episode of the show. I hope these mistakes have given you some food for thought. You are in full control of your career.

And if you have enjoyed this episode, there’s a couple of others that I would invite you to listen to. Episode 111 is called Are You Sabotaging Your Career Progression? Seven common mistakes holding women leaders back. And then episode 112 is another inspiring story of somebody who was in 360 who broke through to senior director within 22 days of working together with confidence. So go check those two episodes out. They’re very inspiring.

Lucy Gernon (17:33.294)
So just to summarize the five mistakes that I invite you to stop making today is wasting time and perfectionism instead of actually going for opportunities, waiting for permission, waiting for someone to tap you on the shoulder. The self doubt and imposter syndrome has got to go. Not branding yourself correctly and then finally not getting visible and promoting all the fabulous work you do. So.

If you are interested in joining 360 Leaders Club to come and work with me personally and meet the most fantastic group of like -minded women, if you listen to this live, our final cohort of 2024 starts on the 1st of October and the waitlist is open right now. So if you just head over to 360leadersclub .com forward slash waitlist, you can add your name there. Now, if you’re a podcast listener, I know that you are ideal for 360.

because all of the girls who are in 360, the vast majority have found me through the podcast. They’re avid listeners just like you. They’re ambitious. They’re driven. They’re family focused. And you are in the top 1 % because most women will never invest in themselves. They’ll make excuses about not having time, about not wanting to invest in themselves, about feeling guilty, but then they stay stuck.

And I know that you’re in that one percent and I know you have visions of who you want to become. And I can absolutely help you with all of that and so much more inside 360. So if you’re ready to end 2024 with a bang, just pop your name on the waitlist. There’s only 12 spots when they’re gone, they’re gone. And then we can arrange a call to make sure it’s a good fit. Just get your name on the list and then you’ll be first in line to grab a spot.

And just so you know, a lot of the girls would get their employers to either reimburse them or to get a PO raised in advance. Some of the girls prefer to invest themselves out of their own pocket, which is totally cool. Whatever. I don’t mind what way you want to pay for yourself. But if you are thinking of the PO process, I would really advise you to contact me ASAP because it takes time to get POs approved, as you well know.

Lucy Gernon (19:51.854)
OK, so that is it for this week’s episode of the show. I’m really looking forward to seeing your application come through. I get so, so excited to welcome you women and to connect you all together and to see you grow and learn and the progress you’re going to make. And like I shared, the one percent comfort zone challenge. I’ll be running that again in October. So that can you imagine by like November before Christmas, you are going to be so much closer to exactly who you want to become. You have no idea. And I can’t wait.

So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. Looking forward to talking to you again, same time, same place. Bye for now.