BEING LOYAL TO ONE COMPANY FOR 19 YEARS CONTRIBUTED TO A CAREER FAILURE TO SHATTER THE GLASS CEILING

Do you ever feel you are not enough in a career you’ve given every inch of yourself to?

Recently, I have been working very closely with a few of my performance coaches (I often boast how many coaches and mentors I have invested in to grow my business. Sales, marketing, client experience, coaching, performance and leadership) as I feel I am holding myself back and limiting my potential in my business.

My experience leaving the corporate world partly concluded the moment the doctor to “nip the drink in the bud” and a discussion to explore The Priory.

I loved my career in retail. Every single day presented new challenges, uncertainty and I thrived leading large teams in highly demanding London stores. I was very good at what I did. In fact, I was excellent at spinning the plates, delivering operational excellence and driving the right culture to achieve this.

You had to be. You wouldn’t survive 15+ years in central London without drive, great judgement and strong influence to make it happen. (Essentially I mean get s**t done.)

The problem is, far too often you are never good enough.

A few years prior to my exit, in 2015 I started qualifying as a coach at the UKs leading coaching body. I was simultaneously having conversations about store manager roles in leading estates of £54m a year.

One conversation with my regional leader at the time involved being told to “not share what you do out of work as you will take everything here and leave.”

Soul shattering. It was like someone smacked me round the head with the “bible” of knowledge I knew about every intrinsic detail of how to operationally run stores.

My character is very determined and I am naturally confident in my pursuit of my goals and the direction in which I want to take life so I bounced back with a response to share how absurd that accusation is and what can I do to change the perception when if they were open minded leaders, they would understand surely how beneficial being a qualified coach is to the business, my role and how I lead.

But at the end, I noticed this naturally confident person had lost her spark.

I knew from encounters with Managing Directors in competitors that my inability to change organisations was actually now a hinderance in my career development as I demonstrated a lack to understand change and would potentially fail in different cultures. Although, I challenged this not to be true from the perspective of roles I had completed but in all honesty, my progression had always been very linear because I was different to others. I haven’t lost the confidence to boldly state there is a reason I was the only female of nineteen leaders in 2021 in a company that prides themselves in being diverse and inclusive.

Yet this was not enough.

The rigmarole of becoming a store manager at the highest grade last years cost me my mental health, self esteem and fight to bounce back.

In November, I failed to progress through the sign-off process by two female directors.

I was not for better words a demure “swan” in presence with how I engaged and led my store and team. They failed to see what I stood for as a leader even though I had smashed my performance targets and the sign off process up to this point.

I was devastated. To the point it took me three weeks to be open to hear their feedback which was simply what I share before.

It was subjective and unfair.

But enough was enough.

I had had enough of hearing “don’t talk about the coaching” and “don’t say it in the room.” It’s hard to hear “you’re too honest” by a senior leader. Never should someones voice not be heard and understood.

I should have passed my sign off.

My release at the time was a groundhog day routine of the gym, work and a bottle of wine. Everyday. I hit a brick wall. My relationship with food was horrendous, I had lost any sense of identity and I was lost.

I had hit my rockbottom and at this moment I promised I would never be back here again.

Fortunately, I have an amazing support around me and through therapy and programmes I was able to gain clarity in my life.

There is always more to every story but it has taken time to express, understand see things differently. To remove the emotion from my experiences. That’s ok. We sometimes forget to appreciate we are all human. I have a wonderful network of seven and eight figure business owners around me and I often remind myself through our conversations that we all often want the same results in life. We all ultimately want to be happy and we all are enough.

We all also have choices and we have to live by the consequences of our actions as my dad shared last year through our conversations in my moments of pain.

Until now, I have recognised the narrative I share is negative. It is all on the business and is hindering the potential I have to help others who are in leadership roles where they feel unheard, undervalued and lost in the direction of where their career and life needs to go.

Did being loyal to one company for 19 years consequently impact achieving a senior store manager grade. Yes and no. It was expected I would continue for a further three months and be assessed again but the guarantee I felt was too much out of my control and I had given every inch of energy I had already. I had lost the passion to want to try.

Our experiences shape our future.

I can be a victim and blame the whole organisation and how they failed me.

The truth is, I no longer fitted their values and it was my inner creativity that wanted more fluidity in life. I needed to let it go.

One of my favourite books is “The Obstacle Is The Way” with Ryan Holiday. This moment in my life was my obstacle. It was the way forward to a new path in life.

Is it scary to create a business specialising and make a decision to dramatically turn your life around? Yes of course but my learnings are that sticking to the same thing is detrimental for growth. It will hold me back if I do not truly challenge myself to explore what is my purpose and share my experience and wisdom. Not many female women can say they were loyal to a business for 19 years and earned the right to be at the table.

If any of this is resonating, male or female, this is not about a pursuit for you to evaluate your current employment situation. It is merely an invite to reflect on the challenges to face, if what you’re doing right now is aligned to your life values and the opportunity to give time to think about whether you need to change the internal narrative. Who knows, it may also be a radical career change, who knows?

What has us exactly where we stand today gives us experience and a story than no one else has. Choose to embrace and accelerate this. Don't let past experiences hold you back achieving the niggling feeling and mind chatter of "what if" inside. What if, you decided to use your pains and the obstacles to empower yourself in seeing your strengths and capabilities as the nexts steps to clearly mapping out your future. Don't hold yourself back.

I created the layers the over time built the notion of the obstacle in hitting the glass ceiling. No, I didn’t smash it within that time in my life.

I don’t choose to smash it now.

I choose to walk across it, embrace the obstacles and lead the way by serving others.

Imagine if you could create a space where you feel heard, listened too, valued and safe to explore career development and how to be the best leader you can? I wouldn’t be where I am without the coaching and mentoring support I have structured around me to bring focus, clarity and certainty in my business. Let’s connect and see how I could help you grow your business and teams?