There were a few more integral discussions that helped me lead to my final decision on whether to move forward with a new opportunity at work.
The first was with the person that has always been a few steps ahead of me. I see him as a mentor to some extent, but also I have never directly worked with him. Either way, I asked him to go for a walk and I sought to learn about his journey from an engineer to MBA graduate to leader.
He told me that when he took the engineer role, he knew that it was not something he wanted to do forever. He then moved into a role that gave him exposure to more of the organization. At the time, he explained that this decision was not entirely voluntary. However, he was getting interested in business so he went and got his MBA. After that, a project he was on led to an opportunity to grow and lead his own team and that is what he ended up doing. Now he has an opportunity to grow further and move on to another opportunity to lead a new team. The opportunities seem to follow him as he just followed his path and worked on what he was good at.
That led to a good weekend’s worth of thought. I pretty much knew this opportunity wasn’t for me. However, I was questioning the right way to explain this to the hiring managers.
So on Monday, I asked the hiring manager in a round-about way to show me the answer. A co-worker learned from the hiring manager about finding her strengths. I learned my strengths from discussing with her. So I asked the hiring manager if he thought it was important to choose a role that focused on our strengths. Through the discussion, I realized that it would take us so much more time to try to spend time focusing on our weaknesses. After my leadership class, I recognized that all of the leaders we profiled spent time focusing on their strengths. Those are the gifts we give to the world, that is who WE are. We should be in roles that bring the best out of us so that we can impart our best to those around us.
My current role allows me to express my greatest strength (described from a strength test) – Coaching. I could eventually get there in the other role. However, it would reset me. I would have to catch back up and that seemed like a waste of time.
I told the hiring manager I would not continue forward. While I did not need to give a specific reason, I explained to him why his responses helped me to make my decision.
He agreed with me that my decision was the right choice. One burden off my shoulders.
