15 You, Inc.

 

This chapter covers

  • Identifying and reviewing your progress to date
  • Trying to keep up to date and avoiding imposter syndrome
  • Making yourself irrelevant while at the same time more valuable
  • Planning for the future to ensure you don’t waste time in a role you don’t enjoy

One of the great honors and rewards of the role you are in is helping others achieve success and growth in their careers. Building, fostering, and mentoring teams to do great things is something that brings a huge smile to my face. There is only so much you can do by yourself—two hands and 24 hours in each day are the constraints we all have to deal with.

Yet, while you are doing all this great team building, who is looking after you? Who is keeping you focused on what you are looking for from your professional life?

We are going to go through some things in this chapter that will hopefully help keep you happy and focused. The last thing anyone wants is to suddenly realize 5 or 10 years have slipped by and you really haven’t advanced as far as you dreamed. That sounds like a long time, but it can whip by very quickly, especially if you are head-down, making great changes.

15.1 Reviewing yourself

As CTO you will (or should) put your team through annual reviews, tracking progress and ensuring there are no surprises for you or them, as they grow in their career. Yet, depending on your organization, you may be missing out on your own annual review. You can address this in a couple of ways.

15.2 Mentor

15.3 Keeping pace

15.4 Monitoring change

15.5 Succession planning

15.6 Career success

15.7 Stepping up

Summary

Checklist