When mid-career blues hit, time to take a risk

Many people, especially women, largely wait to be tapped for a promotion.

Mid-career was traditionally treacherous for female executives as the demands of family encroached. But if a long career can be likened to a marathon, then mid-career fatigue should be on everyone’s radar. As more men share the family load, how do mid-careerists push through the pain, get a second wind and triumph?

When your energy starts to flag, it’s time to take risks. People largely wait to be tapped for a promotion. Wanting to progress often comes with a contradictory instinct to play it safe.

WE Buchan chief executive Rebecca Wilson, one of just 16 per cent of Australian female chief executives, says women still need to be more assertive. “Put your hand up for the boss’s job, even if you don’t think you’re ready,” she says. “The mere act of doing so will keep you on the radar and send a strong message around your ambition. Be courageous.”

Such chutzpah shouldn’t come at the expense of planning for personal and professional outcomes. Setting goals cultivates focus, allows you to track progress and identifies what you need to do to advance. But it’s equally important to remain dynamic in relation to your career progression.

“The environment is constantly shifting and so are your opportunities,” Wilson says. “Embracing change can lead to opportunities you never even considered. Treat your career as your own start-up business; apply the powerful characteristics of an entrepreneur. Be prepared to pivot, take calculated risks, feel uncomfortable, believe in yourself and remain 100 per cent focused to your purpose.”

Sally Blount, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the US, says a woman’s career has three main pivot points and there are clear reasons women opt out during these transitions. So what did female executives such as Wilson do differently back at the mid-career pivot?

“Not over-thinking things and believing in yourself,” Wilson says. “Everyone has doubts, including our male counterparts. Really, that doubt is our little bit of fear that we can’t do it. But imagine if you did do it. It might be uncomfortable, it will challenge you — and you may just surprise yourself in what you’re capable of.”

It’s valuable to look to the experience of successful female bosses. Wilson, for example, was midpoint and heavily pregnant with her first child. But instead of neatly reinforcing a stereotype, Wilson convinced her boss, Tom Buchan, to make her a partner.

“You need to understand your value (and) present a clear and rational position,” she says. “If you do that, then everything else is irrelevant. I’ve always embraced risk, albeit calculated, and I believe it supported my career progression.”

It’s with these insights that you can successfully navigate the mid-career marathon; insights that can be gained from individual professional development such as our own Women’s Career Development Program.

Wilson is the beneficiary of WE Buchan’s early adoption of best practice, long before she became chief executive. “The culture of our business was established by a businessman of the 80s,” she says. “I’m proud to say his support and foresight in the role his women colleagues would play in the success of our business is worth celebrating.”

Gillian Fox is managing director of Gillian Fox Leadership Development.