Getting out of your Leadership career path is not bad.

One of the nice things of living near a natural reserve is that every week I can go hiking there. There is a pleasant 4-mile path that I walk, but after some rain a couple of weeks ago a section of it was flooded. I had to get off the route and cross through a section without a path. It was not that hard, and I found a deer antler stuck in a rotten tree. It was surprising to find that it made my day, and it made me think about how many times in our goals, careers or plans we are so stuck on keeping the route, keeping in the path without realizing that a small detour can bring something new and exciting.

In a leadership career a detour could be painful. Sometimes it might mean a demotion or a lateral move instead of the promotion we were looking for. I am convinced that everything that happens in life brings a gift, sometimes a hidden lesson that we need to discover off of the path. These lessons can be as simple as learning to slow down and be patient, or as hard as achieving a better life balance or learning something completely new in our field or even in a new field. They might feel like failure or obstacles at the moment, but when analyzed, they are actually the key events in life that add assets and strengths to our capacity to perform as humans. The most successful leaders I have coached have developed a capacity to accept these detours and even look for them. They use them as ways to correct things, learn new skills or even work
in their personal life in a different way. In many cases these detours create a new leadership career and development path that would not have appeared if not for the “obstacle” that takes us off the path.

I like to believe that this flexibility can even bring happiness and excitement when we find an obstacle in the road, and we recall the nice surprises or lessons that we have gotten when in the past we have gone off route. Sometimes being helped by an Executive Coach helps discover these new angles and perspectives at things. My wish for you is that the next time that something is an obstacle in your path instead of thinking in frustration “gosh, the path is blocked”, you think in excitement and curiosity “wow, the path is blocked, let’s see what new things we find off the path”


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