PODCAST EPISODE № 29

From Leadership to A Support Position: What You Need to Know

by Anita Charlot

Listen to From Leadership to A Support Position: What You Need to Know:

Today’s current job market climate has proven that people are no longer willing to put up with job abuse. The days of the employees sticking around no matter how they were being treated are long gone.

I’m sure you have heard of the Great Exodus or the Great Resignation by now, and it does not appear to be slowing down.

Maybe you are like one of the thousands of executives who are tired of always being ‘on’ and are considering stepping down from your position of great responsibility. Perhaps you’re looking to take on a support position, leaving you more time and more mental capacity to do something more personally satisfying to you.

I get it, but there are several things you should consider before stepping down.

You must be ready for this mental shift. Not taking the time to prepare will give you a different level of stress, and have you returning to the job titles that you so desperately wanted to get away from in the first place.

Join me inside the episode as I walk you through a few examples, and the importance of working your way through them. Be sure to download the show notes to access all of the tips mentioned in this episode.

See you inside the episode.

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What You Learn:

That if you’re considering making a huge shift in your career, you are not alone!
How to transition from C-Suite to support position while still staying on track with your final destination
Financial preparations and tough questions to ask yourself for transitioning to a support position
How to turn this into an opportunity to strategize and keep heading towards your dream!

Featured on the Show:

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Episode Transcript

Hey there beautiful. Today, I want to talk to you about your desire to step down from your executive position and take on a role with fewer responsibilities. I know you’re tired of the 10 to 11 hour days and would like a job that has set hours so that you can focus on work that feeds your spirit, and you can certainly do that!

Whether that’s starting your own company or your own nonprofit, there are thousands of things that you can consider. But there are also things that you need to consider before making your move.

I have held leadership and support positions over my career in the corporate arena, the entrepreneurial space and in the military. There were times when I went after promotions and other times when I stepped out of the leadership role, each time with a greater understanding of the mental and emotional shifts needed to be successful.

I’ve been in a few conversations with other women in leadership about this very topic. When I ask them if they will be able to deal with the shift from being in charge to now taking orders, most of them immediately say, “of course, I don’t have a problem taking direction!”

Right.

Once I start asking questions, providing a few of the examples I will share with you in this episode, they realize that they still have a lot of mental and emotional work to do to prepare to step down.

Now’s the time for you to grab your pen and your executive journal to take notes. Or if you were proactive, you already have your copy of the show notes downloaded.

So if you’re serious about making this move, you will want to begin contemplating these things:

Unless money is no object, you are too far along in your career and life to take off a year to backpack through Europe, or maybe not! Keep listening, and then you decide.

I’ve lived through the stress of walking away from corporate and attempting to build my business. The problem was that I had not planned properly, I had no clue what I was doing, and the groups I had aligned myself with had no clue either. We were all out there talking about making it happen, not working for the man anymore, doing our own thing, and stressing out. Not paying rent, not paying mortgages, car notes, or medical insurance.

Trust me, I will never be in this position again.

Since this conversation has come up a lot in my circle, I thought it would be an excellent topic for the podcast. I’m sure you or someone you know may have thought about this too.

While I can’t possibly cover all scenarios, in this episode – Lord knows no two women are the same – I can at least get you started with a few important and vital questions.

So let’s begin.

Well, hold on a second.

Before we get started, there is one thing that you must have before you decide to walk away from your current position, and that is an exit plan. Call it a plan, call it a strategy, call it a manifesto. I don’t care what you call it, but you need to have it. It doesn’t have to be anything formal, but you must have an idea of what you’re going to do. Give yourself a timeline and then start researching what you need to do to put yourself in the proper position.

Now being an executive, you’re used to delegating, right? So it will be easy for you to say, “oh, I’ll just hire somebody to do the work for me”.

That’s not going to work, sweetheart.

This is something that you are looking to do. This is something that you say that you want to do, and it is going to cost you several sleepless nights, possibly weeks, possibly months. So you have to be the one to do the work. You can not delegate this to someone else. You have to be fully engaged in this process, if you’re going to take this seriously.

So here are a few questions for you to consider. Actually, more than a few questions, but I’m going to give them to you anyway. Again, my suggestion will be to download the show notes because there are going to be a lot of questions, and it’s going to take you some time just for you to answer these on your own.

So let’s get started.

What is your dream destination? Like I said, You need to have a plan. You can’t just walk away and say, “Okay, I’m gonna do my own thing”, because little do you know, or maybe you are familiar with it, but entrepreneurship is not easy. It is hard, it wreaks havoc on you personally and professionally. It wreaks havoc on relationships, marriages and family situations. You have to really want this, and if you really want it, then you have to really know how to prepare yourself for it.

So what do you want to do? What is your dream destination? Do you want to open your own business? Is it going to be service based, product based, for profit, nonprofit? Maybe you want to own a franchise?

The question is, or the idea is, that you have to know what you want to do. You can’t just say I just want a job that has set hours so I can focus on what I want to. Okay, that’s great. What is it that you want to do? Your response can’t be I don’t know yet. Until you know and until you have a plan, you can’t go anywhere or shouldn’t go anywhere you can, but trust me, you don’t want to.

How much money do you need to make during this transition? So if you are in a position where you know you have an inheritance, you have a lot of money saved up, you been very lucky in the stock market or with cryptocurrency and money’s not an object then great, but if not, you need to identify how much money you need to continue to make while you are on this journey to your ideal or your dream destination.

Okay, once you have an idea of what type of money you need to make, you then need to identify a position, a support position, that meets your criteria in this income bracket. Why do I keep saying support position? Because if you move from one leadership position to another, you’re going to be in the same boat. You’re going to be responsible for a lot. You’re not going to be able to clock out at five o’clock and go home and not think about it, you’re going to be on all the time. So what is the point?

You need to find a support position so that you can do your time and then go home and then focus on your business. Okay.

Will you need insurance? Are you covered under your spouse’s insurance? Do you have enough saved to carry you through to your dream position? If so, how much can you afford to lose while covering your bills during your exploratory phase? You know, people want to leave corporate start their own business and then start making money right away. It takes several years to make money depending on what you’re doing, depending on how much or how you’re prepared, how much you’re prepared before you get out there. It takes time. How much can you afford to float while you figure out what to do while the business gets off the ground? Right?

You don’t have to walk away from your current job completely. I’ve helped clients prepare their exit strategy while still being employed full time. And if this is your first time being introduced to me, then you must know that I’m currently running this business, while being employed full time for what I like to call my largest client. I’m not ready to walk away completely. So if anyone can help usher you into dualpreneurship – and that’s a big word, dualpreneurship – I am your person.

Will you need funding? And by that, I mean, will you need to take out loans? Or are the grants available for your desired destination? Do you know how to prepare your personal finances to get ready for the decrease in your income? How much startup capital will you need, if any? Will you need a business credit card or business credit?

All of these things are things that people do not consider in the moment of their frustration with the current state of affairs. But you, because you’re listening to this podcast episode, you will at least have a long list of questions to help you figure out if this is something that you want to do and if this is the right time to do it.

Next question: is the position you chose on the way to your dream destination? So we are familiar with the term being strategic. So are you being strategic in your thinking?

If you want to open an art gallery for a local artist, taking a support position as an administrative assistant in a bank is not a strategic move. You may be qualified for it or most likely overqualified, but it is not the role that will be in your best interest given what your dream destination will be.

What about working in an art gallery, or volunteering to assist with gallery shows, working as an understudy for local artists? These are all strategic moves that will help you build the necessary background, knowledge base that will lead you in the direction of your dream position. I know nothing about being an artist, these are just the questions that popped into my head automatically.

So it is your job and your responsibility to do your due diligence, and to be strategic in your thinking before you make a mistake that you may not ever be able to recover from.

Who do you know that has held the position before you or is in an industry that you can shadow or have as a mentor? I need you to start thinking along these lines. Walking into a completely different arena and wanting to make money from it is an entirely different ballgame than just having an interest as a spectator. You must know what you’re getting yourself into before taking the leap.

This is why before some couples have children, they will get a pet first. Or why your mother would suggest you keep your nieces and nephews for extended periods of time so that you can understand what life would be like if you had children before you actually had them. I’ve heard that that’s the best form of birth control.

Well, not the best, but it is definitely one that will make you postpone or be more careful until you’re ready to deal with adding children into the mix.

What if you jumped into the art world because you thought it would be fun? You’re a bit eclectic, right? And art allows you to be free only to discover that all of the work that goes on behind the scenes doesn’t always match the financial reward the artists received.

Volunteering, job shadowing, apprenticeships, and mentoring are great ways to look under the hood to see if it’s really something that you would walk away from your current career for. If you have the opportunity to do so you should make the time for it.

You also have to, this is something that just occurred to me, but you also have to think about this: If you’re used to being in the C-suite and all of a sudden you are working in a support position, what is that going to do to your circle? Right? I know a lot of executive women that pride themselves on their titles

So what is it going to do to you and your circle? Are you going to be strong enough by yourself to manage the comments and the questions and the, you know, the side eye that you’re going to get from other executives in your circle that are going to look at you like you’ve lost your mind or that like you’re going through a mental breakdown? Can you handle that?

Things that you need to think about, right?

I’ve known my final destination since 1999, and I’ve built up an impressive knowledge base throughout the years of several key aspects of running a business. I’ve applied for jobs that will put me in a certain position and I’ve taken on specific projects in those jobs that will provide me with a particular skill set that I needed to add to my long list of things that I know how to do. I’ve held many different full time positions and consulting gigs in the areas of administrative operations, human resource and risk management, marketing and advertising, including website building and social media marketing, information technology and asset management with my biggest achievement today being that getting over 400 financial individuals ready to work from home in under two months, due to the pandemic, with no catastrophic economic events to report.

Patting myself on the back here; if you could see me, you would know that!

Office facilities construction project and product management, relationship building, saving marriages, authoring books, delivering keynote speeches, facilitating numerous workshops, being an executive and working for executive leading troops, giving direction and taking direction, taking the lead in highly dangerous military ops.

You name it!

Everything I have done has been a strategic move heading in the direction of my dreams: that of being in the business of speaking, writing and coaching full time for executive women. It’s second nature to me now. I automatically think strategically, which at times puts me three steps ahead of the current task, and this is how you need to be thinking as well. I’m able to pull from over 35 years of experience, which gives me the ability to help my clients think through their challenges, from a 50,000 foot view, all the way down to the smallest detail.

If you listen to last week’s episode, From Domestic Abuse Survivor to Executive Relationship Coach for Women, then you now know that I help my clients in both their personal and professional lives. Walking away without having thought things through is a recipe for disaster, not only for you, but for your relationship or marriage as well. Being a dualpreneur, or starting over from scratch is going to cause you and your loved one stress. It’s going to challenge everything you knew to be comfortable and is going to make you second guess yourself, your spouse second guess you, and your children wondering why you’re not available for them like you used to be.

Now throw in a huge boiling pot of guilt. And what you thought will be easy has you running back to the familiar surroundings of your previous corporate environment. Call it the devil, you know, if you will, but as your coach, I recommend that you prepare for the mental and emotional shift with someone qualified to help you personally and professionally.

In the beginning, without my help, you’re going to think that you have it all figured out that you can do it alone. How hard can it be right? I know you’re going to do this because I’ve thought the same thing. But I’m here to tell you that stepping outside of the highly structured environment while someone else is responsible for the business, to you being 100% accountable for everything, including the livelihood of the people you employ, this will bring about a completely different set of challenges that, if not appropriately managed within yourself, can wreak havoc in your life.

So let’s have some fun. I’m going to share the following scenario with you to demonstrate how important it is to be clear on your why before you walk away from your current position. Let’s title this, You Must Not Know Who I Am.

Alright, here we go. You decided to step down to take a support position. The manager or managers you interviewed with seem decent. However, when you start working, you realize that one of your managers is highly insecure. They recognize that you clearly know what you’re doing, and they are disrespectful and getting in the way of you completing your work. They may even lie on you and try to ruin your reputation or discredit your work.

This is not how you would have behaved as the manager in your previous positions, but you’re not in charge here. You’re in a support position. You’re just the staff.

Without having a clearer sense of why you’re there, you could allow your ego to take over feeling as though you are better than the person that you report to, and that you could run circles around him or her, and this may be true! Since you know your why, why you chose that particular job and the benefits of building that specific skill, you find a way to make it work. You’re not trying to take their job or do their job, and you’re unclear on the role you want to play and why you’re there. So you find a way to use your experience on your way to your dream situation and you push through.

Now, I’m not advocating taking abuse. I’m simply pointing out the danger of your ego stepping in when you took the role to build a specific skill set, not to be in charge, or to take things personally or be the change engine for the department. You took this role to build your skill set, and then you will move on to another position.

In the past, I would tell myself that I chose to put my Black behind in this seat, and when it gets to the point that it becomes unbearable, I would choose to put my Black behind in an entirely different seat.

Now I said Black? Yes, I’m being 100% honest with you. This is how I managed to get through those challenging times. It doesn’t matter to me whether it is at the same company or at a different company, I’m on a mission. And I’d love to make the most significant impact that I can while on my final destination. But what I’m not going to do is allow someone else’s insecurity to get in the way of my dream.

Being able to do this has taken a lot of emotional and mental work on my part. This is what I’m telling you you will need to do. These are the exact types of conversations that we have in the Happy Executive Woman Mastermind Group™. This is the perfect place to get expert advice on navigating your home, work and love life with confidence and calm, all while being in command of your emotions. This is the place where you come during office hours to discuss what is going on in your world and receive support from other women on a mission just like you to be happy in every area of their lives.

No topic is off limits, which is why I will limit the number of women for our first mastermind to only six. My clients and other women in my circle need to be free to share their challenges without judgment and receive on the spot coaching during our time together. Biweekly calls, private community outside of Facebook, and biweekly office hours to help you not only find your way to happiness, but receive support and coaching to keep you there is what this mastermind is all about.

Whether you have something to add to the conversation during office hours or not, you will definitely benefit from listening to the on the spot coaching of the other women in your mastermind group. And if you’re not available to attend, you can always submit your questions ahead of time and have access to the recording after.

Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by women that not only get you but also support you in every area of your life? They say that women don’t work well together, well this mastermind will prove them wrong.

Stay close as I will be sharing more information with you on the application process and an upcoming challenge that I am creating just in time for Valentine’s Day. Be sure to check the link in the show notes to add yourself to the waitlist.

Dare to be happy in business and love.

See you in the next episode.