COMMANDING YOUR PROFESSIONAL WORTH: A Systems Approach to Rising Up

Part One

Discovering Your Professional Worth

Being recognized for your professional worth takes far more than working hard or consistently going the extra mile. It takes more than feeling you are owed recognition for your merits or a higher wage than you’re presently earning. It goes beyond what seems fair.

It is, unquestionably, about being able to quantify your worth in a measurable way. Being plugged into your organization’s goals is essential. If the organization benefits from paying you more, they will be more inclined to accommodate your requests. In the end, satisfying your needs must align with the organization’s best interests.

An Uneven Playing Field

Making a passive impact isn’t the same as putting in the bare minimum. In fact, someone who puts in ten times more work and effort than their peers, while not aggressively drawing attention to the impact they’re making, qualifies as a passive impact. And, the fact is, rewarding any employee who’s making a passive impact goes against any organization’s bottom line.

Someone who seems to be putting in the bare minimum is merely earning their base pay and doesn’t merit recognition, acknowledgement, promotion, or an increased salary. So, it matters little whether a person who seems to be doing the bare minimum is actually going above and beyond. In fact, it’s even better for an organization’s bottom line to squeeze more out of their employees without bearing the cost of rewarding them.

The Unfair Impact of Competition

The most assertive, loudest, and most noticed are frequently the most rewarded. So, to attract more attention to themselves, they need to silence their competition. Gaslighting is commonly employed as a subtler approach. They’ll often spend time pointing out others’ mistakes to highlight their own attention to detail.

They made a mistake, and luckily, my eagle-eye caught it.

They’ll throw other people under the bus to deflect attention from their own shortcomings. Or, they might claim credit for others’ successes—commonly suggesting the person they ‘helped’ wouldn’t have succeeded without their assistance, and they likely could not repeat their success without their continued supervision.

Ask for help, and they’ll be dismissive, coy, guarded, and only offer the most vague advice, such as…

Just keep asking questions.

Every one of these techniques is designed to keep you, or anyone who doesn’t fit into their club, from rising up. When successful, they’ve established power over you.

How can you compete if you’re not a sycophant or an attention-seeking person? The answers lie ahead.

The Obstacles Presented by Authority

The manner in which someone exerts their power—or displays their model of leadership—typically mirrors their ego. For example, when an ego-centric individual holds a position of power, they’ll often come to expect everyone surrounding them to compete for their attention and approval. So, when someone makes it known they’re offended or unimpressed by that leader’s behavior, it could backfire.

Take the fine line where an ‘innocent’ joke crosses the line of appropriateness. That’s all it sometimes takes to create an unsafe working environment. An employee who is offended by the joke and doesn’t laugh might bruise the joke-teller’s ego. Realizing they might face repercussions for their actions, the joke-teller might take measures to discredit and marginalize that employee, spreading misconceptions of who they are, defaming their performance level, setting them up for failure, and thereby compromising their professional worth. This leads to a lack of opportunity for that employee, lack of pay equality, and eventually leads to unjustly discharging them. Now, that’s one extreme.

Even well-respected leaders can unintentionally abuse power. It wasn’t until the Me-Too movement that I realized I may have abused my power back in my management days. You see, after I was promoted into a leadership position, I didn’t realize the reason everyone was suddenly laughing at all my jokes was correlated with the power I wielded as a manager. I just thought I hit my stride, thanks to my renewed sense of confidence.

The truth is, I’m not that funny, especially not when I try to be. Suddenly I thought I was so funny, all the time. I was always telling stupid jokes and loved the positive attention. But my ego stood in the way of seeing the truth of my situation. I’m now embarrassed by the jokes I told, and for the people who felt obliged to laugh at them. In essence, this was an abuse of power. Most leaders, regardless of whether it is through intention, will eventually abuse their power, overtly or subtly, consciously or subconsciously.

A strong leader must always be mindful of the effect that wielding power has on those surrounding them, and always be diligently mindful, sensitive, empathetic, and disciplined in their conduct. This applies to you as well, since you are the leader of your professional story.

Perception is Reality

One doesn’t have to be in a leadership position to exude power. The key to emanating power is believing in the power you wield, having self-respect, and never relinquishing control over the narrative of your story, your attitude, or your life. You need to always be in control of you.

You see, so much of your professional worth is determined by how others perceive your ability and your potential, and has little to do with your actual skills. Therefore, the seat of your professional power lies in the control you have over your own narrative. Your narrative is contextualized by your circumstances. Your attitude towards your circumstances—that which happens to you—and your response or reaction to your circumstances serves as the control panel for your narrative. The only person ever permitted to operate that control panel is you, and it cannot be influenced by outside actors.

For example, let’s say someone worked at a job where a peer undermined their efforts and marginalized them. Later, that peer was promoted into a position of authority. Once there, that peer abused their power, and created a toxic work experience.

If that person decided to leave their job for those reasons, they’ll be presenting themself as someone who lives their life as a victim, and poses the risk of creating interpersonal issues if hired.

Let’s imagine the same person decides to find a job elsewhere because the previous workplace lacked equal opportunity, failed to align with their values, and rewarded favoritism instead of merit. So, they decided to dedicate their time to ensuring the next company they’d work with will meet their expectations, and present the opportunities for advancement they are avidly pursuing. They don’t live as a victim. Rather, they held onto their power and took ownership of their career.

Both of these narratives sincerely depict their experience. The only difference is their perception of their given reality, and the attitude they use to convey it. It is through the presentation of their perception that they retain control of how others perceive them, shaping their reality. This is the core philosophy of this book. It is about how you choose to present yourself, throughout your career, from job hunting, to negotiating your starting salary, to proving yourself at work and gaining recognition, to negotiating a raise or promotion.

The Power of Propaganda

Now, the word victim needs to be contextualized here. Anyone can become a victim of crime, sexual harassment, or discrimination, all of which are traumatic experiences. The healing process for such traumas can span years or a lifetime. But when it comes to controlling your narrative and controlling the perception of your professional worth, it is important to recognize the word victim can have multiple connotations.

There is a difference between being a victim of something and going through life as a victim. Those who live as victims have no power and constantly feel victimized. Such a person gets knocked down and stays down. Professionally speaking, this is the definition of failure. Whereas getting up after being knocked down transforms someone from victim to survivor. This person is both a success story and a role model.

Sexual harassment and workplace intimidation can take a variety of forms. These events are not only painful but also traumatic, and often enduring. They can carry a stigma with them, and can even stand in the way of a person finding another job.

Victims are often viewed as having a ‘high risk of liability’. You see, most organizations will evaluate a candidate’s previous experience and work history as an indicator of their future failure or future success. And, again, perception is reality. Period.

So, if a highly skilled professional advertises that they left their job because of a sexual harassment case that ended in a lawsuit, that recruiter may take pause and consider whether hiring them could pose a risk. That recruiter may fill in the blanks of their narrative.

There’s always two sides to the story, they might think. They might wonder if they falsely accused someone of sexual harassment just to fund a frivolous lawsuit. They might question if it was blown out of proportion due to a misunderstanding. These misguided perceptions are the result of a long history of societal propaganda.

Let’s quickly define propaganda here. Propaganda, according to the Oxford dictionary, means information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. So, by oversharing why they’re leaving that employer, they lost their power as well as their control over their narrative.

Is this wrong? Unarguably. But your trauma is none of their business. Remember, that recruiter or hiring authority is not your friend until they prove otherwise. So do not confide in them. Remain boundaried and tell them only what they need to hear. You want to inform them why you are the right person for the job. So communicate that message. Filter out every and any reason that rationalizes bias. Maintain control of your own narrative.

So, model your brand, with your own propaganda, in such a way that advertises your professional worth. And this can be done passively, according to your own nature, without betraying your own ideals. Hint—it will begin with creating an endless number of extremely organized lists. That’s where this next section begins. The exercises suggested in this book are all about creating new disciplined habits while shifting your lens to a more strategic narrative.

The Key Questions

Define who you are and everything you have to offer as a professional. Most importantly, this includes everything that fuels your professional drive and growth. This is the path to establishing what you want. The secret to answering these questions depends on you and your character. It requires self-awareness and aligning how you perceive yourself with how others perceive you. It also helps to be honest with yourself about what you want before you draw perimeters around it.

Throughout the first section of this book, you will answer several key questions.

✦ Who am I?

✦ Where am I?

✦ Why am I here?

✦ Where do I come from?

✦ What am I worth?

✦ What do I want?

✦ Where am I going?

✦ What am I up against?

✦ Am I ready to do what it takes to get there?

These questions will help you better understand yourself. Defining who you are will make you more capable of speaking to your character. It will aid you in being able to articulate the time and place you are in your career and your purpose—goals, motives, and the circumstances that led you here. As you answer these questions, you’ll be better positioned to persuade others towards your aims, while helping them understand that giving you what you want is in their best interests.

Remember, if you can’t identify your worth,

no one will do it for you.

Throughout chapters one, two, and three, we will cover how to research who you are and what you have to offer. We’ll detail how to unravel every facet of your hidden potential. We’ll cover how to start looking at yourself as a highly valued professional and an innovator and leader in your field. Then we’ll help you discover your professional worth and how to build upon it.

You have a lot to offer, more than you realize, and you’ll be amazed by what you discover as you continue through this book. It will help pave the way to tapping into your potential while positioning yourself as everyone’s target talent. We’re going to advertise, with greater confidence, everything you have to offer, regardless of whether you’re starting out in your career or getting ready to negotiate that corner office, a new title, and your well-deserved raise.

Chapter 1

What Are You Worth & Why Are You Here?

Who Are You As A Professional?

There’s an etiquette, and a choreographed approach to discovering your professional worth. The better you know and understand yourself, the more empathetic and self-forgiving you’ll be.

I can’t tell you the number of hard-working professionals I’ve met over the years who took pride in thinking of themselves as a ninjas. But this is not the way to establish your professional worth. Ninjas are secretive, unseen, and anonymous. A ninja specializes in stealth, espionage, and unconventional warfare, with training in infiltration and disguise.

Rather, a better way to think of yourself is as a samurai. A samurai is someone who has disciplined training in traditional martial arts, swordsmanship, archery, and horseback riding. Also, 50% of all samurai were women. A samurai commands something more than fear. A samurai commands respect. And the first rule as a samurai is knowing thyself. Before you can expect anyone else to know what you are worth, it is up to you to determine