#86 - Redesigning your mid-career path!

5 Nov 25

You’ve done everything right, delivered results, built credibility, stayed loyal yet your career feels stuck. The promotions are slower. The roles above you are occupied. The feedback is 'You’re doing great just keep it up.'

But what if the problem isn’t you but the ladder itself?

In this month’s Springboard Spotlight, we explore why the traditional step-by-step model no longer serves many mid-career professionals and how you can redesign your path to open up new growth, influence and fulfillment.

What?

Is the ladder broken? Or at least wobbly?

For decades, the corporate ladder defined success: move up, take on a bigger title, and you’re progressing. But today’s world isn’t linear it’s lattice-shaped.

Flatter structures, hybrid work, and skill-based roles have disrupted traditional advancement. Many capable professionals now find themselves in a 'frozen middle'. Excellent at what they do but struggling to find upward movement.

So, what does 'progress' look like when the next rung isn’t available? It looks like lateral growth, project-based leadership and career design over career drift.

Growth is no longer defined by title. It’s defined by scope, impact, and options.

Why?

Staying on the ladder can keep you stuck. When we cling to the ladder model, three things tend to happen:

1. We equate progress with promotion - And when promotion stalls, we feel invisible or undervalued even when our contribution is significant.

2. We under-invest in breadth - Specialists often become trapped in narrow expertise, missing chances to expand into new domains, functions or business models.

3. We delay reinvention until crisis - The longer you stay in 'comfort competence', the harder it becomes to pivot when change finally arrives.

Mid-career is the ideal moment to rethink, retool, and reframe before burnout or redundancy forces the issue.

How?

Here's how you can redesign your career path:

1. Audit your portfolio, not just your position. List the projects, skills, and relationships that define your current career 'portfolio'. Ask: Which of these create future value? Which have expired?
   The aim is to identify what still fuels growth and what’s keeping you in maintenance mode.
2. Think in arcs not steps - Visualise your career as a series of arcs, not a vertical climb. Each arc can expand your scope: a cross-functional project, a stretch assignment, a move into another industry, or even a sabbatical to learn. These arcs may not raise your title immediately — but they expand your story.
3. Build a 'Portfolio of Options' - In a world of uncertainty, optionality is power. Cultivate new skills (AI literacy, facilitation, design thinking). Grow your internal network. Contribute externally (industry panels, side projects, thought leadership). Each gives you leverage when new opportunities, internal or external, arise.
4. Re-narrate your story - Mid-career professionals often struggle to tell their growth story. Instead of saying 'I’ve been here 10 years', say 'I’ve led transformation across finance, operations, and people functions. Now I’m ready to shape strategy'. Your narrative shapes how others see your readiness for bigger roles.
5. Test and Iterate - You don’t need to quit to grow. Try 'safe experiments' such as:

• • Volunteer for a project outside your lane,
  • Shadow a peer in a different function,
  • Launch a small internal initiative that solves a business problem,
  • Treat your career as a design lab not a waiting room.

In Summary

Breaking through doesn’t always mean climbing up. It means designing across; expanding your capacity, visibility, and narrative in ways the ladder never allowed.

The leaders of the next decade will be those who engineer their own trajectories not those who wait for someone else to create them.

So this month, take 90 minutes to map your next arc. Not 'What’s my next title?' But:

'What’s the next version of me I want to build?'

Have a great week!

Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you:

1. Resources - Reading is an essential component to developing your own authentic leadership style. Check out my resources page for really inspiring books which I have found invaluable within my own leadership journey,
2. Springboard Store - Check out my store where you will find a mixture of FREE and paid products.
3. Leadership Skills Evaluator - If you are an experienced leader, how do you assess if your current skillset is up to date, or if you have any gaps? Or understand if it is developed enough to equip you for the next two roles? This is where the Leadership Skills Evaluator comes in. Answer 30 questions spread across 10 key leadership areas to assess your current capability. It's absolutely FREE to take the assessment, and you will receive a personalised report delivered immediately into your Inbox on completion! Here's the link.