Career Coaching - Stay Or Look For A New Role?

I am currently working with a senior executive who needs to make a decision about whether to stay in her existing role or move to another role in another organisation.

In fact, she has a job offer on the table and the organisation concerned is so eager to have her that they have given her until the end of the calendar year to make her decision prior to giving notice in her current role.

Are you in a similar position? Perhaps you have dissatisfactions in your current role which are causing you to consider your options.

From personal experience - and in working with many executives in this area - it is important to start by thinking about what is driving you to consider a change within your career.

Can the issues which are causing you to consider change be resolved within your current role? For example, workload, work type or work location?

Have you exhausted all of the possibilities for making the changes that you want within your current role?

If the issue - or issues - are not resolvable and you are sure that you want to make the change, think through your decision carefully first and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the rationale behind the decision? 
• What are the facts? 
• What is the logic behind your decision?
• How do you feel? 
• What impact will this decision have on your values?

But what are your options and what criteria will you use to assess these options and make a decision?

One technique which I suggested to my client - and we went though in our session - may provide you with some help. Simply answer the following questions and it should help you reach a decision:

• What would/could you gain if you moved to the/a new role?
• What would/could you lose if you moved to the/a new role?
• What would/could you keep [which is important to you] if you stay?
• What would/could you lose if you stay in your current role?

Sometimes we need to step back and see the wood for the trees.

Sometimes the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence when we may be:

• Jumping from the frying pan into the fire
• Avoiding handling issues such as relationship management that we may well come across in our next role - the saying 'Wherever I go, there I am' springs to mind here
• Experiencing the horns effect when we give a high weighting to an issue that we are unhappy about but may have not done enough to address it using all of our strengths and resources.

If you have found this blog to be useful please leave a comment and if you would like support in your career then please do get in touch via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling - Career Coaching.