1. Before You Become the Obvious Choice, Make Sure the Opportunity is the Right Choice

In our last The Authority Brief™ series, The Selection Advantage™, we explored how accomplished leaders become the obvious choice for opportunity. We looked at visibility, familiarity, confidence, perceived risk, and the signals that influence selection long before a formal decision is made.

But there is another side of selection that we don't talk about nearly enough: Before working so hard to become the obvious choice, how carefully have we considered whether the opportunity is the right choice for us?

In my work with senior executives, I've noticed how quickly our competitive instincts can take over when an attractive opportunity appears. Can I get it? Am I qualified? How should I position myself? Who do I know? What will make them choose me? Those are useful questions. I've spent years helping leaders answer them.

But perhaps they aren't the first questions we should be asking.

There are few career victories more disappointing than successfully landing an opportunity only to discover that you've won more of what you no longer wanted.

When "Great" Changes

For much of our careers, we become accustomed to evaluating opportunities using familiar measures: title, compensation, scope of responsibility, prestige, influence, perhaps the size of the team or importance of the assignment. All are legitimate measures of professional advancement.

But at some point, those measures may no longer tell the whole story.

As we accumulate experience, we also learn more about ourselves. We discover what energizes us and what depletes us. We become clearer about the environments in which we flourish and those that require too much of us in return. We may begin to value autonomy differently. Time differently. Relationships differently. Meaning differently.

We may want more room to think and create. More flexibility. Different kinds of challenges. Opportunities to use abilities that have lain dormant for years. We may want to make a different kind of contribution. We may even want to rediscover parts of ourselves that have gradually been crowded out by decades of responsibility.

And yet, when the next impressive opportunity appears, it's remarkably easy to pull out the same scorecard we've been carrying for decades.

The position looks great on paper. But does it fit?

Ask yourself:

Those are very different questions.

Establishing Your Own Criteria for "Great"

Perhaps before we decide whether an opportunity is great, we need to define what "great" means to us now.

Not what our younger selves would have considered successful. Not what our colleagues will admire. Not what will make an impressive LinkedIn announcement. And certainly not what someone else thinks we should want next.

What would make your next chapter genuinely satisfying to you?

That's a question I've become increasingly interested in exploring. I've spent years helping leaders articulate their value, become more visible, and position themselves to be selected for important opportunities. I believe deeply in that work. But I'm becoming equally interested in what needs to happen before we position ourselves for selection: making sure we're pursuing something worthy of our time, talent, energy, and the person we are becoming.

Over the coming weeks in The Authority Brief™, I'd like to turn some of our familiar thinking about career advancement around. Instead of beginning with How do I get what's next?, we'll begin with What do I want to make possible in my next chapter?

We'll explore the values that matter to us now and the conditions that allow us to flourish. We'll consider the parts of ourselves we may have set aside along the way and the possibilities that become visible when we stop assuming our future must simply be a continuation of our past. And we'll examine what it means not merely to advance a career, but to intentionally create a next chapter.

Because before deciding how to win the next opportunity, perhaps we should first decide what makes an opportunity worth winning.

Your Authority Brief™ Micro-Action

Before thinking about your next title, position, venture—or even retirement—give yourself ten uninterrupted minutes with a pen and notebook to consider this question:

What would have to be true for my next chapter to feel genuinely successful to me—not simply look successful to someone else?

Think beyond work. Consider your time, relationships, energy, ability to think and create, the contribution you want to make, and the parts of yourself you might like to use again. Don't worry yet about whether what you write is practical or achievable. There will be plenty of time for that.

For now, you're doing something more fundamental: You're beginning to establish your own criteria for great.

Afterword:

There’s a natural connection between choosing an opportunity that fits who you are becoming and showing up in a way that authentically reflects who you are.

That alignment is congruence—and it’s at the heart of my upcoming conversation with Executive Presence Expert Patrice Bisiot on The Authority Advantage™ Live.

Why do some leaders inspire trust almost immediately, while others with equally impressive credentials struggle to create the same confidence? Patrice and I will explore what happens beyond the first impression—and why authority grows when who you are, what you communicate, and what others experience all tell the same story.

Beyond the First Impression: Why Authenticity Creates Authority, Wednesday, August 12 | 10:00–10:30 AM Central

Join us for the LinkedIn Live event: Beyond the First Impression: Why Authenticity Creates Authority

Bring your questions—and your curiosity. I think you’ll leave with a new way of thinking about the relationship between congruence, trust, and authority.