Forty or fifty years ago when you walked into a new corporation or institution, you would look around you in order to understand how the system worked and orient yourself to it.

If there was a career ladder to be climbed in your new organization as there often was back then, you’d try to understand the ladder and learn how to start climbing!

You’d pay attention to the qualities and achievements that got people promoted in your company, and try to showcase those qualities in yourself. Most of us were raised to climb any ladder in our vicinity!

We didn’t stop and ask ourselves, “Is climbing this ladder what I want for myself?” because in those days, corporations did a good job of helping people move up in their careers.

It made all the sense in the world to try and advance as far as you could in whichever organization employed you.

Nowadays things are murkier. Not every job promotion you are offered will be good for your career.

Sometimes your manager will offer you a promotion because there is a critical but unappealing job that no one else is willing to do.

Sometimes the money you are offered for a promotion doesn’t match the responsibilities of the job.

Sometimes the manager you’d be working for in the new position is a bully. Maybe the position itself is badly-designed and impossible to perform while maintaining a personal life.

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