What Are Your Consultant Superpowers?
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Put me in any situation and I’ll tell you why a project isn’t working. Nowadays I see my ‘advanced problem identification’ ability as a superpower but it wasn’t always this way.
When I was a junior team member, it got me in hot water more than once. People don’t always like to be told why a project isn’t working.
It was definitely one of my biggest frustrations as a project manager. There were quite a few situations where the people in the room would be more invested in having a project that was so clearly failing in every sense continue undisturbed, rather than actually name the elephant in the room.
Speaking truth to power isn’t always the way to ingratiate yourself to senior management.
It also acts like a lie detector at the same time. If someone says something that isn’t true, I call it out. That doesn’t always make for comfortable conversations!
But now I recognise it’s my best quality.
We are groomed to set aside our leadership abilities from a young age. We spend our formative years having those rough edges smoothed off, and for me I think this was also happening in my 20s as well.
We’re encouraged to stop being so ‘you’, and learn to blend in. We’re told to be accommodating and more receptive to the ideas of others, even when those ideas are just the wrong thing entirely. Don’t stand out so much. Don’t be so productive as it makes other people look bad.
And then I’ve spent my 30s getting them back again – because it suddenly dawns on you that actually, the very qualities that you’ve been told make you difficult or whatever label might be used, are your superpowers as a consultant.
And that’s the thing. There is work to do here to untangle the version of ‘you’ that is still there deep down, but has been covered with layers of other people’s expectations of you.
You should less ‘this’, and more ‘that’.
And it’s also about allowing yourself to pull out different strengths in different situations, and ultimately allowing yourself to be more dynamic.
Let me know, what are your superpowers and are you using them to build your consulting business?
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Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your feedback and future topics you’d like me to feature. You may also enjoy The Seven Figure Consultant Podcast, the show that takes you from booked up and burned out in your consulting business to THRIVING as the CEO of your 7 figure enterprise.