Sarah Stuart: How to keep your career on track

Have you ever spent 4000 words and two weeks of agonising late nights analysing how your behaviour has impacted others in the workplace?

Thought not. I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

This week's Leadership assignment is just that: an event, issue or situation you were a major or minor player in, how it occurred, your role, analysed through academic leadership theory and where your next learning will develop. Confronting, much?

Thankfully, this time, the dreaded Turnitin is not in play: no algorithm determining whether you've plagiarised, no 11.59pm deadline. Instead, just our two leadership lecturers will read this piece of personal reflection and analysis. Confidentiality assured. I feel sick just thinking about what they'll think.

At the back of my mind midway through this tortuous piece of writing is Dr Lester Levy's "Why should I be led by you?" question. All I can see are the reasons why no one should.

Amid the literature is one fascinating area of research, the thrillingly named Derailment: why some executives with promise are thrown off their career course, potentially due to their own Self Defeating Behaviours (SDBs). The idea behind this is we have as much to learn from leader failure as we do from leader success.

Researchers suggest as many as 50-75 per cent of executives have their careers derailed, with subsequent harm to their company and those they have led or worked with.

Acronyms are rife in academia and SDBs is a good one. It means things like being suspicious, defensive, over-committed, worrying, overly critical, alienating, rigid, hostile, over-controlling, perfectionism, and inability to trust others. Thankfully, perfectionism has never been my bag.

However procrastination, which also makes the list, is a daily foe. Researchers have found, however, that procrastination doesn't correlate with leader derailment. It may be a factor in Self-Management Failure but is not a prominent issue in managing others. In fact, of all the SDBs, only the ones that come into play when interacting with others are indicators of derailment.

Before you hand in your own resignation due to your own late night worry sessions, an over-commited workload, suspicions that your hopeless boss is out to get you and knowing that your staff will never do something as well as you would, take heart from the research on those who have overcome derailment.

A South African study of female CEOs is a hopeful example. Probed on what had created their leadership success, all spoke about their ability to manage their emotions, particularly in a time of stress. More than one highlighted the damage women can do to their careers when they are over-emotional or excitable and are seen as "irrational".

All had faced derailment at some stage of their careers but had avoided it through their own efforts. Their experiences showed the dangers of blaming external factors for a career issue, rather than taking responsibility yourself.

The women related six core underlying themes on which their ability to avoid derailment rested: self-confidence; resilience; optimism; the ability to self-manage emotions; building relationships and networks and the self-discipline to juggle multiple roles and maintain a work-life balance.

Easy as. Luckily, I've managed to mightily muck up some of those at times in my career, giving me plenty of material for this week's assignment. Lots of room for learning here.