St.Louis Business Journal
CHOOSING NOT TO BE UPWARDLY MOBILE TAKES COURAGE

By Anna Navarro

July 2007  

Author's note: Client stories in this column are based on actual situations fictionalized to protect privacy and told with permission.



Americans are an upwardly mobile society. Bucking that orientation often means going with your own judgement and setting aside the expectations and advice of others.

Moira was at a crossroads in her career. She was a successful academic who might have a shot at becoming a college president if she played her cards right. The problem was, she wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted to do.

She’d gotten a PhD in philosophy despite the objections of her father, an affluent corporate executive who would have been much happier if she’d pursued a path that led to a higher paying career.

She’d done her training at a top-flight institution, and gotten a great teaching job at an excellent school after graduating. Initially she didn’t mind not making much money. But things changed after she had a daughter. She felt keenly the need to give her child some of the advantages she’d had growing up.

Eight years into her career, Moira became head of the philosophy department. She took over in a time of turmoil, after several professors left suddenly. She set about rebuilding the department and surprised herself and the administration with her effectiveness. Her work was noticed by the university’s President.

Several years later, when the Dean of the College of the Humanities left, Moira was asked to be the Acting Dean. When they offered her the position, they made it clear she lacked the experience to serve in that role long-term. But they said she was a rising star and if she accepted, they'd give her another post to help groom her for a career in administration.

Moira was pleased at this turn of events. She’d enjoyed her work as head of the Philosophy Department and was excited to be Acting Dean. She became the protégé of the university’s president, who encouraged her to think it might be possible for her to become a college president some day. Her father was elated.

A few months later, however, when a search for the new dean was coming to a close, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to stay on this path. She had found the Acting Dean job grueling.

She lived in what she described as a fishbowl. The time demands had been very heavy. If she counted the functions she had to attend, (and her daughter certainly did), she often put in a 16-hour day. She missed the flexible schedule she’d had as a faculty member and didn’t find the challenges she faced as intellectually stimulating.

On the other hand, being an administrator offered more prestige and more money. It would allow her to offer her daughter some of the luxuries she’d had as a child. Other women faculty members were urging her to climb the ladder and prove what women could do. Her father, always in the background, kept urging her on.

When Moira and I first talked, I suggested she step back from the immediate decision she faced to get some perspective on what she really valued.

What emerged as she did that was that the skills she most enjoyed were intellectual ones. Analysis, writing and discussion were high on the list. She had a passion for the life of the mind and academic inquiry. She valued privacy, and time for reflection. She wanted summers off and found it stressful to interact constantly with new people.

The most difficult issue for her was her financial responsibility for her daughter. But as she considered it, she realized her daughter didn't lack for anything essential, and that in many ways, her environment was richer than her own had been as a child.

The more we talked the clearer she became that the right decision for her was to step off the administrative path she had barely begun to return to the faculty. It was the direction that offered the quality of life she most valued.

Armed with these insights, she returned to the university to tell the administration that when they found the right person for acting dean, she'd like to go back to the faculty. She had the same conversation with her father and members of the faculty who had been rooting for her to climb the administrative ladder.

It wasn't an easy decision. She was very aware of what she was giving up. But it was the only decision that gave her peace.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.