Self Advocacy 101
Why standing up for yourself (a little) is ok.
Self-advocacy is not a skill that I learned.
In fact, if it had been offered as a course 📚“Self Advocacy 101” 📚at my university, I know I would have opted for another economics or technical course instead of taking it.
Self-advocacy was something that I didn’t even think of as a skill that I needed until after I had fumbled around in my career and managed to seemingly “make it”.
Now it is something that I focus on with my children, my clients and my friends. I can’t help it. That’s what parents do.
But self-advocacy can be hard.
And it can feel dirty.
Growing up in an Asian household I learned (the hard way) that
🔨“The nail that sticks up gets hammered down” 🔨
Similar to the “Tall Poppy” syndrome, often we are taught that we should be good, but not so good that we stick out!
Credit: Insperity
At work, this can translate into staying focused on the immediate task at hand and not taking the opportunity to go to an office social hour or managers meeting, to develop relationships needed to move your career forward.
No, it doesn’t mean that you have to go from being a wallflower to a dancing queen. And, in general the “Tall Poppy” syndrome is a useful rule of thumb.
But, it doesn’t hurt to do a little self-advocating once in a while.
In truth, those who build trust and understanding with senior leaders will end up with new opportunities as the organization grows and transforms.
Self-advocacy is needed throughout the course of our careers - only we don’t really notice it, and we don’t always pay attention to developing it as a skill. How to do self-advocacy without needing to take a shower afterwards?
Make a contribution. Talk to your leaders (not your manager) about opportunities to improve something at work. It could be a process or the culture at work. Share them with others, not as a “this is so terrible somebody needs to do something about it” but instead “hey I saw this opportunity to change how our customers do …..”.
Share a difficult experience and more importantly, what you learned from it. This can be hard if your first instinct is to not want to admit to defeat.
Take the opportunity to practice self-advocacy, when you don’t need it. When things are going well at work, take the time to speak to some senior leaders - nurture new relationships by reaching out to “touch base” and share some interesting things that are going on at work that someone will be interested in.
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Pan-Asians are most likely to be hired, least likely to be senior leaders. This is shown in employment data. My mission in life is to advocate for others to have the positive career and experiences that I have been fortunate to have by sharing insights (and a bit of advice) on how to get there.
Special thanks to
for all of your guidance, feedback and encouragement!