You’re in the middle of your career. You have ambitions to go even further. You know what “further” means for you. It could be a title you’d like to hold. It could be a genre of work you’d like to oversee, or expansion of your customer base to a particular clientele whom can spend more on your products or services. Whatever your goal, now is the time to determine what skills your future self will need to sit comfortably and confidently in that leadership space.

My first real mid-career move (outside of the legal profession after I shuttered my law practice) was as a director in a non-profit. However, I wasn’t a part of a department or a division. I didn’t have a subject matter colleague. I had no direct reports. I had no budget allocation for my work. But I did have an idea of where I wanted to end up in my career. I wanted to lead an organization (that I had not built). When it was time for me to seek out new employment, there were certain skills I knew I needed to start acquiring. Let’s face it, a director position in a flat organization (where basically everyone else had the title of “director” also) without management responsibility and training skills was going to get me nowhere if I stayed too long. So I made a list of what skills my future self needed. When I decided to make a work transition, I only applied to opportunities where I would still be a director. But I needed to be a director of one, of multiple divisions in a department. I would have to have a budget to oversee (and not an insignificant one); and staff to manage and train, at least three. Those were my minimum requirements. I believed that if I could secure a job with those responsibilities, I was well on my way. Interestingly, I had no requirement about which job sector I needed to be in, I only know where I did not want to be. In a law firm or non-profit. My willingness to go across sectors opened up my applicant opportunities. Similarly, the skill sets I was seeking to acquire were assets any job in any sector would need now and in the future.

I eventually became employed as a division director for a municipal government in its Civil Rights department. I had four people whom reported to me, and oversaw the division’s budget of approximately $600,000. I received plenty of staff and volunteer training experience (among other invaluable skills that assisted my professional rise).

My advice to you, is to always know what skills you need to get to the next level you want to achieve (if you don’t know; ask someone in that position, read related articles, and look at job postings). Write the skills down. Make the steadfast decision that these are the minimum requirements you want and deserve. Then go after your future self!