In this 10X Leadership Connect video, Margaret Spence – founder of the Employee to CEO Project and the 10X Leadership Academy for Women – challenges women leaders to rethink how they manage their careers as the year ends. She asks viewers to consider what distinguishes them within their organizations and urges them to build a clear personal brand. Spence argues that the prevalence of sameness leads to identical results, so professionals must create distinct core competencies. She warns that generalists who avoid picking a specific lane become irrelevant and are often let go. To become a subject‑matter expert, one must choose a niche, master it, and position oneself as the thought leader for that competency. Spence frames the individual as a “brand ambassador” for themselves, encouraging them to decide what they want to be known for and to ensure others can articulate that distinction. The video concludes with a call to action to apply these principles, a reminder of the recent Career Transformation Challenge, and a teaser for the next week’s video.
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Hi, my name is Margaret Spence, and I'm the founder of the Employee to CEO Project and the 10X Leadership Academy for Women. Last month, we ran the Career Transformation Challenge. Today, I want to continue to ask you some bold questions, bold questions about your career, because it's really important that as we move to the end of the year, that you upend everything that you've ever thought and that you start managing your career differently. So today's question that I want to ask you is, what distinguishes you in your organization? And what are you doing to build a brand so that people can distinguish you from everyone else? There's a lot of sameness in this world where people try to be the same as everyone else. I'm just going to be like everyone else out there. I'm gonna do the same things. And if you do the same things that everyone else is doing, then you're expecting the same results that they're having. But if you wanna be different, if you want to chart a different course for where you're going, then it's important that you create some distinctions around who you are. Distinctions are really key. They're core competencies. What makes you unique? And what makes you uniquely you. You know, everyone struggles— is the right word that I'm looking for— to build a specific brand for themselves. And there's always a thought that if I build a brand one way and people know me this particular way, how will they ever see me in a different way? But here's an interesting fact. People who are generalists, who are generally known, who never want to be specific about what they know, or who never wanna pick a lane and get in it, are generally the ones that people let go, they terminate, and they fire because nobody can figure out what it is that that person does. And so their role becomes irrelevant. In order for you to be seen as a subject matter expert, you have to pick the lane that you wanna get into and you have to get into it. You can't be the jack of all trades and the master of nothing. You have to be the master of something. It's important to the overall management of your career that you pick a distinction, and that you build a brand so that people know you as the thought leader of something. You cannot be the master of everything and not the thought leader of one specific core competency. So think of your career and think of yourself as a brand ambassador for you. You are the one that's building your brand. So what do you want to be known for in your organization? What distinctly makes you, you? What is it that you want them to say? You know, Margaret is an expert at this and we're going to hire her or we're going to promote her because she is distinctly qualified for this particular role because she's demonstrated a core competency and a core experience level that we cannot find anywhere else. If you are the same as everyone else, you will get the same results as everyone else. It's important that you distinguish yourself and you create distinctions around your career so that you can be elevated to the position that you want. Thank you for joining me for the 10X Leadership Connect, where we talk about your career and how you can be empowered to manage your career more effectively. Stay tuned for next week's video. Thank you.
