Your network impacts your professional identity clarity
"The greater the variety of role models, the greater the opportunity for increased self-knowledge" (Ibarra)
Moral of this post…analyze the density and range of your developmental network because it quite likely impacts your level of clarity of your professional identity!
Your network is critical to helping you find clarity on WHO you are
In this paper, Dobrow and Higgins studied how developmental network density is key (although not causal) to professional identity.
For definition, your developmental network is the people in your life who are actively and currently (sometime in the last year) supporting or advising you about your professional goals or career in some capacity.
The researchers took a group of MBA students, asked them questions to see how certain they felt about who they were in their career, then asked them to chart their network, and repeated this process with the same respondents over a five year period.
Essentially, Dobrow and Higgins hypothesized that the broader and more diverse your developmental network, the more career benefits you'll gain such as:
Having a variety of role models to show you a range of possible selves to explore. Being exposed to a wide range of diverse individuals helps you sense which of your possible professional identities you want to lean into more.
Increasing your career-related cognitive flexibility and career change adaptability because you're exposed to more options and examples.
Increasing your ability to explore and gain more clarity on your "enduring constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, and motives that define who you are as a professional" (Ibarra & Schein). Ultimately, by knowing what is dear to you and what you stand for, you gain stronger self-awareness of your core professional identity.
How to develop a more robust network to strengthen your professional identity
To gain more clarity on your professional identity, look at the quality of your developmental network.
Specifically focus on the range and density of your network to make sure you have a group of people who will provide you with access to non-redundant resources. It's advantageous to get many different kinds of information not the same answers over and over.
RANGE means people in your network come from a variety of social contexts and non-overlapping circles.
DENSITY means how many people in your developmental network already know one another. Lower density means a higher likelihood you won't get redundant advice.
Now, go make a list.
Write down the names of people who are your developmental advisors (they've supported you in 2021 with career help). These could be mentors, coaches, friends, colleagues, and family members.
Next, chart which people know each other. The more closely people are connected, the more you have a lot of density in your network.
Also note, how much range is in your network? What backgrounds and careers do these people have?
Take stock.
Challenge yourself to diversify your developmental network. It just might help you unlock the next stage of you, and especially your hybrid professional identity.