Don’t Climb the Corporate Ladder. Build Your Own Ladder.

We're taught that professional success follows a predictable path. If we earn the right degree, get our foot in the door, work hard, and pay our dues, we can climb the corporate ladder, one rung at a time. But what happens when your life doesn't follow that path?

What if you spend more than a decade raising children instead of building a résumé? What if you enter the workforce later than your peers, without the prestigious degree, influential connections, or carefully planned career trajectory? Does that mean your professional potential is somehow diminished?

When I returned to the workforce after spending 13 years as a stay-at-home mother, I knew I had capabilities that weren't reflected in my employment history. I also understood that the professional world wouldn't necessarily recognize those capabilities simply because I possessed them. I would have to demonstrate their value.

As a single mother of four, I didn't have an MBA, a traditional executive background, or a carefully mapped-out career plan. What I did have was determination, an ability to recognize problems, and a willingness to figure out how to solve them. Over time, I progressed from entry-level work into executive leadership, leading multimillion-dollar business transformations and eventually founding my own companies.

My career didn't follow the traditional corporate ladder, and along the way, I developed a philosophy that influences how I approach leadership, problem-solving, and opportunity itself.

When you identify something you need or want, go looking for it. But when you've thoroughly explored what's available and still can't find what you need, ask yourself what it would take to create it.

This question shifts your thinking from waiting for circumstances to align, which are often largely outside our control, to identifying what you can influence. It challenges the assumption that every solution, opportunity, or pathway must already exist before you can pursue it. That doesn't mean every problem requires a new invention or that every obstacle can be overcome through determination alone. It means recognizing that existing options aren't necessarily the only options. It's a philosophy rooted in resourcefulness, critical thinking, and a willingness to challenge assumptions—all critical skills.

Consider an organization struggling to recruit employees with a particular combination of skills. The company may spend months searching for candidates who meet every requirement, while important work remains undone. At some point, leadership has to ask whether continuing the same search is the most effective solution.

Perhaps the better approach is to identify promising employees already within the organization and invest in developing the capabilities they need. Instead of waiting indefinitely for the perfect candidate, the organization creates the capability it needs. Of course, developing talent requires time, resources, and employees who have the aptitude and desire to learn. It won't always be the best solution. But it's an option that can be overlooked when leaders assume the only way to acquire a skill is to hire someone who already possesses it.

The same principle applies to business operations. When existing processes or tools cannot adequately meet an organization's needs, leaders can evaluate whether improvement, adaptation, or an entirely new solution would deliver greater value. And when conventional career opportunities aren't producing results, we can begin exploring ways to create opportunities rather than relying exclusively on those someone else has made available. But there's an important distinction between recognizing a gap and identifying a genuine opportunity.

Just because something doesn't exist doesn't mean it needs to be created. A worthwhile solution must address a legitimate need, deliver meaningful value, and be feasible within the resources available. Sometimes the better decision is to adapt an existing solution, change direction, or recognize that the timing isn't right. Creating opportunities requires more than initiative. It requires judgment.

The underlying question is always the same: Am I limited to what already exists, or is there another way to accomplish what I'm trying to achieve?

One of the greatest misconceptions about professional advancement is the belief that if you're sufficiently qualified, work hard enough, and remain persistent, the right opportunity will inevitably come along. Unfortunately, the job market doesn't always work that way.

A single desirable position can attract hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants. Among those applicants may be dozens of individuals who possess the experience, skills, and qualifications necessary to perform the job exceptionally well. But there's only one position. One person receives the offer. Everyone else doesn't. That doesn't mean the remaining candidates weren't qualified. It simply means an employer selected one individual from a competitive pool.

That decision may reflect a closer match to specific organizational needs, but it doesn't invalidate the capabilities or accomplishments of everyone else. Being qualified and being selected are two different things. Yet professional rejection often causes people to question their competence, their experience, and even their value. We need to recognize that someone else's selection decision isn't an objective measure of our potential.

Sometimes the problem isn't the candidate or the hiring process. Sometimes the system is designed to select one qualified individual from a pool of many, and the available opportunities simply cannot accommodate everyone who is capable of succeeding. When the limitation is the number of available opportunities, the solution may not be to keep competing exclusively for those same opportunities. It may be time to consider creating another one.

Stop Waiting for Someone to Build the Next Rung

Traditional career advancement assumes that the next rung on the ladder already exists. There's a position above yours, a defined set of qualifications, and someone with the authority to decide when you're ready to advance. But even when that position exists, it may not be available to you. Perhaps someone already occupies it. Perhaps the organization isn't growing. Perhaps dozens of equally capable professionals are competing for the same opportunity.

You can spend years waiting for the right circumstances to align, or you can begin looking for ways to create value that open additional paths. Sometimes that means identifying an unresolved problem within your organization and developing a solution. Sometimes it means expanding your expertise, proposing a new function, or demonstrating the business case for responsibilities that haven't previously existed. And sometimes it means recognizing that your next opportunity may need to come from outside the organization entirely.

Entrepreneurship is one example, but you don't have to become an entrepreneur to adopt that mindset. You can think entrepreneurially as an employee, a manager, an executive, or someone preparing to reenter the workforce. Creating an opportunity doesn't necessarily mean quitting your job, launching a company, or assuming financial risks you cannot afford. It might begin with developing a marketable skill, offering a service on a limited basis, cultivating professional relationships, or testing a business idea while maintaining your existing employment.

The objective isn't to take unnecessary risks. It's to expand your options in ways that make sense for your circumstances. There's also an important difference between creating value and simply taking on more work.

Too often, capable professionals, particularly women, become the people everyone relies on to solve problems without receiving corresponding authority, compensation, or recognition. Building your own ladder doesn't mean endlessly accepting additional responsibilities without meaningful professional benefit. It means identifying opportunities where your contributions can translate into growth, whether through expanded authority, increased compensation, ownership, or new career possibilities. Even then, creating value doesn't guarantee that an organization will recognize or reward it.

You can control whether you develop your expertise, identify a problem, propose a solution, or explore an alternative path. You cannot always control whether an employer approves your proposal, whether customers purchase your services, or whether the market rewards your efforts.

Building your own ladder doesn't mean controlling every outcome. It means taking greater ownership of the actions and decisions within your control rather than allowing your future to depend entirely on decisions made by others.

From Recognizing Problems to Creating Value

My own career has reinforced the importance of looking beyond a job title and focusing on the problems I could solve.

When I returned to the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for 13 years, I didn't have the conventional career history many employers look for. But I hadn't spent those years learning nothing. Raising four children required organization, financial management, adaptability, problem-solving, negotiation, and the ability to manage competing priorities under pressure.

Those experiences weren't substitutes for every technical or professional skill I would eventually need, but they provided a foundation I could build upon. As my career progressed, I invested in developing my expertise, eventually earning my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and moving into operational leadership and business transformation.

Throughout my career, I've led operational improvements that reduced backorders by 90%, shortened lead times by 60%, and increased production by 65%. I've also helped scale operations to support organizational revenue growth from $30 million to $54 million, improved claims-processing performance, and identified approximately $7 million in recoverable revenue. These experiences taught me that creating professional value often begins with recognizing a problem that others have accepted as an unavoidable part of doing business.

A backlog becomes something to manage rather than eliminate. Inefficient processes become normal. Employees compensate for broken systems by working harder, and the organization becomes increasingly dependent on individual effort to sustain performance. Accepting a problem as normal doesn't make it necessary.

When we challenge those assumptions and develop better solutions, we create value that didn't previously exist. That value can become the foundation for new responsibilities, expanded leadership opportunities, or entirely different professional paths.

Some careers legitimately require specific degrees, licenses, or credentials. Building your own ladder isn't about bypassing necessary qualifications. It's about recognizing that there may be multiple valid ways to develop and demonstrate the capabilities a particular role requires.

When the Process Works, but the Opportunity Is Limited

As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, I've spent much of my career analyzing processes, identifying constraints, and developing solutions that produce measurable results. One of the most important lessons I've learned is that a process can function exactly as designed and still be incapable of producing the outcome someone needs.

Consider the competitive hiring scenario discussed earlier. An employer may have an effective process for identifying, evaluating, and selecting qualified candidates. From the employer's perspective, the process can work exactly as intended. But that process doesn't create additional positions for the qualified candidates who weren't selected.

From an operational perspective, this isn't necessarily a process failure. It's a limitation in available capacity—not the capacity to evaluate candidates, but the number of opportunities the organization has to offer. No amount of individual determination can change the fact that one position can accommodate only one person. That's where I believe we need to change the question. Instead of continuing to ask, "How can I become the person selected for this opportunity?" we should also ask: "What would it take to create an opportunity of my own?"

Lean Six Sigma teaches us to approach challenges systematically rather than relying on assumptions or simply increasing effort. Through DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control), we examine problems, understand current performance, identify contributing factors, implement improvements, and establish methods for sustaining results. Effective problem-solving also requires recognizing when improving an existing process cannot address the underlying constraint. In those situations, we may need to consider a fundamentally different solution. Design for Six Sigma, for example, provides structured approaches for developing new products or processes when existing options cannot adequately meet the requirements.

I believe the same distinction applies to career development.

If the problem is an ineffective résumé, improve the résumé. If the problem is a missing skill, develop the skill. If the problem is an ineffective strategy, reconsider the strategy. But if the problem is that there are more qualified candidates than available positions, improving your qualifications alone doesn't create additional positions.

You cannot solve a shortage of opportunities solely by improving the qualifications of the people competing for them. At some point, the solution may require thinking beyond the existing system. That might mean identifying an unmet business need and proposing a new role, offering specialized services independently, developing a product, or starting a business. These alternatives still require sound judgment. A viable opportunity must address a genuine need, deliver meaningful value, and be feasible given the resources available. But the essential shift is recognizing that you don't always have to remain dependent on opportunities someone else has already created.

The same principle applies to organizations that rely on employees working harder to compensate for inefficient processes. Managers intervene, employees work longer hours, and leadership celebrates the people who repeatedly save the day. But when the same problems continue happening, the organization hasn't solved anything. It has simply become dependent on extraordinary individual effort to overcome problems that should have been addressed at their source. That's why one of my core leadership principles is to build systems that don't require heroes to function.

The same thinking applies to our careers. Sometimes we need to improve the process we're using to pursue opportunities. Other times, we need to recognize that the process is functioning as intended but cannot produce the outcome we need.

Sometimes the system isn't broken. Sometimes it simply doesn't have room for everyone who is capable of succeeding within it.

And when that's the case, the answer may not be to keep competing exclusively for the same limited opportunities. It may be time to create another one.

Building My Own Opportunities

My belief in creating opportunities eventually became part of my entrepreneurial journey. I founded Scale The Chaos to help organizations address the operational challenges that prevent them from achieving sustainable growth.

Throughout my career, I had seen how often businesses struggle not because they lack talented people or ambitious goals, but because their processes, systems, and accountability structures haven't kept pace with their needs. I recognized an opportunity to apply my experience beyond the boundaries of a single organization.

More recently, I co-founded theCaseWork™, an AI-enabled client-delivery platform designed to help governance, risk, and compliance consulting firms improve the way they manage and deliver client engagements.

Both ventures reflect the same underlying philosophy: identify a need, understand the problem, explore the available solutions, and, when there's a meaningful gap, determine whether you can create something that fills it. Entrepreneurship comes with its own uncertainties. Building a business doesn't eliminate competition, financial risk, or the need to demonstrate value.

An unmet need doesn't automatically translate into a viable business. Customers must recognize the value of a solution and be willing to invest in it. Resources, timing, and execution all matter. But entrepreneurship offers another way to participate in the marketplace, one that isn't entirely dependent on being selected from a pool of applicants for a position someone else has defined. And for me, that possibility has always been worth exploring.

Building Your Own Ladder Doesn't Mean You'll Never Fall

Another important truth about unconventional career paths is that they aren't always linear. Success doesn't guarantee that every subsequent opportunity will come easily. Experience doesn't eliminate setbacks. And professional accomplishments don't make anyone immune to changing markets, organizational decisions, or circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes the next step is uncertain. Sometimes you have to change direction. Sometimes you find yourself rebuilding after years of progress. But I've learned that starting over isn't the same as starting from scratch.

Every challenge you've navigated, every skill you've developed, every problem you've solved, and every lesson you've learned becomes part of what you bring to your next opportunity. Your job title may change. Your employment circumstances may change. The organizations you work for may change. But the capabilities you've developed don't simply disappear. That's why I believe it's so important to build more than a career defined by titles and positions.

Build expertise. Build relationships. Build confidence grounded in demonstrated accomplishments. Build the ability to recognize problems and develop solutions. And perhaps most importantly, build the resourcefulness to adapt when the path in front of you changes. Because the real value of building your own ladder isn't that you'll never encounter obstacles. It's that you become better equipped to find another way forward.

Your Career. Your Potential. Your Ladder.

I believe we need to rethink the way we talk about professional success, particularly for women whose lives and careers don't follow traditional timelines. A woman who spends years raising children hasn't necessarily stopped developing valuable capabilities. A professional who lacks a particular degree isn't automatically incapable of achieving executive-level results. And a highly qualified candidate who isn't selected for a position hasn't suddenly become less qualified because someone else received the offer.

We need to stop treating conventional career progression as the only legitimate measure of professional potential. There are many ways to develop expertise, create value, demonstrate leadership, and achieve meaningful success. Some involve climbing the traditional corporate ladder. Others involve building something entirely different.

Being qualified doesn't guarantee you'll be selected. Working hard doesn't guarantee the next opportunity will become available. And following the traditional path doesn't guarantee you'll reach the destination you envisioned. But the opportunities that exist today don't have to define the limits of what you can accomplish tomorrow.

Pursue the opportunities available to you. Develop your capabilities. Compete when it makes sense. But when the path forward is limited, don't assume you've reached the end of what's possible.

You can keep climbing someone else's ladder. Or you can start building your own.

Rhonda Lea is a business transformation leader, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and founder of Scale The Chaos. Recognized by the International Association of Top Professionals as a 2025 Top Transformation Leader, she specializes in helping organizations eliminate operational inefficiencies, strengthen accountability, and build scalable systems. She is also co-founder of theCaseWork™, an AI-enabled client-delivery platform for governance, risk, and compliance consulting firms.