Many people still think about careers as ladders where progress is measured through promotions, higher classifications and increasingly senior job titles. This way of thinking shapes how people evaluate success and influences the career decisions they make throughout their working lives. When upward movement becomes the primary marker of achievement, sideways moves can feel slower, less impressive or difficult to explain to other people.
The reality inside large organisations is far more complex and far more interesting than that.
Some of the strongest leaders I have worked with built their careers through a broad range of experiences across teams, functions, projects and agencies. They developed depth in some areas while also building perspective across others. Over time, this breadth created leaders who were more adaptable, more collaborative and more capable of navigating complexity.
Leadership capability develops through exposure to different environments, pressures, personalities and systems. Sideways career moves create opportunities to build exactly that.
Throughout my career in leadership development and coaching, I have seen many people initially hesitate to pursue sideways opportunities because they worried the move would look like a lack of ambition. Several years later, those same people often describe the move as one of the most important decisions they made for their long term growth.
A broader range of experiences changes how people think, communicate and lead.
Early in my APS career, a senior leader encouraged me to move across different functions rather than specialising too narrowly too early. At the time, I was uncertain whether moving sideways would slow my progression. Many people around me were pursuing increasingly linear upward paths and there was an underlying assumption that remaining within a technical stream created the clearest route to seniority.
Instead, moving across IT, HR, stakeholder engagement and change management gave me exposure to very different operational realities and leadership challenges. I learned how different teams interpreted priorities, managed pressure and approached decision making. I saw how communication changed across environments and how organisational silos often emerged simply because people lacked visibility of each other’s work.
That broader perspective later became invaluable in leadership and facilitation roles because I was able to understand competing viewpoints more quickly and communicate across different parts of organisations with greater credibility.
Leaders who have worked across multiple contexts often develop a stronger systems view because they understand how organisational pieces connect together rather than only seeing one part in isolation.
This becomes increasingly important as people move into more senior roles where leadership involves integration, influence and strategic alignment across functions.
From my coaching practice
One coaching counterpart I worked with spent several years moving sideways across agencies and projects while many of her peers progressed through promotions more quickly. She described feeling behind professionally because her career path looked less linear than the people around her.
During our coaching conversations, it became clear that she had developed an unusually strong ability to navigate complexity, build stakeholder relationships and translate competing priorities into practical action. Her experience across different environments meant she could quickly understand the broader organisational picture while also appreciating operational realities on the ground.
When she eventually stepped into a senior leadership role, she adapted quickly because she had already developed confidence operating across ambiguity, competing interests and changing environments.
Her sideways moves had strengthened her judgement long before the promotion formally recognised it.
One of the most valuable outcomes of sideways career movement is the development of judgement through varied experience. Different teams and functions expose people to different constraints, expectations and decision making processes. Over time, this creates leaders who can assess situations more thoughtfully because they have encountered a wider range of organisational dynamics.
People who have only worked within one narrow context sometimes struggle when they encounter environments that operate differently from the systems they know well. Leaders with broader experience often adapt more effectively because they have already developed comfort with transition, learning and uncertainty.
I worked with another leader who had built a highly successful career within a specialised operational environment. His technical expertise was exceptional and his reputation inside that area was extremely strong. When organisational changes expanded the scope of his leadership responsibilities, he found the transition challenging because much of his confidence and identity sat inside technical mastery rather than broader organisational leadership.
Empathy and Collaboration
Sideways career moves also strengthen empathy and collaboration because they expose people to the realities other teams face every day. Leaders who have worked across multiple environments usually develop a much stronger understanding of competing pressures, operational constraints and organisational priorities.
This matters enormously in leadership roles where influence regularly extends beyond direct authority.
Leaders constantly work across teams, negotiate priorities and build alignment between people who approach problems differently. Experience across multiple environments helps leaders communicate more effectively because they understand how different parts of the organisation think and operate.
One leader I coached moved sideways from a highly technical role into a people focused leadership position. Initially, she worried that the move would look confusing to others because it did not involve a promotion or obvious increase in status. Within twelve months, her leadership capability had expanded significantly because she was now operating in environments that required emotional intelligence, communication and coaching conversations much more frequently.
The move broadened both her skill set and her leadership identity.
Several years later, that broader capability positioned her strongly for a senior leadership opportunity that required both technical credibility and strong people leadership.
Sideways moves often create experiences that are difficult to gain through upward progression alone because they place people into unfamiliar situations that stretch different capabilities. Exposure to new subject matter, stakeholder groups and organisational cultures encourages continuous learning and reflection. People begin to understand themselves differently as professionals and leaders because they are required to adapt beyond familiar patterns.
This process creates confidence grounded in adaptability rather than certainty.
Modern leadership increasingly requires exactly that kind of capability because organisations continue to evolve rapidly through technological change, shifting priorities and growing complexity. Leaders who can move across ambiguity, build relationships quickly and integrate multiple perspectives are enormously valuable.
Thinking about careers as nets rather than ladders creates far more flexibility and intentionality in career decision making. Some moves will absolutely be upward moves. Others will be sideways moves designed to build breadth, strengthen capability or reconnect people with work that energises them.
Each move can serve a different purpose depending on the stage of career and life someone is navigating.
The strongest leaders I know are rarely the people who climbed fastest through increasingly senior positions. They are often the people who deliberately built both depth and breadth over time, stayed curious about how organisations function and made thoughtful choices about the experiences they wanted to develop.
Before making your next career move, it is worth asking yourself what capabilities, perspectives and experiences you are trying to build over the longer term. A sideways move may strengthen your leadership capacity far more powerfully than the next promotion because it broadens how you think, communicate and operate across complexity.