How do you get your next promotion? And why are some hard-working professionals jeopardizing their chances for career growth without even realizing it? Read on and make sure you don’t repeat their mistakes.
Let’s start with a blunt truth: fair or not, the decision to promote (or not to promote) you to a higher position with better pay will be made by your boss. And you might have learned from experience that a promotion does not always go to the best and most talented employee with impeccable work ethic. Sometimes (surprise, surprise!) bosses promote the least deserving team members. Why so? And how can you make sure you won’t miss the next opportunity for career growth?
Instead of fretting about the general unfairness of life, I invite you to discover a realistic Promotion Formula that explains what’s going on in a manager’s head when she is making the selection, and why some great employees get overlooked in the process. It will also show what communication mistakes you might be making right now that prevent you from getting your next promotion.
So here it goes. In order to become promotable, an employee must meet each of the following criteria:
Value + Manageability + Safety
Let’s take a closer look at each of the ingredients for success.
Value
What it means and why it matters:
Your boss will consider you as valuable only if you can get the results she needs. Simply put, she needs to feel confident that you will do a good job and won’t fail her. But the definition of a “good job” may be a bit tricky. From a promotion perspective, a good job is something that your boss can report on and “sell” to her higher ups in order to get credit for her work.
Please note that being a top performer with excellent professional skills is not enough to guarantee a promotion. Much more important is your ability to do the work that matters most to the management and make your successes visible.
And how employees can mess it up:
Time and again, I’ve seen good professionals shooting themselves in the foot and undermining their value by making one of these mistakes:
- Not telling their boss about what they have accomplished hoping that their great job “will speak for itself”.
Nope, it won’t happen. Not presenting the results you achieved (and that your boss can boast about to their boss) is the biggest mistake a Career Realist can ever make.
- Prioritizing assignments that are important for the work process (and skills mastery) instead of focusing on the results that matter most to their bosses.
Please keep in mind: to your boss, you are valuable only if you can successfully deliver on something that she will have to report on – otherwise, she won’t be able to count on you.
- Showing the unwillingness to take on extra duties or supervise someone else’s job.
Real-life managers promote their employees for a very selfish reason: they hope to delegate some of their workload to free their schedule for more important duties that will help them move up the ladder. What the boss wants is to make sure that the employee will perform the new duties well and trouble-free. If you want a promotion, don’t be afraid to take on more responsibilities.
Manageability
What it means and why it matters:
An employee’s manageability is the ability to meet expectations of the management. A manageable employee will follow directions and perform their duties within the timeline and format set up by the boss, without any unpleasant surprises in performance or behavior. Ever heard the expression “staying within your lane”? That’s exactly what I am talking about.
The problem is, it’s not always easy to conform when you and your boss have a difference of opinion on how a job should be done. But keep in mind that many managers (subconsciously) view a disagreement with an employee as a threat to their authority. To them, manageability is a sign of the employee’s respect of their superior status and the willingness to follow orders when necessary.
And how employees can mess things up:
- Changing the format or deadlines of the given assignments, without their boss’s prior approval.
If you know a better way to complete a task, make sure you and your boss are on the same page before you make any changes in the process. You don’t want to undermine her sense of security by coming off as an unpredictable trouble-maker requiring extra attention in their busy schedule. Only show the initiative that is welcome.
- Directly arguing with or criticizing their boss.
Your boss has more authority over the business matters than you do, and the last say will still be hers, even if she is deadly wrong. If you need to sell your ideas, there are better ways to do so than engaging in an argument.
- Demonstrating their professional mastery/knowledge that the boss can’t match.
Your boss has not necessarily followed the same path you did to get where they are now. And yes, she absolutely can be incompetent. However, by showing off your professional or intellectual superiority, you will only humiliate and irritate your manager. Turning her into a powerful enemy with significant administrative resources that can be used against you.
In my experience, manageability is the crucial ingredient of the Promotion Formula and the most difficult one to meet. It is one area where even small mistakes ruin or slow down otherwise promising careers of the most talented professionals.
Safety
What it means and why it matters:
Safety stands for the level of personal trust that the boss assigns to a subordinate. An employee is considered safe if she sticks to the boss’s course of actions, honor his preferences, takes the boss’s side in corporate politics, and does not go over his head or becomes too independent. Subjective as it may sound, a lot will depend on personal compatibility between the manager and worker. If personalities clash, trust does not build easily. That’s why looking for the common grounds with the boss should be a priority for any Career Realist who is set on a promotion.
And how employees can mess it up:
There are two “classic” ways to demonstrate disloyalty and become dangerous in the eyes of a supervisor:
- Directly communicating with her rivals or seniors behind her back leaving the boss out of the loop of these communications.
Such behavior raises a big red flag that will make even most liberal person feel threatened by the employee.
- They share disappointment or irritation with the boss’s actions with coworkers.
Needless to say, one of the team members may “snitch” and loosely (or accurately) retell the conversation to let the boss know what was said about her. You can easily guess how it may change the employee’s relationship with their manager.
As the formula shows, your ability to jump onto career opportunities will mostly depend on how well you manage effective interactions with your boss. Note how employee’s competence, knowledge, and experience are not in the mix? Contrary to the common belief, career promotion is not directly tied to talent; talented or not, an employee will only get promoted if they demonstrate manageability and safety. That’s the reason why many hard-working professionals get pass over with new opportunities and pay raises.
If you are one of those employees who don’t get their fair share of recognition and reward, it’s time to re-consider how you communicate with your boss. What does she see in you? Do you match her Promotion Formula? Or do you act as your worst enemy and undermine your own career growth by making those fatal mistakes?