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- When you don’t receive a promotion, the first thing you need to do is re-evaluate your qualities as an employee.
- CEO Ralf Specht — known for his work with Coca Cola and General Motors and author of Building Corporate Soul: Powering Culture & Success with the Soul System™ — reveals key reasons that may have cost you a promotion.
- Employees actively need to understand their purpose and discuss with their managers what it means for their individual work environment.
The first few months of the year is a popular time to set career goals, like landing a promotion. But what happens if you’ve been passed up for that big job?
It can be extremely discouraging when you don’t get the promotion you were perhaps expecting. When you’ve tried hard to earn a promotion but it goes to someone else, it’s natural to feel slighted. But it’s worth examining what happened in order to set yourself up for future opportunities.
When you don’t receive a promotion, the first thing you need to do is re-evaluate your qualities as an employee.
CEO Ralf Specht — known for his work with Coca Cola and General Motors and author of Building Corporate Soul: Powering Culture & Success with the Soul System™ — reveals key reasons that may have cost you a promotion.
Allwork.Space: What are the common practices that may be costing workers a promotion?
Ralf Specht: “Common practices” is exactly the right term. Practices in this context are behaviors, and they signal to managers whether that individual is up for a promotion or not. There are many that signal a person is not: a lack of initiative or engagement, complaining without providing alternative solutions, shifting blame or not taking the responsibility.
In short: managers are looking out for individuals that improve the business. People they can rely on and ideally people who can take the business forward.
Allwork.Space: What are the worst behaviors for leaders to see in candidates for a promotion?
The worst behaviors are about a sense of entitlement that is not justified at all. With the behaviors I just mentioned it should be clear that those individuals are not up for the next step.
Simply thinking “I have been in this position for two years” and “now it’s my turn” is not going to work.
When that sense of entitlement is actively expressed, leaders might get to a point where they are looking to find another place inside or even outside the workplace, as those behaviors can damage the culture of the team and the company overall.
Smart managers know that every move they make is being registered, and not dealing appropriately with someone who believes highly of themselves will create a lot of frustration among the team members.
Allwork.Space: How can workers make sure their voice is heard without overstepping their boundaries?
Look at the opposite of the behaviors already mentioned. Be proactive, engage yourself, take responsibility, offer alternative solutions, don’t shy away from the extra duty – simply be involved, ready to learn and show your manager and team members that you are up for it.
Managers are usually not blind – and they see what’s happening inside their team. Make sure that you take regular one-on-ones with your manager, about what’s going on and where your support will be of real help. When the next opportunity comes, ask the manager what he or she thinks you have to do to take that next step.
Allwork.Space: What should workers do if they’re offered a promotion that they don’t think they’re ready for?
There´s the famous Richard Branson quote, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”
It contains a lot of truth. When your manager believes you can do it, it is very likely that you can.
One of my team wrote me a letter as I stepped down as CEO of a 1,200 people global company and she said this: “If you had asked me in my first interview if I felt prepared to take all the challenges we had, I think I would have said that I was not the right person and that I couldn’t make it. But because of you and all the trust you had in me, we made it… so you are the kind of leader that makes us accomplish things that we don’t even know we are capable of.”
Finding managers that trust you is critical for everyone’s career development. And don’t forget: It’s the best thing that can happen to managers if their team members display those right behaviors.
Allwork.Space: How can people adjust their personal behaviors to those that the company wants to stand for?
A powerful corporate culture depends on shared behaviors inside the firm. That means a clear set of ways to do things based on a shared purpose. That means that every employee needs to be aware of that purpose and what it means for him or her in their area of responsibility.
Identifying with that purpose drives motivation big time. Employees who do that feel twice as much passion about what they are doing than those that don’t.
So, for an employee that means that they actively need to understand that purpose and discuss with their managers what it means in their individual work environment.
Not only will their engagement levels go up, but they will be seen as a loyal, motivated, excited, satisfied and passionate member of the team – the ideal choice for the next promotion opportunity.
