Do these 3 things  if you want a promotion this year

I was taught that hard work would get me ahead, would ultimately pay off, and would get me promoted. 

But several years ago, when I was passed up for yet another promotion, I was angry and devastated because I was convinced that I had deserved that promotion. How could I not have been promoted after all the hard work I had been doing? A mentor I reached out to finally confided this to me, “Yes, you are working hard. But you are working on the wrong things. You need to be working on things that get you visibility.”

I was doing lots of work, but with little visibility. I didn’t realize that only focusing on working hard was the quickest way to not get promoted. Even if I thought I was performing exceptionally, others didn’t have that perception of me. They didn’t see me in action on the things that mattered to them. It wasn’t clear or evident to them that I was capable and should be promoted.

So if you aren’t getting promoted, it’s not that you didn’t deserve a promotion, or that you aren’t capable, or that you haven’t earned it. Here’s what you might not recognize: You aren’t visible to the leaders who are behind closed doors making decisions about your career.  So if you want to get promoted, start with focusing on the following three things:

Prioritize what’s important to your organization

Especially in this current market, companies are having to make hard choices across the board. They are faced with executing layoffs, changing direction in strategy, cancelling initiatives, and more. Companies are prioritizing, reprioritizing, and reprioritizing again, assessing what’s the most important thing for them to achieve at this moment. And you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of what those changing priorities are.

Review your project list and your goals for the year. What percentage of items are still relevant to your company’s changing priorities? All of it? Some of it? Or none of it? If you are quietly working on projects that are no longer a priority for the company, or have been put on the back burner, your work has become invisible. All that hard work has been forgotten or is just no longer important at this moment. 

Check in with your boss on what you are currently working on. They may have forgotten that you are still working on something that’s no longer relevant. When meeting with them, share with them what you have heard the company’s priorities are. Make sure you are raising your hand to take on work that’s important to leadership and helps you get the visibility you need. Every job will include non promotable or administrative work. And if you are working hard on invisible work only, you need to adjust quickly to ensure your work is getting on the radar of those making decisions about your career.

Make sure you are visible to other leaders

One of the biggest mistakes I made was to tie all my career fortunes to my boss. At one point in my career, I became exceptional at managing up to this one boss. She knew what I was working on; she had me leading a lot of visible work with very little non promotable or administrative tasks. She advocated for me in rooms I wasn’t in. She coached and guided me on what I needed to do to get promoted. Unfortunately for me, she got a great external opportunity and left the company. And then I was left all alone, trying to navigate my career. I had lost my only career champion at the company.

Make sure you aren’t just visible to your boss, but also to other leaders. If your company encourages skip level meetings, get a meeting with your boss’s boss and whoever is running your division. And if they don’t, you can certainly schedule this or ask your boss ahead of time, so they don’t think you are going behind their back. It can be a short meeting to ask them questions about their career, but also to give them the highlights of what you are working on. 

You can send them quick updates once a month on progress, or share articles or books you have been reading that are pertinent to the challenges and opportunities your company is currently facing. Also, build relationships with your boss’s peers. When my boss left, one of her peers took over our team. I wish I had built a relationship with her sooner so she knew what I was working on and how I was adding value. Remember, you want to be visible not just to your boss, but to anyone who has a say in whether or not you get promoted.

Be ready to present in big and small moments

I thought my hard work would speak for itself. Even if I was working on the right things, I kept my head down and worked hard, and worked some more. I didn’t think I needed to promote what I was doing; that quite frankly seemed like a waste of time. I needed to be focused on the work, and not talk about the work. Now, I think about so many missed opportunities in my career to share what I was working on and be visible. All those missed opportunities cost me a number of key promotions along the way.

So be ready to present, share, and be visible in those small and big moments. If they are looking for nominations to present projects at the next town hall, say yes. If they are looking for someone to ask the CEO a question about the shifting priorities, raise your hand. If they want someone to kick off a team meeting with a highlight on their project, volunteer to do it. Any opportunity to be visible and showcase what you are working on, take it. I shifted my mindset to realize this: It wasn’t about me bragging about what I was doing. It was me sharing the value I was adding to the company, and a great opportunity to hear questions and get inputs along the way to make my work stronger.  Instead of just working hard heads down, becoming more visible also meant I could get more coaching from other leaders.

If you are disappointed that you aren’t getting promoted, all is not lost. Shifting from working really hard under the radar to working on the right things and being visible might just be what you need to get on the path for the promotion you deserve.