One common question that troubles many of us is, "How should I ask for a promotion?" A good place to begin to answer that question is with yourself — the inside stuff. After you know what's really happening for you, it's a lot easier to address tactical issues.
You're more likely to secure the right promotion if you know yourself — your real motivations, your true capabilities, and how others see you.
- Your real motivations
- Is a promotion what you really want? Your chances of promotion are much greater if you actually want the job you would be promoted into.
- Perhaps you really want the pay, and not the job. If you do, there might be other ways to get it — by changing jobs, moving to a different company, or changing industries or regions.
- Your true capabilities
- Where do you stand relative to others who already occupy positions comparable to the one you want? This is difficult to answer, because it calls for almost superhuman objectivity. Are you really in their league? If you suddenly found yourself as one of their peers, and you think you'd be a good fit in that group, then your plans are realistic.
- Where do you stand relative to others who might be promoted to that job, or relative to others who might be hired from outside the company? To get a fix on this, apply for a similar job elsewhere. You'll quickly learn what your chances are, and you might even land a job.
- How others see you
- You're more likely to
secure the right promotion
if you know yourself - Is your goal consistent with management's view of you? Would your desire for a promotion come as a complete shock to management if they knew about it? Or has someone suggested that you pursue a promotion? Two very different situations.
- Here are some useful indicators. Do people at your supervisor's level consult you? Have you ever represented your supervisor's organization for cross-functional task teams? Have you been asked to mentor new employees? Are you recognized for expertise that would be valuable in your new position? Would your peers in your new position advocate for you if you asked?
If you find some red flags when you examine your real motivations, your true capabilities, or how others see you, you could give up on a promotion, of course, but that's not a very satisfying outcome.
Instead, address the issues you found. If you want the pay but not the job, widen your view and look for jobs you do want. If you're missing some skills, you can take courses, find a mentor, or get a coach. If others don't see in you everything you'd like them to see, work on relationships and find ways to be a real contributor.
It's hard work, but if you really want a promotion, you'll find a way to get it done. Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
For more on promotions, see "How to Get Promoted in Place," Point Lookout for August 23, 2006, and "How to Get a Promotion in Line," Point Lookout for September 13, 2006.
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrenyrWpTxHuyCrjZbUpner@ChacnoFNuSyWlVzCaGfooCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- What Insubordinate Nonsubordinates Want: II
- When you're responsible for an organizational function, and someone not reporting to you won't recognize
your authority, or doesn't comply with policies you rightfully established, you have a hard time carrying
out your responsibilities. Why does this happen?
- How to Deal with Holding Back
- When group members voluntarily restrict their contributions to group efforts, group success is threatened
and high performance becomes impossible. How can we reduce the incidence of holding back?
- Congruent Decision Making: II
- Decision makers who rely on incomplete or biased information are more likely to make decisions that
don't fit the reality of their organizations. Here's Part II of a framework for making decisions that fit.
- Some Consequences of Blaming
- Both blame-oriented cultures and accountability-oriented cultures can learn from their mistakes. Accountability-oriented
cultures learn how to avoid repeating their mistakes. Blame-oriented cultures learn how to repeat their
mistakes.
- Recapping One-on-One Meetings
- Some short one-on-one meetings produce important decisions without third-party witnesses. Instead of
relying on fickle memory to capture these results, send a recap by email immediately afterwards. Recaps
improve decisions and make them more durable.
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming December 11: White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development
- Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing," applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups. Available here and by RSS on December 11.
- And on December 18: Subgrouping and Conway's Law
- When task-oriented work groups address complex tasks, they might form subgroups to address subtasks. The structure of the subgroups and the order in which they form depend on the structure of the group's task and the sequencing of the subtasks. Available here and by RSS on December 18.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenyrWpTxHuyCrjZbUpner@ChacnoFNuSyWlVzCaGfooCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrenyrWpTxHuyCrjZbUpner@ChacnoFNuSyWlVzCaGfooCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group