Aiming for Your Next Promotion? Gaining More Clarity on These Three Aspects Will Ensure Your Swift Promotion!

As a career consultant, I have been fortunate enough to get an opportunity to work with clients across career stages right from the level of a fresher, a junior professional all the way up to senior roles and CXO's. And over the years, certain patterns become obvious irrespective of the career stage the professional is at.

One constant complaint I hear from my clients apart from having hit the glass ceiling at the current organisation is that they have been passed over for a promotion.

CLASSIC MISTAKE PROFESSIONALS & HIGH-PERFORMERS OFTEN MAKE

Moving up the career ladder involves a lot of deep self-introspection and professionals often make the mistake of not paying attention to them. The high performer clients I work with love to assume that their accomplishments will do the talking! Others feel that they deserve a promotion because they have been loyal to the organisation, while the others left for greener pastures or sought better opportunities elsewhere.

There's also a tendency amongst senior managers to assume that personal development will become self-evident and that clarity about one's own strengths will emerge automagically without a decent amount of self-introspection. Others assume that investing in an MBA or a global executive MBA will cover for it. Sometimes this works, especially if the skill sets are in high demand, in which case they are like to face a similar hurdle at a later stage.

WHAT DO YOU NEED CLARITY ON?

The reason the process of gaining clarity is so complex is because, at every career stage it involves least three aspects of your career development-

Discovering, recognising, understanding and appreciating your key contributions and learnings and crucially, how they all fit into the next role
Having a good understanding of your company's own evolving aspirations, their expectations from the target position and how good a fit you currently are
Your ability to re-position and pitch yourself for the role based on 1 &2 objectively and fairly i.e without just assuming or that I deserve it simply because I've given x amount of years to this company and/or that I need to get there because my colleague was similarly rewarded! Can't stress this last one enough!
SOME QUESTIONS TO GET YOU STARTED ON THE PROCESS

So before you embark on your next promotion ask yourself the following questions-

What am I the best at?

Gain more clarity on your specific skillsets and personality traits

What do my co-workers say I’m good at? (In a lot of ways, this is more important than what you think of yourself.)

Ask yourself- 'How are you being perceived by them? Is this how you want to be perceived as? What can you do to turn it around positively or make it even better? '

What does my job require me to be good at?

Make a note of your peer and especially your boss's feedback. Find a way to receive honest feedback. 

Are my strengths being under-utilized? If so, why, and what can I do about it?

You should be able to gain insights into this question based on the responses you have gained for the former questons. Make sure to avoid the classic mistake of answering this question solely based on your own individual opinion or that of your spouse or family members you are anyways biased in your favour :-)

Do I have clarity about the next role and what it entails and is it a good fit for my skillsets? 

Get more details and gain clarity on this important question before you aim for that promotion. You may begin with this question first if it gets you motivated as long as you do not skip the other important questions as well!

The more clarity a professional gets about these three aspects, the better are his/her chances of getting that well-deserved promotion. 

Please do share your own story or comments on getting promoted!