I often receive enquiries from women who are leaders who want to get promoted to the next level. If you're wanting to get a promotion, over the next few weeks, I’ll share some of the things that you can do to prepare and position yourself for it:
“There is no way to become great overnight, but in the marathon of success, it takes a lot of intention to see you through each day of the journey”. ~ Lewis Howes
Intentions provide the foundation for our goals and actions. When you live with intention, you become more mindful of the choices and decisions that you make. Being intentional about what you want to achieve, helps you to define your goals and the steps you need to take to make things happen.
Are you tired of being turned down from promotion, or not getting an external position that is a step up? If so, being intentional will help you to increase your chances of securing that role.
Develop a vision for what you want to achieve
What are your long-term desires, not just for your career but for your whole life? How far do you want to go in your leadership career? Having a vision for what it is that you want to achieve (and developing a strategy as to how you will achieve it), makes it easier for you to not be swayed by the many distractions and knock backs you may encounter along the way.
When thinking about your vision, it is important to think about both your professional and personal life as well. Also, think about your values. What are they and how aligned is your life and work to them? If you are thinking of moving on, in order to move up, what values does an organisation need to have to align with your values and who you are?
Our values go to the core of who we are, and it is important that when we think about what we want in life, we make choices that align with our values. When we honour our values, it helps us to feel fulfilled, and make our lives and work meaningful. Working for an organisation whose values are not aligned with yours can lead to dissatisfaction and feeling unfulfilled.
Create a vision for your long-term career, getting as clear a picture as possible in your mind of what you want it to look like. Don’t worry if you can’t imagine what the specifics will be but think about the type of role you want to be doing, the kind of organisation you want to work in and the type of people you want to be working with.
You may find it helpful to create a visual representation of your vision. Not only is this empowering, having a visual reminder of what you are working towards can help with the motivation to keep going.
Get clarity on what is needed
Get clear about what it is you want to achieve and what is needed to make it happen. If you have had unsuccessful attempts at promotion, what can you learn from the feedback and how can you apply that learning?
Once you have clarity about what you want to achieve, setting goals that take into account what you have learned from feedback will help to provide you with focus and direction.
Be strategic in your approach
Prior to starting my coaching business 10 years ago, I got my second to last promotion as a result of strategically positioning myself for it. I had been at a leadership conference and spoke to someone who worked in another area who, being in the early stages of pregnancy, told me she was going to be going on maternity leave. She told me this meant a position would become available at the next level up to me.
Rather than waiting for the position to become available, when a position came up at the same level as I was on, I applied for it, got the role, and made a sideway move. I did this so that I could raise my visibility in the area where the position I wanted was.
Once I was working in that area, I took on area wide responsibilities and led on area wide initiatives. This helped me to raise my visibility and profile. When the position I wanted became available, I applied for it and got it. Whilst I got it on my merit, I am sure it helped that I had raised my visibility and self-promoted by taking on those extra responsibilities and leading on those initiatives.
What can you do to be strategic about your approach? What strategy can you adopt?
Stay focused
How consistent are you with the action you need to take? Did you start the new year full of motivation but are now doing things half-heartedly? Did you say you were going to network regularly on LinkedIn, or write an article for an industry publication but haven’t done anything to raise your visibility or promote yourself for months?
If you’ve lost motivation, don’t sit around waiting for the motivation to come, take action and the motivation will follow. Sometimes you’ve got to take the action even if you don’t feel like doing it.
Whilst giving things a miss on the odd occasion may not be too detrimental, if you consistently let things get in the way, or don’t take the action that is needed, you won’t get the results that you want.
There are many distractions that can get in the way of us achieving our goals. Sometimes things happen and we have no option but to put things on pause, or even abandon them, and that is ok. But if you’re being distracted by things which are within your control, remember, focused consistent action gets results. Remain focused on taking the action that is needed to get the results that you want.
Next week I’ll cover mindset and how to deal with the negative self-talk that causes you to lose confidence, or to doubt yourself about putting yourself out there and securing your next role.
What can you do to be intentional about getting that promotion?
This article was first published on LinkedIn.
If you are an introverted woman and a senior leader and want to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my free assessment and get a report identifying areas to develop. You can take the assessment here.