How Do I Get Promoted Without a Clear Career Path? | Coaching Real Leaders | Podcast

0:00This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. gray roots entering the chat uninvited Garnier's got you Garnier color sensation root retouch covers up to 100 % of grays in just 10 minutes no ammonia no mess and the color lasts up to four weeks it's as easy to apply as shampoo plus it's vegan and cruelty free 10 minutes sensational color sensational price with those savings your next girl's night is basically free find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a door near you.

1:02HBR Presents.

1:13I'm Yaria Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Presents Network. I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who've hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show, we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.

1:48Today's guest is someone we'll call Sam to protect his confidentiality. He's worked in finance at a major company where he's been for over a decade. He's a self-professed, very natural finance guy. My long-term goal is to be a CFO, you know, over the five to 10 years period of time. And I knew in order to get there, I need to start from somewhere and, you know, make my way up from there. So when I joined this business three, four years ago, I had a great conversation with my manager that, hey, even though I'm joining for a different role, but the role which I'm doing now, that's the kind of the role which I'm like, I always want to go.

2:25So the moment that opportunity came up, I immediately grabbed onto it. I had a good conversation with my manager. Of course, we went through the formal interview process with my current GM and with HR. But I'm glad that everything fell in place and I was put on the board to lead this role. Sam has now been leading a team within the broader business for a few years, and he's responsible for hitting major revenue targets. So far, managing his career progression has worked out relatively well, but now he's starting to feel a bit stuck. when I think of my roles and responsibilities it was an upward move for sure because I have more exposure and I'm delivering a number to the company but in terms of my title it was a lateral move and you know I've been on that title for last six seven years now and I've been pushing to get to the middle management I would say in in the organizational hierarchy so if I try to put myself Right now, I am somewhere between lower to middle of the middle management.

3:25I'm trying to push myself more into the middle or the upper middle management, more into the executive level, I would say. Sam is facing an issue that many in middle management face, where the opportunities to take on more responsibilities in your current role or through a lateral move are plentiful. But the upward path to a more senior role seems less clear. Let's jump into the coaching session now as I ask Sam how he's tried to push himself to the next level and what he thinks is holding him back from getting there. There could be many reasons. I mean, I've been pushing, you know, to get to the executive level, even though I get excellent feedback all the time.

4:04But I feel like that's not getting translated somehow into my upward move. Now, why it's not getting that translated? there could be one or two very specific skills which somebody should have to get to the executive level, which probably I may not have. But I feel like I'm not getting those clear and direct feedback that, hey, Sam, you need to do X, Y, Z to get to the executive level. All right. So what I'm hearing is you have had a pretty successful career. you were moved into this role or took opportunity to take this role, which you see as a stepping stone for your longer term aspiration of being a more general CFO, a broader CFO.

4:49When you took this opportunity, it was a lateral move from a title perspective. But the responsibility and the scope of the role was. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners. Sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com.

5:31Gray roots entering the chat? uninvited garnier's got you garnier color sensation retouch covers up to 100 of grays in just 10 minutes no ammonia no mess and the color lasts up to four weeks it's as easy to apply as shampoo plus it's vegan and cruelty free 10 minutes sensational color sensational price with those savings your next girl's night is basically free find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you broader than the type of responsibility and scope that you had previously. That's correct. Okay. And so at this point, your desire is to have a promotion in title that is commensurate with what you see as the role and responsibility that would position you for more of the executive level.

6:19Absolutely. And the other thing we can also add is that it may not be this role, which I should be entitled to get to the executive role. It may be another role which much more bigger exposure, much more wider responsibilities, which can take me there. So what I just clearly need to know is what is that path? What does that path look like? What do I need to do X, Y, Z, A, B, C to get there? And then if tomorrow, if any similar role opens up, would I be fit for that role? or what else do I need to do in current role so that whenever in the future that role opens up, my management feels that, yes, Sam has delivered all these things to the business and he's a right fit for that role and let's put him on the path for the promotion.

7:07Okay. So I just want to make sure that we understand what the question is. Well, let me ask you, if you were to frame this as a question, what would be the question? So my question would be, what do I need to do to get to the promotion in the management hierarchy to get to the executive level? All right. So we have some focus now. So let me ask you this. Have you been considered for positions that would have gotten you promoted? I don't think so. You don't you don't think so or you don't know? I don't think so. OK. And what makes you not think so? Just because my management never spoke with me on those positions.

7:48I mean, I would say if I go back last one year, there have been a couple of positions which got opened up at the executive level. But my management never asked me that, hey, Sam, are you interested to take over that position? So they never asked you, how did you approach those open opportunities? I honestly did not approach those opportunities because maybe somehow I thought in the heart of my heart that even though I may go and talk about it, I may get an answer as no.

8:23Okay. So what stopped you from pursuing those opportunities that were open that you saw potentially could be the types of opportunities that if somebody else had presented you for, you would have been a good candidate for? But what I'm hearing you say is you didn't present yourself because you thought if you presented yourself, you might get a no. Right. And now I'm kind of like thinking about it more. The two opportunities which opened up, they were not in a place where I wanted to be in terms of the city. They were completely at a different location. Also, considering about my family and everything, I intentionally didn't pursue too much about those roles, if you know what I mean.

9:10I was interested in those roles, but then I felt that I'm not really interested in moving to those cities. So I did not push myself for that. So the only thing I want to highlight is, you know, your level of interest may help inform others' interest in helping and supporting you. It may or it may not. What I think would be helpful to explore is when there are opportunities that open up that you are interested in, what do you do to advocate for yourself for those opportunities? and what are your expectations of others? Okay. So what would have happened if they had actually suggested that you pursue one of those opportunities?

9:58What would have happened? I think this episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Gray roots entering the chat? Uninvited? Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Root Retouch covers up to 100 % of grays in just 10 minutes.

10:40No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty-free. 10 minutes, sensational color, sensational price. With those savings, your next girls' night is basically free. Find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you. I would have more enthusiastic pursuing those. And I may have tried to come up with some alternatives on which I was holding myself back. I may have come up with some kind of like alternatives or situations where I would have said like, okay, if that's a bigger picture, if that's where I want to move, what can I do?

11:23You know, what alternatives I can bring in, which can help me to get to that position? Okay. So what I'm not understanding, though, is on the one hand, you're saying I didn't pursue those opportunities because, you know what, quite frankly, location wise, it wasn't ideal. So I didn't even want to put myself in front of it because it's probably not something I would want to do. But if somebody else thinks it's a good idea, then, yeah, I might be more excited about doing it. And I'm curious, like, what's the difference? Why does it matter if somebody is excited about it versus you being excited about it?

11:57That's a good point. Maybe I can also add is maybe somehow somewhere, maybe 10 % or 20%, I had a fear of getting the answer no, and then getting demotivated about it. Meaning if I would have approached my management like, hey, I want to approach for that role, that role fits me, and that's where I want to be, that's what my aspiration is. and I felt that there would be a greater probability of getting an answer no, then it could have demotivated me. Yeah. And maybe what could have also happened is, oh, you know what? Okay, let's see what happens. Let's put you in the pipeline and see if it works out.

12:42We don't know. We don't know. I'm not saying that that's what would have happened, but we actually don't know, right? What we do know, what we do know is that where you are now is exactly where you would be if you had gone and they had said no. You would have ended up right back where you are now. Got it. Got it. So I feel like if I'm hearing you, you are suggesting that I should speak up, meaning I should go put forward my thoughts irrespective of the answer and then see where that discussion leads to. I mean, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just laying out to you what the possible outcomes could be, right?

13:22Yeah. And one of those routes could be exactly what you just said. Because inherent in what you were sharing before is it sounds like you think that you could be a fit for a type of promotion, but you haven't gotten any type of external feedback to check against that assumption. that's what you haven't gotten what i haven't heard you say is that nobody has said to you i mean correct me if i'm wrong but it doesn't sound like anybody has said to you don't put yourself forward for any promotions no there's a difference between the two and i think you've shut down one avenue as a result of something completely different that's happening so do you go down that path of hey maybe i should put myself forward and see what happens i don't know i mean ultimately it's up to you all we're doing right now is saying what other paths do you have beyond what's happening right now which is waiting for somebody to approach you and say hey sam here you go right on a silver platter here's the promotion you've been waiting for yeah that's great understood

14:42Let's pause here for a moment to gauge what's happening. Sam came into the conversation wanting me to tell him specifically what to do. But what's more important is for him to gain clarity on the options he has in front of him. That's why as I coach Sam, I spend time helping him tease out the different paths he can take. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean.

15:21And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Gray roots entering the chat? Uninvited? Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Root Retouch covers up to 100 % of grays in just 10 minutes. No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty-free. 10 minutes, sensational color, sensational price. With those savings, your next girl's night is basically free. Find your perfect match at walmart.com or at a store near you. This is to help him move from focusing on why isn't this career advancement happening to what are ways I can make this happen?

16:08Let's jump back into the conversation as I walk him through what if scenarios as a way for him to see what's possible beyond his current situation.

16:19Let's say an opportunity came up next week and you had choices in front of you. One choice is I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to wait to see if they call me. Okay. That's what you've done. The other choice is I'm gonna, as you put it, speak up for myself, or we think about it as advocate for myself and raise my hand, right? Raise my hand that this is something I want to put my name forward with. So let's play out that scenario. What could possibly happen? So I would say I will go with the latter scenario that I will raise my hand and I will go and you know present myself for that position and I would also build a case around it like why I think I'm fit for that position with all the point at point by point like kind of like my profile with my background and why I'm fit for that role also I can also throw in a couple of points where I feel that there may be some development need which may be required for that role and this is what my plan is to you know to immediately get to the learning curve with that role but yeah so to answer your question is I would go with that approach you know put my best foot forward and then see whatever the result happens it happens at the end of the day if the answer is no then I'm back to you know what I'm working even currently so no changes but at least I have presented myself I have created some noise and maybe now my management and maybe HR or other people would know that Sam wants to pursue those type of positions and let's keep him in mind and, you know, and let's, let's work on his development needs to get up there.

18:08Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as you said, there's two options. You can go, they can say no, and at least now they know, right? You can go, they can say yes, and you get it. Okay. If they say no, not only do they know it also leaves an opening to then seek the very thing that we started this conversation with, which is, okay, so what's missing, right? Can you please give me some feedback around what is it that I don't have that would have positioned me well for this particular promotion? Sure. And it creates an opening. Do you get it? Maybe we don't know, but at least it creates an opening. Okay.

18:48Yeah. makes sense makes sense so what's important here that i'm hearing is the sense of advocating for yourself rather than waiting for somebody to advocate for you that's not to say that somebody advocating for you wouldn't be nice absolutely it would in fact have you had anyone advocate for you, which is usually what we call having a sponsor? Have you had sponsors? So that's a very, very great point, Muriel, you mentioned. I feel that's another reason which is kind of like holding me back is that our overall company has been through a lot of restructuring and reorganization lately over the last few years.

19:35And I have lost a lot of my sponsors in the company. So to your point, in the past, yes, my sponsors have spoken for me. A couple of my sponsors, they pulled me as their business leader, you know, to run the business for them. But where I stand today, and if I look back over the last 10 plus years I've been with the company, almost 90 to 95 % of my sponsors and colleagues, I have lost. There are no more. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra.

20:14Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Gray roots entering the chat? Uninvited? Garnier's got you. Garnier Color Sensation Roo Retouch covers up to 100 % of grays in just 10 minutes. No ammonia, no mess, and the color lasts up to four weeks. It's as easy to apply as shampoo. Plus, it's vegan and cruelty-free. 10 minutes. Sensational color. Sensational price. With those savings, your next girl's night is basically free.

20:56Find your perfect match at Walmart.com or at a store near you. They're with the company. So that's why for me, it has been kind of like restarting my whole life with the same company all over again, building the new relationship with the colleagues, finding a new sponsor, finding the great business partners who can speak for me. And where do you feel you are in cultivating those new sponsor relationships? I think I'm doing very well. I'm doing very well. And this was kind of the role which I had needed because I have the team, I have the GM who I report into. I feel like it may be just a matter of time, you know, to get there and then continue to hold my position and continue to deliver what the business needs from me.

21:42Okay. So what we're talking about is really having a parallel path, advocating for yourself and having others who advocate for you in the form of sponsors, right? Makes sense. You've well articulated that you have had sponsors, but because of the changes in the company that has dropped off and you're now in the process of rebuilding. Okay. Which means if you're under, we can talk kind of finance terms with you. If you're under indexing on others advocating for you, where do you need to be in advocating for yourself? Even much more higher. That's right. You need to be over indexing. Over indexing.

22:23Correct. Okay. More so than you normally would. And so what I'm interested in is what is your regular baseline normally would, right? What's your normal baseline of advocating for yourself? What does that look like? I would say it's pretty decent. I overpitch myself. In an overpitch, what I mean is whenever I see some sort of an opportunity to do some, you know, to help a business on something or to take some sort of an initiative. I quickly assess like, you know, what that need is, what that problem statement we are trying to solve for. And I'm usually one of the people who will raise a hand that, hey, you know, this is something which I can do.

23:05I can do and, you know, I can I can help on. OK, so that that is advocating for yourself on behalf of the business. Yes, on behalf of the business. Correct. Okay. And so how do you do in advocating for yourself on behalf of yourself? So help me with a couple of examples, please. Yes. Yes. So you just said, hey, I see a business need. There's an opportunity. Something needs to be done. I think there'd be an improvement. I raise my hand and I say, hey, here's the need. I can help this need. Here's how I would help. Let me do it. OK, that's advocating. Yes, you're doing it. You're identifying a need and the result is it will help the business.

23:51Sure. OK, what I'm asking is, how do you use those same skills to help Sam's career? So the skills which I develop is as I'm solving those problems for the business, either I make some new relationships or I collaborate more. And if there is a more compelling need at that point for the business and I am solving for them, then I get the appreciation. And then I put my name again that, you know, Sam is one of those persons who is always proactive and always ready to help. And that puts me a little bit more forward than the rest of the micro. Okay. What it strikes me as is, you know, we talk about sort of the notion of letting the work speak for itself.

24:42Right. You do good work and that reflects on Sam. And if you do the good work and you you show the results, then that puts Sam a little bit further along the line. Right. So the work does speak for itself, but the work doesn't always tell the full story. And I think the missing part here is what part of the story do you need to tell? And what I'm curious about is what conversations have you had or not had that are explicitly about what it is that you want for your career next? I think the conversation which I have not had is again to get to that executive level which I'm aiming for what do I need to do what are my stepping stones to get there is it my current role will lead me to there if I continue to deliver in my current role will that lead me there one day?

25:42Or if not, then maybe have some sort of a session with my manager, with my HR, maybe is what could be the other things I could be doing to position myself to get there. Yeah. So what's to hold you back from having that conversation with HR or with your manager? So I did have that conversation earlier this year. Okay. As we were doing the performance evaluation of last year. So I kickstarted that conversation again with my manager. And again, I didn't get any clear answer or the feedback as to what those things should be to get me there. What did you get? That they are presenting me, that they are putting my name out there, and I need to continue to do what I'm doing.

26:32And, you know, let's wait for the future. Okay. So I think, I mean, I'm kind of like rethinking now. It's been a few months now. But those were like just those couple of sentences of the answers I got. Okay. I'm being presented and I need to continue to do what I'm doing. Okay. And how many data points did you get around? Is that one person who said that to you, your manager? Is it? So my manager and I did try to talk with my HR, but I didn't get the clear answer. They told me to talk to my manager. They told you to talk to him. Okay. Yeah, they can't reveal too many things. Okay. So you are kind of getting a little bit, this is helpful because it sounds like you're getting a bit of a vague response.

27:18And that's exactly what I'm getting to is that I keep getting these vague responses where it will be really helpful for me to get very discreet and specific things. Right. These are the two, three things needs to be done. or it may take a few years down the line so that, you know, I can manage my whole thing around that rather than sitting myself and, you know, holding it like why it's not happening. Right. Why it's not happening. And the backdrop around that is how you've performed, right? Because what we've been talking about is your potential and how do you fulfill the potential that you believe you have and you're looking for that direct path.

27:55What we haven't talked about is what's your current performance. So the backdrop, you mentioned that some of these conversations have happened during performance review. What is the state of your performance? Like, how are you seeing currently in your role in terms of how you're rated performance-wise? So I got the second best rating, if I can say that way. There are like four or five levels of rating. So I got the second best rating. And do you have a sense from a promotion standpoint how the rate, like, I know it's not only ratings, but what one expects to see in a promotional candidate from a readiness standpoint?

28:34No, I didn't get the clear answers. Okay. All right. So you're not getting clear answers. So, you know, usually when we think about somebody who is, and I don't have the clear answer either because I'm not in your organization and I would be, you know, using a crystal ball to tell you this is exactly what it is. Okay. Because there's a couple of sides to it. On the one hand, it could be, are the opportunities actually there? That's what we've talked about. If you see an opportunity, then you should at least present yourself for it and see what happens. The other is, are you being seen as somebody who is ready to pursue those opportunities?

29:12OK, and so a helpful way to think about promotion readiness is against two variables. And I'm not the one who made this up. This is sort of what's behind what's called the nine block, right, for talent management. The first question is, how do you, Sam, perform currently? How do you perform against your current role? Low, medium, high. And then the second question is, to what extent do you demonstrate future potential? And future potential of what? We have to define what that potential is. You know, what are we talking about? In this case, probably the executive level. And all we know right now is where you are in terms of current performance.