Are you getting passed over for promotion? Learn how to fix it.
“How to get promoted at work?” This phrase has over 1,700 online searches every month. At Echelon Front, we regularly encounter people who are frustrated that they didn’t get promoted. Maybe they were passed over for a promotion in favor of someone else. Often, they feel undervalued. They feel there is not enough recognition of their efforts. They feel as if their team, their boss—maybe the entirety of the company they work for—doesn’t recognize or appreciate their contributions.
The questions they search: “How to get promoted at work?” “How to get a promotion at work?” Even, “How to get a promotion.” These online searches stem from deeper internal soul searching, like: “How do I get the people I work with to value and appreciate my contribution?” and “How do I increase their recognition of my efforts?”
The good news is this: You can learn “how to get a promotion at work,” ensure you get the recognition you deserve, and create a greater appreciation of your effort in the eyes of your peers and your employer. Once you become aware of the actual best ways of how to get promoted at work , getting promoted becomes an afterthought. It’s just the result of the right actions.
Not only will this help you with how to get a promotion at work, it will also help the whole team accomplish the mission.
Here’s How To Get A Promotion At Work:
1. PERFORM.
If you demonstrate success in your specific tasks—hitting or exceeding your numbers, accomplishing your goals, making your boss look good—the team is far more likely to recognize and appreciate your efforts. Your ability to influence up the chain and to influence your peers will increase dramatically. People are more likely to seek your input on planning and execution if you demonstrate successful and efficient execution of your tasks. So, if you aren’t winning, stop complaining and start executing. Take Extreme Ownership of problems and implement solutions to accomplish your mission and win. That’s step one in understanding how to get promoted at work.
2. PUT THE TEAM AND THE MISSION FIRST.
Stop thinking tactically about whether you got the immediate recognition of the effort you think you deserve. Start thinking strategically about how you can better support the team and improve your contribution to the overall mission. This is the first law of combat: Cover and Move (aka Teamwork). To understand Cover and Move is to recognize that it’s not about you; it’s about the overall team and the strategic mission. So, put the mission first. Don’t seek recognition or worry about how to get promoted at work. Put the team before yourself. When the team wins, everybody wins. Your contributions to the mission will be recognized by others. And the effort of someone who always puts the team and the mission first and doesn’t seek recognition for themselves is powerful. People around you recognize it and become your advocate.
3. MAKE YOUR BOSS LOOK GOOD.
Leadership positions are hard. Take as much off your boss’s plate as you can. Give them credit. Make the boss look good. This isn’t brown-nosing. It’s effective leadership. Build good relationships with your boss and lead up the chain of command. Good followership is a critical aspect of leadership. Understanding how to get promoted at work often involves recognizing that to be a good leader, you must also be a follower, and that’s a surefire way to stand out as a candidate for promotion.
4. BE PATIENT.
Just because you think you’re ready doesn’t mean you’re actually prepared for a promotion. If you are promoted too soon, you may fail and set yourself back. Trust your leader’s evaluation. And trust in God’s timing for opportunities that might open up. We have often seen people frustrated that they were passed over and didn’t get the immediate promotion they sought, only to have a much greater opportunity open up just a few months down the road. Think long-term, keep performing well, put the team and the mission first, and the opportunities for how to get promoted at work will come.
5. DON’T BURN BRIDGES.
Negative feedback bruises the ego. If you are passed over for promotion, told you aren’t ready to step up to greater responsibility, or see someone else you feel is less capable or qualified promoted ahead of you, a typical response is to let your ego flare up. Don’t let that happen. If you react negatively, denigrate your chain of command, or slander the person who received the promotion you wanted, you only confirm that you weren’t the right fit for the job and that you weren’t yet ready. Don’t do that. Instead, support your chain of command. Support the person who received the promotion you wanted. Don’t burn bridges. It never helps you to form antagonistic relationships with other people. Think strategically—think long-term. Even if you ultimately decide that it may be time to move on to a new opportunity at a different company, you still need references and recommendations for your next employer. Remember that the world is a small place. It may feel good to walk off the job or burn bridges in the immediate when you feel you’ve been wronged. But it is shortsighted. We’ve seen multiple cases where someone leaves a company on bad terms, but then months or years later, they are once again forced to work for or alongside their former employer through a business deal, merger, or acquisition. Maintaining strong relationships is key to future success, even at a different company. When you are seen as a strategic thinker who builds good relationships up, down, and across the chain of command, you become the kind of person that people seek out for emerging leadership roles and promotion opportunities. That only helps you in the long run.
Now You Know How to Get Promoted at Work
You’ve now learned how to get a promotion at work. Once you know the best practices to follow, getting promoted becomes an afterthought. It’s just the result of the right actions. If you perform, put the team and mission first, make the boss look good, are patient, and don’t burn bridges, you radially increase your chances and opportunity for how to get a promotion. This helps not only you but also ensures that the whole team accomplishes the mission.
Knowledge means nothing if you don’t implement it. Just because you understand how to get promoted at work doesn’t mean promotion will happen. You have to do the work. Consistent effort is the path to victory. Extreme Ownership is the guide down that path. If you find yourself reading this article, you are not alone. At Echelon Front, we’ve helped thousands of men and women just like you who are frustrated that they’ve been passed over for promotion or who don’t feel they get the recognition they deserve and are searching for answers to questions like, “How to get promoted at work.” That’s the reason we created an online course on HOW TO GET PROMOTED. This course was designed to give you a deeper understanding of how to become the type of leader that others seek to trust with positions of greater responsibility and influence. This course and much more can be found on our virtual training platform, Extreme Ownership Academy, a critical resource for leadership development built for people just like you.
Leif Babin
Leif Babin, a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, is the President and co-founder of Echelon Front LLC, a premier leadership consulting and training company. Leif is the co-author, alongside Jocko Willink [LINK], of the New York Times best-selling books, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and Win, and the Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win. Echelon Front teaches the principles of Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership to help leaders everywhere develop their leadership skills and learn to solve problems, accomplish their goals, and achieve victory in business and life.
