As the leader of a team, it is your responsibility to place the right people in the right positions so that the team will reach its greatest potential and be successful. Throughout the course of this duty, you will be forced to make difficult decisions. Most often, there is only one position available, and there are multiple people vying for it. Therefore, more often than not, you will have to deliver the bad news, and it’s difficult to know how to tell someone they didn’t get the promotion they were hoping to receive.
Given that you will have to do this so often, you must prepare yourself to deliver this news. Below are four things you should keep in mind for how to tell someone they didn’t get the promotion.
Care About Them
People generally do not like hearing critical feedback, even in cases in which they have asked for it. When you have to tell someone they didn’t get a promotion, there is a great risk that they will not want to hear what you have to say, and will ignore it. The best way that you can mitigate this risk is to care about your people and ensure that they know that you care about them.
A person is much more likely to take feedback on board if they know the feedback is intended to help them improve. And, when they know the person delivering the feedback cares about them, they are much more likely to believe that.
Tell the Truth
Whenever you are delivering bad news of any type, it is vital that you tell the truth, especially when it comes to how to tell an employee they didn’t get a promotion. Your primary objective at the end of this conversation is that you are setting them up to give them the best chance of getting the promotion next time. The only way that you can do that is to tell the truth about why they didn’t get the promotion. This means you have to explain to them how they fell short compared to what you would like to see in the ideal candidate. You must also illuminate a path forward for them by giving them actionable ways to improve.
Additionally, you must tell people the truth not only at the end of the selection process but ideally throughout it as well. You need to provide consistent coaching to your team so that they know what improvements they need to make. Any feedback you give to a person who is seeking consideration for promotion should not only come after the selection has been made. It needs to be given consistently so that the person can make adjustments and thus give themselves the best chance.
Listen
Another danger when you are learning how to tell someone they didn’t get the promotion is that the relationship between you and them may be damaged. In an ideal world, every person would be humble enough to accept that they fell short and look to improve. However, that is not reality. Quite often, people can become bitter when they don’t get selected, and since you are the one who is selecting, their bitterness may be directed at you. One of the best ways to mitigate this risk is by utilizing one of the core components of a relationship: listening.
To create a situation where you can get their input, you need to ask them questions. For instance, ask them how they felt they were doing with respect to other candidates. You need to ask them about their feelings on the selection process as a whole. And you need to ask them what you could have done better to support them during the process.
Showing them that you care and want to hear what they have to say will go a long way toward helping you preserve the relationship with that person. It will reveal how you yourself can improve and support this person moving forward. Finally, it will also help you grow in your understanding of how to tell an employee they didn’t get a promotion.
Take Ownership
Lastly, you have to take ownership of anything that you could have done better to help this person have the best chance of getting the promotion. It’s one thing to learn how to tell someone they didn’t get a promotion. It’s an entirely different mindset when you look within yourself to figure out what more you could have done to help that person get the promotion. While, yes, ultimately, only one person could have been selected, you can’t let that prevent you from seeing that there was more that you, as the leader, could have done, and if you had done it, perhaps the situation would have been different.
You must also take ownership of providing the support that this person needs moving forward and take action to provide that support.
Conclusion: Restoring Optimism
Delivering bad news is never easy, especially when you must learn how to tell someone they didn’t get the promotion. The person had likely put in their best effort and had high expectations, and to disappoint them is a difficult job. However, if you show them that you care, listen to them, tell them the truth, and take ownership of supporting them moving forward, it will go a long way to restoring optimism so that they can try again.
