Why Your Less-Experienced Coworkers Get Promoted Instead of You

I don't think there's anything that's more frustrating than seeing a co-worker of yours who has less experience than you, less knowledge than you, and has spent less time at the company than you get the promotion that you know you deserve. So in this video, I want to get into exactly what's going on. Why is it that you've been at your company this long and you still haven't been promoted? And it's not that the co-workers that got promoted are any better than you, but it's three specific ingredients that you likely have not been cultivating and developing over the years that you need to start to now if you know that you want to get promoted within the next 6 to 12 months, 1 to 2 years. So by the end of this video, you are going to be let in on exactly what it is that these co-workers are doing that you aren't doing that has gotten them promoted instead of you. And what I'm about to share is the exact same approach that our clients in our Quiet to Confident program have used that have helped them to get promoted in less than a year after joining our program. And in one of the cases, it was within six months after joining that she was able to get promoted. So this can happen for you too. Let's get into it. Now, before we get into that, make sure you type the word confident in the comments below so that you can get my free speak up confidently in meetings, PDF guide. And this will be a nice supplement, a nice compliment to what we discussed today. As a leadership and communication coach, I have helped thousands of professionals over the last 10 years to advance in their careers all over the world. And over this time, I have seen the same pattern over and over again for those who feel blocked from being able to get promoted in their jobs. And I would not have been able to notice this pattern had it not happened to me first, back when I was in the corporate world. So growing up, I was told the idea that as long as I worked hard, studied hard, got a good job, that I would live happily ever after. And that is exactly what I aimed for, was to get that good job. So I started off as a CPA at a big four accounting firm. And in that role, I did what I thought I had to do which was work hard put my head down focus on delivering high quality work and I thought that naturally promotions would come but then the day came where I was called into the partner's office it was around the time where I had been working at the company for a few years I was supposed to be or logically I thought that I would be promoted to manager by that point and instead of revealing to me that I was being promoted I was told that I was being let go. And so you could imagine how could this be the case? In my mind, I was thinking I had been working hard. I'd been doing all the things I had been putting in the hours and yet they weren't keeping me. They weren't promoting me. They didn't tell me why they specifically said, oh, it was just due to budget reasons. We don't have the ability to promote you because we don't have enough room for managers. But I knew that that wasn't true. The real reason was that once I reflected on it, I knew that it was because throughout those three, four years that I was working at that company, I did not know how to show up like a leader. I would shrink whenever it came time to have meetings, especially with the partners and the executives of the clients that we were working with. I would not share my ideas. I would not speak up. I stayed quiet. I did my work thinking that that was enough. As long as I just focus on my work, keep my head down, that that should be enough. And eventually they'll promote me because they'll see how good I am and how hardworking I am. But of course, reality revealed itself. And that was not what happened. And so after switching careers, becoming a recruiter, and then of course now doing the work that I have been doing for the last 10 years, I've learned what I feel is the key secret to getting promoted. And it's something that we were never taught as quiet achievers growing up. So let me reveal what that is. I'm going to draw a graph here and down below here is what I would call hard work. Then here I will say career growth. Okay, this is a chart. When we first start our careers working hard allows us to grow I went from junior to intermediate and I didn't make it to manager because what happens what no one tells you about this graph is that at some point there is what I call the hard work ceiling okay let's just name it hard work ceiling okay so there is a ceiling here that stops you from getting promoted even further you know you go from junior, intermediate, manager, senior manager, director, all of that. If all you're doing is working hard, your career will stall. And so what happens is, how then do we get into this upper echelon in our career? How do we move up further? What is it that is missing if hard work is not enough? In this area, the game changes. At some point, you start to notice that your role starts to shift a little bit. What people expect of you starts to shift a little bit. It's not just about your hard work your deliverables your reports and how good you do on your projects that's just the baseline at some point it becomes about three things visibility influence and trust visibility influence and trust are the three ingredients that are going to get you from being a hard worker to then getting into those higher level roles whether it's manager senior manager director c-suite this is what matters more than anything else and so you might be wondering well why is that the case why is it visibility influence and trust why are they so important because once you start getting into those higher level roles you notice that your role isn't just about doing the technical work anymore it's more about how you show up in meetings you're going to have more meetings as your role continues to move up instead of being 80% technical, 20% meetings, that actually completely reverses where it's 80% meetings and 20% is the technical. And so how you show up in meetings becomes that much more important. How you articulate, how you lead, how you guide others, how you respond to ideas, how you share your own ideas, how you ask questions, those all play into how you are perceived and it determines whether you're visible, whether you're influential, and whether people can trust you in the work that you do. Okay, so now let's talk about each of those three ingredients. Okay, so we'll talk about visibility right here first. What does that even mean? Visibility is all about the contributions that you're making at your company in your role that allows others to see what you're working on and to see the impact that you're making. So visibility is about impact through your work. Okay, so what does that imply? How do we make sense of it? Impact through your work means what is the level of work that you're doing? Are you doing low impact work versus high impact work? If your job is mostly just doing routine recurring tasks and responsibilities, I would consider that low impact because it's not something that's creating a quantifiable impact and it's not something that is necessarily, let's say, reducing costs, saving time, improving on revenues, improving profits, that's low impact work. So it's more like pushing papers, essentially. It's like punching out reports, just doing analysis, baseline analysis, and doing things that are more behind the scenes. Whereas high impact work are the projects and the opportunities that you get involved in where you can make a difference, where you can reduce costs, where you can reduce time that's spent or improve revenues so that is more high impact work and then of course the other piece is not just about the work but it's also about your ability to speak up speaking up in meetings sharing your insights on the work that you've been doing sharing the recommendations that you have sharing your ideas sharing the learnings sharing the risks letting people know teaching people and guiding people as to what they need to know about the work that you've been doing talking about your accomplishments talking about your achievements all of that ties into speaking up speaking up confidently speaking up with conviction so if you are currently doing low impact work you're not doing enough high impact work and you're also not speaking up about any of the work that you're doing that is where you are not visible you're seen as invisible you probably even feel invisible and then at odd times that you do try to speak up in a meeting people don't really take you seriously they don't really engage with your ideas all that much because you haven't built the visibility that's needed to have your ideas accepted as readily now this ties in right into our second ingredient which is influence so influence is all about just as i had mentioned when you share an idea when you do speak up when you have a recommendation are people willingly moving forward with it? Do people feel that they want to move in the direction that you're suggesting? Do they feel compelled to? Are people essentially listening to you? That is the key. Are people listening to you? Are they moving forward with your ideas? And then on top of that, are you able to convince and persuade in the way that you communicate? convince and persuade others that is influence when you share an idea people don't really listen to your idea or they just kind of it's just crickets it's silent people aren't really paying attention when you share your recommendation people don't really do anything with it they don't even go forward with it or when you're trying to convince and persuade it doesn't work it just doesn't land then you know you're lacking influence you know that you don't really have that ability to move others in the direction that you want to. And that is why you're not being seen as a leader. And that is ultimately why you haven't been promoted. It is when you are able to influence others, get people to move in the direction that you want them to move in and people to buy into your ideas that you are seen as influential. You're seen as a guide. You're seen that people trust and go to and turn to for guidance. That's when you know you have influence. Okay. And now Now, before I get into the third key ingredient and explain that, make sure that you type the word confident in the comments down below. If all of this is resonating and you're realizing, yeah, I need to learn how to speak up better in meetings. I need to be able to convince and persuade better type the word confident in the comments. If you haven't already received our speak confidently in meetings, PDF guide that will help you to speak more confidently in your next meeting. And finally, the third ingredient is trust. Now I think we all have our own definition of what trust means, But ultimately, the way I see it is trust is how someone feels about you, that they believe in you, that they will support you and help you to move forward towards the goals that you want to achieve in your career. That's what trust eventually turns into, is that you have the support. It means that other people support you because they believe in you. How do we gain trust is through consistency. consistency in the sense that not only are you consistent with delivering high quality work but you're consistent in the way that you show up in meetings you're consistent in that people acknowledge and know that you're ready to share your ideas every time you're in a meeting with them that people expect you to say something to expect you to give advice expect you to share your insights you've been consistent in that and then on top of that when it comes to engaging with others and the way that you speak, you actually follow through with your words and actions. So you follow through on what you said you would do and you follow through in terms of the actions that you do. So for example, if you offer to help a cross-functional team with a certain project and to deal with a situation that they're dealing with, then you actually follow through with that. You take the steps necessary to find the right people that can help them in that area or to resolve the situation by going back to your team, whatever it is, and then you inform them of it. You don't just do things and not mention it to anyone and put out fires on your own. You're actually doing the work and you're revealing it to them that you've done the work and that you've helped them. And this is the impact that you've had. When people can see the impact that you make through the work that you do, but also through the words and the actions that you take, it all builds trust over time. One of our clients, Nicole, was already in a management position in her organization. But it was only until she understood how to develop the visibility, influence, and trust that was needed over the course of several months that things suddenly shifted for her at work. That all of a sudden she was getting asked if she was wanting to move up to the next level because her senior leaders were seeing that she was ready, that they were able to see the value that she was bringing, and that they wanted more of that in a higher level role, in her moving up at a higher level, being able to make a bigger difference. And that was exactly what she was aiming for. And so just recently, she shared in our program in front of the group that she's been successfully promoted in the last couple of months and that she has been able to take on higher impact tasks and has been able to make the difference that she's always been aiming to make in her position. So if you're really wanting to build visibility, influence and trust, here are several reflection questions that I want you to ponder on, journal on and ask yourself to identify what it is that you need to start doing to get there. Okay, so the first question is this. So for example, when it comes to visibility, if your name was to ever come up in a meeting, what would you say your colleagues and senior leaders would be able to say about you in terms of what you're known for? Is there one clear thing, certain level of expertise that you are known to have, or certain capabilities that you bring to the table that they recognize you for or is it something that's really vague oh he or she is really great they're hard worker they're really reliable what would that be and if you can't answer that question then now's the time to start thinking what it is that you want to be known for at work what do you want people to associate you with having or being capable of and then every time you go into a meeting you want to connect your updates back to that you want people to repeatedly hear that you're capable in this particular area or that you've been able to make an impact on this particular thing. And that's what you want people to associate you with. Now, another question to ponder in relation to visibility is how often are you speaking up in meetings? If you are quiet 80% of the time and speaking up only 20% of the time, then that needs to be reversed. That needs to be changed. You need to be speaking up pretty much majority of the time in meetings, whether it's to share an idea, ask a clarifying question, asking a strategic question, sharing an update, sharing an insight, giving a recommendation, you need to be speaking up. That is how you're going to build the visibility. It is in meetings that people can see the value that you bring. Otherwise, people have no idea. People are focused on themselves and their work. They need to be able to feel you, experience you, hear you in a meeting in order to remember you. Now, when it comes to influence, ask yourself this, when you bring an issue or a conflict or a problem to your manager, do you often find that you end up asking your manager him or her, so what do you think we should do? What do you recommend? Because if you are doing that, that needs to stop immediately. Because when it comes to your manager or senior leaders, they are going to be influenced by those who have a point of view, those who have a sense of direction, those who have some conviction in their voice as to what they believe is the right thing to do. And if you're coming to your manager or your senior leaders asking for their ideas and what you should do about an issue, then you're putting the work onto them and they're not seeing you as a true leader. They're not seeing you as ready for the next level because you can't even think for yourself in terms of what you should be doing. So this is where it's really important for you to start to take back your power and to be willing to share what you think is the best course of action and to be able to back it up in a convincing way. And in our program, Quiet to Confident, this is what we work on. We really work on the communication skills in how you articulate your recommendations, your ideas, how you speak up in front of senior leaders, to colleagues, to important clients in a way that influences them, that convinces them and persuades them to move in the direction that you want them to go. So if these three key ingredients have resonated with you and you realize that you're at a point in your career where you wanna go deeper, you want the support, you want to be able to accelerate your career to the next level within the next six to 12 months, you want to get promoted, then I would love to help you in our group coaching program, Quiet to Confident, because this is exactly what has happened for our clients in the program. So if you're interested, you can apply to our program at lyndarainer.com slash QTC, or check out the link in the description box. And from there, you'll fill out an application form where then we will proceed to having a communication consultation call where we can determine whether quiet to confident is the right next step for you. And again, don't forget to type the word confident in the comments down below to get your Speak Confidently in Meetings PDF guide if you haven't already, and be sure to click on this video next on how to communicate more confidently at work.