How to Earn a Promotion to Director or VP

happy Friday everyone it's kind of a gloomy cloudy Saturday here in the Boston area but uh we're smiling anyway because we smile even as the sky falls because it has to be we cannot have day without night we cannot have the clouds the cloudy days without the sunny days we cannot have a winter without summer at least when you live in New England anyway keep like somewhere in that's closer to the equator and you are experiencing summer all day long that is awesome so wherever you are in the country wherever you are in the world I hope you're having a wonderful Friday and today's topic is about promotions but specifically if you're feeling like one of the reasons why you haven't gotten a promotion yet is because you don't have extra letters after your name that the reason you haven't gotten promoted from director to VPS for maybe from manager to director is because you don't have the letters MBA after your name or MA after your name or you don't have all the certifications the PMP after your name or in some circumstances especially for folks who work in the hard sciences in medical technology med tech world UE it may be PhD right you may be surrounded by people with PhDs after their name and you all you have is a BA or a BS or maybe not even that and you're feeling like you're starting to feel inadequate because of that and you you believe that that's what's holding you back and this comes up a lot the letters after the name that's what's holding me back in my career or the lat in some cases though in most cases the lack of letters after my name although in some cases even though this may seem a bit not to not make sense the more light of course people tend to have after their names like especially winning when we get into the PhD MD realm the more impostor syndrome tends to show up and it's like it's like my PhD is holding me back if I only didn't do that I have to unlearn everything that I learned I got my PhD that's what's holding me back so so look we all feel inadequate from time to time we all feel imposter syndrome I've never field imposter syndrome said nobody ever especially if you're you're highly committed highly intelligence driven leader and and that's what you're committed to doing imposter syndrome is gonna show up and so look I want to be completely honest I do have some letters after I name after my name I have I got my master's degree on the way to getting my PhD and yeah uh-huh impostor syndrome totally shows up especially when I started the business I had to unlearn I had to go through a period of probably about two years of unlearning everything that I learned in my academic upbringing I mean earning that PhD in order to shift the way that I think the way that I act about Who I am in order to run and build a thriving coaching business and so this is all the way of saying that not to really bury the lead anymore except the letters don't matter the letters they're after your name of an arm after your name don't matter but I don't want to minimize it because I don't want to minimize how you might be feeling about it because I absolutely understand that we got lots of people who reach out to us for help um who when we ask what's not working in your career right now they might bring up things like you know I want I'm on the job market I want to land a job or I want to earn a promotion medians to BP maybe it's the director meetings to senior Germania is from tech lead to manager something like that and you know I think there's there's always a story behind it a very interesting story behind it and sometimes part of that story is in oh yeah by the way I never earned my MBA I'm surrounded by other people with MBAs or I never earned this certification or that certification and I'm actually thinking of going back to school to earn a certification and earn all of these certifications so that I can then finally get a promotion I'm gonna give it to you straight and clear full layers after your name or not what gets you a promotion and if you think about it from a like even just like a logical perspective the letters have you meet your name don't mean anything what matters is the value that you're adding the actions that you're taking as a leader I knew people with umpteen letters after their name who do not know how to manage their way out of a paper bag let alone lead a thriving high-performing team of tech geeks and nerds yeah I also know people if you barely maybe not even finished college and and we're like almost didn't even finish high school but yet they are accomplished technical peers explain that the only way to explain it is to say it's the letters don't matter it's how are you showing up every day what are the actions that you're taking and so another thing that comes up and this is more common for people who are kind of earlier either earlier or later in their career and so earlier in their career in the sense of like oh I've been a tech need maybe I've been an engineer I've been an individual contributor a little bit of leadership experience I want to actually me I want to have the job title manager I want to be in charge of a team I want to be in charge of the care and feeding for a team of engineers like that's what I want to do and so yeah so Jen a couple of people told me that I should go out and I should go get my MBA and then I can come back and I can get that I can get that promotion now say hold on hit the brakes why do you want to get your MBA oh well because people told me like if I want to be a leader and I want to I want to be a really effective leader and get that promotion I'm gonna need an MBA because that's what they teach you when you when you get an MBA right it's all about speaking business and being a great leader so that's what I want to learn and then I'm gonna go do that and I'm gonna get that promotion no it doesn't work that way and then it also shows up sometimes when people are at the higher levels as well maybe they're a director or a VP a wants to get into the executive suite maybe to the c-suite or some kind of executive title No so these are people um you may be one of them or you may know one of them who have 20 plus years of experience leading teams you almost have to at least 15 you know is usually at least 15 sometimes 10 you know 10 15 20 years of experience leading teams you know you've gone you've gone up the ranks you were an individual contributor or maybe you came in from another side dori or in another career career passed me under that way right so you may have you may have done more in the traditional path where you are an individual contributor and then you're a manager and then you're director and then you want to move up to VP and potentially to the c-suite or maybe you kind of meandered in through another route and got your mission experience another way that's a beautiful way of doing it as well it's awesome and that you but you still have a lot at lots of less years 10 15 20 years of management experience and you want to serve it at a higher level right you want to have a bigger even bigger impacts so people come to us with that too and yeah want to be VP I want to be seen CEO like that's the dream that's awesome I want to wake up every day and it really had that strategic vision the strategic oversight the person who is driving with the boat you know in setting them in direction absolutely I know it's gonna be a lot of responsibility and it's gonna be harder than anything I've ever done but I want it bring it on and so but I never got my MBA so I'm thinking of going back and getting my MBA before I go get promoted to VP because I think that's what it's gonna take no it doesn't work that way like you're just you're railing your entire career by going and taking a year off or however long it's gonna take to get that MBA to get those certifications certifications work the same way so you gotta think about the why why do I want to go out spend money and spend time to get these certifications to get this degree to one end what end is this going to serve and if you believe that that it's going to help you get a promotion that that it is going to be the key that unlocks that promotion for you I'm sorry to be the one to inform you but you are sorely mistaken the way that promotions work the way the raises work and often they come together and there's a reason for that promotion comes with raise or raise comes with a promotion is because the way that people earn promotions it's by adding more value and by showing the potential to add more value in their workplace as a leader you could do that with or without the extra academic training certification training and so the thing is that because people simply don't know like what are this steps to getting a promotion what are the steps to two to earning more money at work and it seems to be like this Pandora's box oh I'm not really sure I'm because people are so unsure about it we come up with like these easy so easy solutions oh just go get your MBA just go get more certifications and that's what's gonna do it when Matt just like completely has nothing to do with the process of getting a promotion the process of getting a promotion involves because it's not just gonna get handed to you on a silver platter nothing that's the mistake a lot of people make too is that they think that simply by showing up and doing a great job that they're getting a hand in a promotion now look it happens in certain contexts and sometimes it does happen earlier on in people's careers and that can be can it actually be a danger dangerous because like if you're an individual contributor and you show management potential your boss may come to you and say I'm gonna promote you to manager because you're showing management potential and we really need some managers right now so come on they're basically in a battle field promote you because we need someone let's go get over there on the front on the you know on the front lines or whatever the equivalent would be we need somebody to lead this team go do it so yes that happens but like what happens a lot is you know people that happens to them and then they're a manager for five years 10 years and they expect director to just be handed to them oh we watch director now again it might happen in a battlefield way but it's less and less likely to happen at the higher and higher levels and when it does oh my god glorious victory glorious failures happen because I think we can all think of the examples where people were battlefield promoted in other words promoted just because of the circumstances you know oh wow we need someone to lead come on go you should you have management potential and if that happens at the higher levels failure glorious failures happen and so that's not the way that ideally it happens the way that ideally it happens it's best for you that's actually best company as well and the clients you serve and the customers that you serve you know the purpose that you're serving by being there seven to eight plus hours a day and doing the work that you're doing is that basically you you're adding more value you are consistently building that excellence as a leader as a team member and but that's not enough you are also consistently evangelizing that excellence as well you are promoting yourself you are promoting your team you're promoting your wins you're promoting the wins of your team and there is a process to go through to make this happen there is a step by step process and people don't realize this and they want to like bypass this process and think that the magical letters are gonna help them get the magic promotion when it doesn't work that way so if you're sitting there right now and you're thinking oh wow I made that mistake or I don't want to make that mistake or I've seen other people make that mistake and I'm not gonna do that I am I am at the point in my career maybe it's early on and you're wanting you know to level up there or maybe it's later on and you're wanting to level up there from individual contributor to manager from manager to senior managers senior manager actor to writer to VP VP to CTO whatever leveling up looks like to you and you're feeling like number one you're feeling a little bit of impostor syndrome or shame or guilt about not having those extra letters after your name I want to be the one to tell you that number one is absolutely human to feel that way it means you you're committed to this you wanted to happen because if you weren't committed to doing this and to adding more value into having more of an impact wouldn't bother you you wouldn't care about it at all so you care about it like that's important to recognize it's also important to recognize that everybody feels it everybody feels that sense of oh wow I think maybe I should get more training I think maybe I should go back to school and learn more because I don't I have no clear what it is that I'm doing that's normal that's human again it means that you want to do a good job but the way to do a good job here is not to trail the process and go back to school and spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it to career this assignment do anything for you and some of you would mean that I may have made that mistake already and you learn from it hopefully if that's where you are right now and you want to sort of erase those past mistakes and also prevent future mistakes from derailing your career that's about hiring an expert who can give you the strategies the systems the support so you're not derailed again by thoughts of oh maybe I should go get my MBA maybe I should get more certifications because without a plan without support without accountability that's where you're gonna go back to because that's the only thing that you know but if you hire experts like us we have a plan we're gonna make sure we give you that plan we're gonna make sure you stay on that path and do not get derailed and if that's the kind of help that you want buck a call with our team the people STATCOM slash talk so what we're gonna talk about on that call very first question we ask after we get to know each other a little bit as what's not working in your career right now that's the question to prepare for to answer we're going to talk about we're going to take a deep dive what's not working you're looking for a promotion okay what if you try how have you failed how have you failed gloriously for how long doesn't matter where you've been at him it doesn't matter not that I don't care I do care but it's almost irrelevant in terms of where you've been it's about what are you capable of moving forward in doing what are you capable of what are you committed to doing so we're going to talk about what's not working right now and you career I'm getting absolutely clear on that we're also gonna talk about your dream not just okay I want to be VP or yeah I want to be CTO or for some people it's I want to I want to earn leadership leadership skills and build that that leadership ability in an organization and I want to do that for maybe three years five years or something like that and then I'm gonna use that or go start my own business for a lot of people that's what it is and that's the dream and that's why they're absolutely committed to levelling up their tech career and being awesome leaders and delivering insane amounts of value within an organization because once you learn how to do bad you can then apply it and start your own start your own business maybe that's the dream whatever it is we're going to talk about the dreamer and talk about your why and then we're gonna map the plan for you to get from where you are right now to where you want to go from being stuck in your career I know you're stuck you wouldn't be listening to this right now if you're not so we're gonna talk about getting you unstuck and what's the path to dreamville what's the path to cleaning that dream career we're gonna Matt back up that plan and then if you want our expert help if you want our expert guidance and making sure that we hold you accountable every single step of the way and not let anything derail you on that process then we'll talk about what that help would look like we'll talk about all the details including the time investment the financial investment all of the details that you would need to make a decision but even if you decide you don't want our help this is still going to be the most viable conversation that you've ever had about your career that is our that is our solemn promise to you so go ahead book a call with our team today though people stack calm slash talk it's not the letters after your name or the lack thereof the lack of letters after your name that is keeping you from upgrading your career it's because you don't have a process you don't have a system that works and you don't have the support to do it so let's get you that today so we look forward to talking with some of you soon and yeah with that the question that I will leave you with through the weekend is this this is something that I've been thinking about lately um that definitely relates to this topic of man if I only had my MBA then then I would be successful and yeah I believe I posted this question and the Facebook earth the other day I posted this in the group this is a really powerful question how would you show up if you knew that success is inevitable how would you show up differently what would you do what actions would you take that you're scared to take now but if you knew that success is inevitable what would you do what are you capable of doing when you know that success is inevitable second question what makes you think that it's not what makes you think that success is not inevitable and will leave you with those questions to ponder over the weekend as you move into your work week next week have a great weekend everyone and we'll talk to you next Wednesday for the next video take care

Channel: Career Coaches for Tech Managers: The People Stack

Views: 459

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Id: 9uBSAOuH6WA

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2019