What to do for a promotion

[Chan901]

Posting in AIBU as I know it has the most traffic, I was speaking to my manager about promotion and he seemed all up for it, said he loved my drive and ambition and attitude towards work etc. in my one to one today he said I need to bring ideas to the table etc and show people what I am made of?

Any tips?

Does this sound promising?

Does he mean continuous improvement ideas - how the team can work faster / better / more output etc? You could always ask him for some pointers.

He said things like shadowing other teams and working out how to make our team better for it?

That’s too wishy washy. You need clear, measurable objectives/goals.

Do you have a development plan with functional and behavioural objectives?

What's your job/industry?

Oh and when you say promotion, what kind of role are you wanting to go for?

I think that's fair enough.

Start to look for issuea that your colleagues/department/company faces and think how you can practically fix them.

I’m an advisor on a facilities management help desk. I would like to go for either a facilities coordinator secondment or a team leader role?

I worked in one firm where the only way I could have got promotion (or a pay rise) was to grow a penis.

Oh no! He seems really keen to promote me if I’m honest.

any managers on here advise what you look for in an employee?

I look for pro activity and seeking solutions.

It's all well and good highlighting problems to me but it shows more leadership capability if you present a solution at the same time or a willingness to dig into the problem to find a solution.

I also look for ability to look at the team and see peoples strengths and weaknesses. As a team leader/manager of people you need to be able to identify who is struggling and how you can help them, who is maybe causing friction in the team and how you can address that, who is stagnating and needs to be given additional challenges.....

Ask if you can take on mentoring new staff or delivering training to someone who needs it. That will give you an opportunity to develop experience in delivering feedback, tracking and measuring improvements, drawing up an action plan, possible dealing with conflict and adapting your approach.

If your manager is up for it then ask if you can document a leadership development program with a 12-18 month plan to develop experience that you can then use as examples in interviews for promotion roles. Things like:

• mentoring a new starter
• enhancing a process
• managing and communicating changes to a process within the team