The Corporate Ladder Labyrinth

Making your way in the business world through the course of a career is not easy for most of us. While it may come naturally for some who seem to glide through their careers, always making great impressions everywhere they go, finding themselves on the shortlist for just about every project, initiative, and promotion that comes up, for most it is a grind. And more power to you if you fall into that ‘glide’ category. We should not let envy take anything away from people who combine natural ability and high effort with the likability and acumen to earn their way at a quicker pace than the rest. But if we find out they are actually related to someone near the top, we wish only the worst for them of course – we’re only human!

Outside of those rare individuals who happen to be that ‘Total Package’, most of us need to figure out our own way, carve out our own path, and work very hard in every aspect to get to where we want to be. It is never one thing that makes the difference, but the confluence of all that a person brings that will ultimately make the difference in the upward mobility of a career, however a person defines it. Promotions and climbing the corporate ladder is not for everyone, and why fulfillment can be gained through ascension to the executive level, or landing with the right team and working on products or projects that keep work fresh, interesting and rewarding.

If you are the average mid-level manager at a large company, you have likely found yourself grappling with the frustration of consistently being passed over for promotions and key project opportunities. The question that continues to plague you is, “What does it take to break through?”. Over time, as you do your best to stay positive, stay engaged, and persevere, believing your time will come if you are consistent in what you do and in who you are, and the right people will notice and advocate for you. Still, you are human and that comes with a great deal of thought that counters some of the more positive thoughts you do your best to focus on.

The Disheartening Reality:

Despite your dedication, hard work, and commitment to achieving excellence, the statistics on inter-company ascension are not in your corner. In recent studies, the majority of promotions within large corporations are often awarded to external candidates rather than internal employees. As painful as it can be to see a colleague attain a promotion, or any role, that you were interested in and interviewed for, there is usually a part of you glad that it went to an internal colleague, particularly when it is someone you have seen work hard, and overall, you also see them as a valuable employee deserving of such recognition. However, the data suggests that is not the case for most large companies. While these companies pride themselves on showing their efforts to engage employees, publish their strong ‘employee satisfaction’ ratings and feedback(or not publish much when morale and engagement is not in their favor), the real proof of how much a company values its people is through investment in their people.

Training of a staff, strong leadership, mentoring and coaching is what brings out the potential of a company’s employees, and how companies can look to strengthen their operation by building their future leadership from within. Yet, that is not what happens. Companies would rather throw prizes, recognition, monetary rewards, all of which are timestamped and fleeting to the employee. The real prize is “Show me you believe all of the good things you say about me and give me the promotion you said I was worthy of!”. There is often a fundamental lack of trust in the ‘proven quantity’ than the ‘unknown’, because you know what you have, which includes all of the positives that led to the recognition and high ratings. It also includes any time there was an issue with attendance, personal issues, stress-induced breakdowns, interpersonal conflicts. Those ‘red flags’ as some call them are often enough to say ‘let’s look outside for someone who has it all’, knowing that the incoming candidate is not listing out their own ‘warts’ that have been as much a part of their career as any of the company’s existing employees. The ultimate cop-out phrase ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’, makes it very easy to opt for choosing ‘the mystery box’ that may contain the next, rising superstar, rather than the solid, high-performing proven quantity who is right under their noses. It happens every day, in nearly every company, and need be the only question a company should use to measure itself when they truly want to know how satisfied its employees are to be there.

This all too familiar phenomenon raises concerns about the effectiveness of internal training, and promotion processes and the extent to which a company will actually look to reward for its people’s effort, dependability and proven talent that has kept it successful thanks to the dedication of the same people.

Situational & Self-Awareness

Repeated bypassing for promotions will see you grapple with many negative emotions, as self-doubt creeps in more and more as months and years pass. The erosion of self-esteem and worthiness about who you really are is real, and like a sandy beachfront, will only further seep into the ocean through time. Eventually it is critical analyze ‘Is it me, or them?’. Be honest with yourself. You know that there may have been times where you were not at your best, or ‘life happened’ and you needed to step away, or allowed people to see that you are human and occasionally will fall down. Whether an internal employee or the promising new candidate, everyone falls down. But no one highlights such examples on their resume or raises in an interview.

You take inventory of all of the facts to determine whether your lack of consideration for promotions is, in fact, a ‘you’ or a ‘them’ issue. You find extensive mixed messages where you have been transparent through the difficult times when you were not at your best and were assured that it is the ‘big picture’ that people care about and will consider when you look to build your career, and that is backed up by the consistently strong year-end ratings that see you consistently performing above the average.

Despite the high marks and comments from those same people who make or influence the promotion and hiring process, it never proves out through your selection for the role you have worked hard for. Thus, you are left in a Career Conundrum. You want to believe in the people telling you all of the great things. You also want to continue to believe in yourself, that you are valued, valuable, talented, and that you follow the guidance of your leaders and mentors, doing all you can, all you were advised to do, to position yourself for more. And time and again, it leads to nothing more than a ‘job well done’, as you see over and over, the external candidate, the ‘outsider’, enter the organization with no more experience or talent than you, step into the role you have earned. You have to question whether you are getting honest feedback, or just lip service. The conflict and hypocrisy of being told how ‘ready’ you are with the lack of opportunity and consideration leads only to frustration, and a broken spirit, and where some give up, whether that translates to a decline in performance or a resignation.

Considering Alternatives:

The internal conflict you go through can bring a level of stress that a person feels mentally and often physically. It is mind-bending for a person to do their best to keep their self-esteem up against the cold, hard facts of continually not getting the promotion you seek, and the consistent lip service you receive, being told how great you are at every turn and that ‘Your time is coming if you keep working hard and have patience’. Any reasonable person will find themselves shopping for straightjackets before long or identify the culprit. It certainly can be the employee, who is over-stating or over-valuing their work, their contributions, and their potential. But it is just as often the employee’s leadership, who do not possess the skill to have the difficult conversation with their people and tell the truth. ‘Your work is not sufficient to earn an opportunity at the next level’, or ‘Here is what you are missing, or what you need to do to be considered for the role you want’. These conversations don’t happen nearly enough, and where good employees become disillusioned with a process, their leadership, and the company itself. A company can and should be measured by the strength of its leaders, and if a leadership team is made of those who believe their job is to ‘keep the peace’ or ‘tell people what they want to hear’, you have the wrong leaders in place. Leadership is a gift and one that only those who can be truly honest, through the celebrations of achievement, and the under-performance conversations that lead to the termination of an employee. Both are skills that every leader needs to develop, and demonstrate their ability to deliver for a company to truly have a positive and transparent culture. It is far better to have employees be rejected over external hires when those same internals have all received honest feedback and direction on what it takes to get to the next level, than a team of people who all hear how great they are, yet see that most often the promotion was not given to one of their colleagues, but to a person the company and hiring team spent perhaps an hour with through interviewing and cursory review of the candidate’s resume. It is a hard pill to swallow, and as some are unable to overcome the continued rejection and move on to greener pastures, you opt to do your best to ‘prove people wrong’ and make your best effort to stay and make it happen if only to ‘prove yourself right’.

Strategies for Success:

Build Strong Relationships: Cultivating meaningful relationships with senior management and decision-makers is crucial. Networking within the organization can open doors to mentorship and sponsorship opportunities, increasing visibility and raise the level of consideration an employee may have received to that point. Make requests for the ‘informational interview’ with an executive team member. Just the meeting itself, regardless of whether it was a home run or just a good conversation that demonstrates that you are thoughtful, intelligent, loyal and hard-working can be the difference in a career as that executive will no doubt share that the conversation has happened, the courage you demonstrated to reach out unsolicited, and those between you and the executive who are often making the hiring decisions will have no choice but to consider you more than perhaps they have previously, knowing that you have a well-placed ally.

Showcase Leadership Skills: Taking the initiative to lead projects, even if not officially designated, allows mid-level managers to demonstrate their leadership capabilities. This not only contributes to organizational success but also positions individuals as influential contributors. Whether the offer is to lead the project, or even better, to support the team or person who is leading the project, shows you are more interested in the overall success of the work than in getting the title of ‘project lead’. Selflessness and Teamwork are two critical attributes that good leaders bring to the table and if you can’t show that these are hallmarks of your leadership and approach, you may well have earned your spot as the bridesmaid and never the bride.

Seek Constructive Feedback: When you find yourself in the space of consistently getting great feedback that amounts to very little, you should have the sense to realize that things do not add up. And thus, getting additional, meaningful feedback is critical for your success, and your mental health. So don’t wait for feedback that comes monthly, or annually. Get it when you need it and hopefully you really want it. Reaching out via an email, or any number of peer to peer surveys will give you a more substantial amount of feedback that will no doubt consist of some of the same positive-only feedback you are used to, but no doubt contain the constructive feedback that will actually help you to progress in your own development and move the needle in becoming the person you believe you need to be to accomplish your ultimate career goals.

Exploring External Opportunities:

In as much as the many tactics, relationships built, and continued strong performance should get any person the opportunities they seek, it too often still does not come to fruition. When the decision-makers, and some companies in general seem to believe in the person behind Door #3 over the sure thing who has been right in front of them whose ceiling is believe to already have been achieved,  you are at a critical juncture of your career. You have looked at yourself honestly, revealed your shortcomings, worked on the development areas you have learned you have, and proven your talent and ability with consistent high performance. When all of this proves to be the case, you are right to look elsewhere with your head held high. While the job market is competitive, new companies begin every day and need seasoned, experienced people with strong reputations, track records of success, who can hit the ground running. You have arrived at a place of comfort in who you are and what you can do, and while your self-esteem certainly has been tested, your perseverance has brought you to this place feeling quite good about who you are and what your true value is. And the time has come for others to see it and make the most of it as well. It is your turn to be the Unknown Quantity, that Perfect Candidate behind Door #3, knowing that you can step in with the same determination and skill that took you to the precipice at your previous stop, and with a new audience, new leaders, and new team, they will no doubt praise the day they hired you, while scratching their heads at how anyone would have let you get away.

Conclusion:

The journey of the mid-level manager striving for promotion within a large company contains one tough road after another. Looked at as the leader by some and the subordinate of others, pleasing people at every level of an organization is daunting. It is difficult for those in these roles to find or make the time to focus on themselves and drive their careers, when pressures from above and below are constant. With statistics on internal promotions presenting a discouraging picture, the savvy manager needs to approach their work and their career incredibly strategically. Whether you choose to stick it out, take your lumps, and look to persevere believing that you will win the right people over eventually, or read the writing on the wall and look to change your situation, either can be the right move. It is about you relying on your own common sense, and the level of honesty you are willing to allow yourself as you self-assess.

The most important thing is to maintain belief in yourself and stay confident that you have value, and the right people, right company will see it as well. We can only hope that greater value is placed on the internal employee, the proven quantity, and that companies invest the time and resources in the development of its people. Failing to do so will yield high employee turnover that kills the brand of a business as well as profitability. The belief in building from within, as much as that may seem like an ‘old school’ mentality, is actually more cutting edge than how most businesses are approaching their hiring and business strategy today. Determine where you are, what your company’s philosophy truly is based on what you see and experience, not by what you are told in the latest employee polls, ‘best places to work’ survey results and other attempts to paint a different picture than the one you have been staring at every day. Much like us all, company’s and business itself needs to evolve over time, and the proactive, honest, resilient, and adaptable mindset will always be in demand, and never go out of style. Work and lead with such core values and you will no doubt achieve the career goals you set for yourself, even it is not where you thought it may be when you took your first steps on your career journey.