I had a conversation a few days ago with somebody about how to get that next promotion. Her company had a huge hierarchical structure, and it seemed almost impossible for her to grab that next promotion. So, what does it take to get that next promotion or getting to the next level?  I am not an expert on the subject, but I have had some insight through my personal experience and few internal promotions, which I would like to share with you here.

Communicate: By communicate, I am not recommending you to butter-up your Boss. I am rather suggesting you to display your work to your team members and your Superior. I might be doing an excellent job of coding (programming), but if I am poor in communicating my achievements to my team, my work won’t get the credit it deserves. Communication is not that difficult as you see. Consider these simpler techniques……..schedule a bi-weekly meeting with your manager to discuss about your progress and what you can do to improve myself. This meeting will not only serve the purpose of your achievements advertisement, but it will also give you an opportunity to get some quality counselling session with your manager. If you don’t get anything out of it, you will at least be able to develop some personal relationships. If you find communicating with your manager is intimidating in-person, then you can also send an e-mail to your manager, and your team members about your bi-weekly accomplishments. You don’t want to spam them with e-mails every day, but you need to shoot them couple of e-mails by showing what you have finished in past 2 weeks, what you are going to do in next 2 weeks, and any concerns (if you have any). This practice will definitely help you a lot in keeping your team informed about your work, and letting them know about your potential.

Be helpful: We are all passionate about helping others. But most of the times our juniors are not the one who will have our promotion done, so many people don’t help their juniors that often. If you think that, then you are completely wrong. If you are helping your juniors then you need to make sure that your effort of leading (helping) your juniors is visible to your manager through your one-on-one meetings or bi-weekly e-mails. Don’t treat your juniors any differently, consider them same as you. You never know, someday someone can become your manager, and they might be the reason for your next promotion. The key here is…….always be positive, and demonstrate your helping nature to your everyone. Whenever you have a discussion with your team, try to add some value to the conversation, instead of being a silent listener all the time. Be friendly, it will take you a long way. You will not only earn respect from your team members, but you will also demonstrate your leadership qualities to your superiors as well.

See my next post for the rest of the advice….

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi.