4 common-sense ways to get a promotion faster

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by Tracy Brower

 

Chances are, you want a promotion—and you want it faster than it’s likely to come. It is human nature to want to move up, get ahead, and advance your career as soon as you can.

Most promotions happen based on a combination of your length of service, experience, and performance. But there are also elements that are more subtle, such as your relationships, your network, and your visibility.

And while you can always wait and watch, you can also take proactive steps to get a new job title, increased responsibility, more decision-making power, greater salary, or a new leadership opportunity.

How to get promoted faster 

Many workers, especially those early in their careers, aim to receive a promotion about every three to five years. However, it is not uncommon for promotions to happen every couple of years. Interestingly, about 30% of people in a study by Nectar say they have received a promotion during the last year and another 30% reported they had achieved a promotion in the last two years.

There are all kinds of promotions, from a traditional vertical promotion in which you obtain a bump in your title, salary, and responsibilities to a horizontal promotion in which you move to another role with a similar spot in the hierarchy and salary range.

You might also receive a dry promotion, also known as a “quiet promotion,” which comes with an enhanced title and tasks, but doesn’t deliver more money or benefits. These types of opportunities are great for your résumé but may be tough on your morale.

Fortunately, there are strategies you can leverage to increase your chances of getting the promotion you want. Here are four that can help you get a promotion faster. Continue reading →

Effective Leadership Evolves Within People Who Take These Steps

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by MICHAEL MINK

 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, also a five-star general, said effective leadership is like a string: Pull the string, and it follows wherever you wish. But push it and it goes nowhere.

Reaching even a top leadership position, though, doesn’t mean the journey is complete. Executives evolve by consistently improving their leadership skills.

Effective leadership is the blending of many skills including communication, motivation and empathy.

However, “You can’t make changes as a one-off,” said Chris Lewis, founder of Team Lewis, a marketing consulting firm. “It needs to be embedded as part of a routine. Excellence is not a single act. Excellence is a habit.”

Set High Expectations For Effective Leadership

Winning leaders are not passive. They exert pressure in a positive way to get people to act and commit to the right path, said Sarah Dalton. Dalton is a partner at Conchie Associates, a talent assessment and development firm.

“Talented leaders agitate for change, provoke thinking and never settle for average outcomes,” she said “That drives commitment and engagement.”

Hall of Fame basketball coach Phil Jackson was famous for being blunt with players. He’d even call them out in the media to make them uncomfortable. Jackson not only won 11 NBA titles, but earned the loyalty of his players, including such all-time greats as Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Continue reading →

Winning Vs. Success: Five Ways to Focus on Real Impact

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by Justin Bookey

 

If you “win” a negotiation but end up alienating the other players, the long-term benefits are negligible. Focus on the real prize.

In sports, business, arguments and relationships, “winning” often implies a zero-sum game, where there’s a clear victor and a defeated opponent. Winning certainly feels great in the moment, and can bring material gains, status and a surge of dopamine. But if there’s only one winner, where does that leave the others? They may feel dejected, envious or hollow.

“Success,” however, can benefit everyone involved. Consider breaking your personal best time in a 10K race, but finishing 12th in your age group. In a national championship, that would be recorded as a distant loss. But you made it to the Nationals, achieved a personal best, and forged great relationships. These are all significant successes.

Success is Inclusive and Lasting

Success encompasses winning, but also recognizes everyone who advances in their own challenges. This isn’t about participation trophies; it’s about acknowledging the efforts of all participants who overcome meaningful hurdles. Whether it’s a company bonus, a check-mark on a goals chart or an ice cream cone after a game, everyone who contributes their best effort and achieves some positive result deserves to enjoy some reward. Continue reading →

The 3 most undesirable traits of leaders—and how to fix them

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ByHRM Asia 

We have all been there before: A micromanaging manager who does not trust employees to carry out their job roles competently. An unempathetic manager who only has her self-interests at heart and does not recognize the feelings of others. An inarticulate manager with poor communication skills who encourages a culture of non-transparency and second-guessing.

For organizations with workplace leaders who demonstrate these undesirable traits, are they at risk of losing their best talent? Are employees really leaving managers and not organizations?

A recent LinkedIn poll conducted by HRM Asia would seem to give credence to these suggestions, with an overwhelming 88% of respondents saying that they would choose a “great manager” over a “great job.”

3 leadership traits to avoid

To put things into perspective, this is not to suggest that bad managers are the only reason why employees leave an organization. Factors such as better job growth and career advancement opportunities also need to be considered.

However, with employees spending more than half of their waking time at work, it is perhaps not surprising that they desire to work with “great managers” who are competent and can support them in achieving key work goals.

“Undesirable traits can cause irreversible damage to trust, collaboration and strategic alignment, which are critical for organizations to thrive,” Grant “Upbeat” Bosnick, an award-winning author and keynote speaker, told HRM Asia.

Specifically, he identifies three undesirable leadership traits that organizations must identify and fix.

1. Ego-centered decision-making

Boastful leaders driven by ego prioritize their personal interests over the organization’s goals. This trait destroys trust within the team, leads to poor decision-making and promotes a toxic culture that values individual success over collective growth. A leader’s inability to prioritize the business and people over personal ambition can cripple organizational effectiveness.

To overcome this, leaders need to implement a collective decision-making process where input from key stakeholders across different regions, functions and levels is actively sought before major decisions are made. Creating a “team of teams” culture encourages leaders to see themselves as part of a larger ecosystem, not the sole decision-makers. Continue reading →

If You Run Meetings and You’re Not Doing These 3 Things, You’re Wasting Your Time—and Everybody Else’s, Too

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by Justin Bariso

Done right, meetings are a great way of leveraging teams to get work done faster and better. Here’s three ways to help you make sure that happens.

So, you’re sitting at your desk, trying to get some work done. Suddenly, a meeting invite pops up on your screen saying something like this:

If you haven’t guessed already, this meeting is likely to be a big waste of time. But don’t put all the blame on the poor clueless project manager. Chances are, he or she’s just doing what they’ve seen done over and over again, or maybe were even trained to do.

Or, let’s be honest: You may be the one sending out meeting invites like this.

I used to. But several years ago, I worked on a project for a global nonprofit that changed the way I looked at meetings. We interviewed a number of highly effective managers and meeting facilitators to learn more about how they used meetings to get work done.

The task was simple: Find a way to make meetings more effective and efficient.

In doing so, a few simple rules became clear for making the most of our meetings. A big one was this:

Every meeting should have:

  • An agenda (sent at least 24 hours before)
  • A person assigned to follow up on each task
  • A summary and notes

I’m not the only one who feels strongly about this. In an article for MIT Sloan Management Review, organizational science and psychology professors Steven Rogelberg, Cliff Scott, and John Kello recommend that organizers send out an agenda along with relevant background material ahead of the meeting, with enough time for participants to review.

At Apple, Steve Jobs knew how to use meetings to get things done. He instilled the habit of designating a person responsible for following up on every task, and listing this on the meeting notes. That person even had a title—he or she was the “Directly Responsible Individual.”

Let’s break down each of these requirements and see why they’re so vital to your meeting’s success. Continue reading →