So, you think you’re doing a good job, but you feel like your career has stalled.
- You haven’t had a promotion
- You think you’re underpaid
- You may even feel undervalued
How do you get unstuck and up to the next level?
As a former recruiter and now executive coach, I have seen the arcs of thousands of careers, and coached many people through assessing where they are in their career, what they want to do going forward, and what they need to do to get what they want.
Sometimes, just a few simple adjustments are needed to jumpstart a career, and sometimes, you need a whole new action plan.
Read on for an exploration of the reasons why people feel stalled or get stuck in their career, how to assess both what might be wrong and where you want to go, and finally, specific recommendations for how you can advance your career to the next level.
Table of Contents
Section 1: Career Pitfalls
Why careers stall
There are multiple reasons why you can find yourself stuck in a job, or passed over for a promotion you thought you deserved. You can’t just “blindly work hard,” and assume that is enough.
Ask yourself these questions, and if you find yourself in any of these situations, try the action step suggested to get back on track.
Are you doing the wrong tasks?
I once worked with a client who was a beloved manager in his professional services firm, but who got passed up for a partner role. He needed to do more selling and more thought leadership. Yet, he was still very hands-on with his clients’ day-to-day needs.
What has worked to get you where you are today may not be the same skills to propel you to the next step up the ladder.
Are you supporting the wrong people?
You want to be collegial and collaborative with everyone. This isn’t about being unsupportive or ignoring anyone. However, you need to know who makes the career advancement decisions (about plum assignments, promotions, and raises), and make sure these people know your value. Your boss is hopefully part of this decision process, but they may not have enough influence or credibility.
Confirm who does make these decisions, and focus your relationship-building on these decision-makers who can move your career.
Are you serving the wrong goals?
Market conditions change, and business strategy changes accordingly. You might have thrived when your department was in heavy growth mode and still might be proposing new ideas, repeating what had benefited you before. But maybe your group is streamlining or in cost-cutting mode, and your creative ideas are irrelevant, or worse, threatening.
If you haven’t recently confirmed what is on your boss’ priority list, then you might be focusing on the wrong objectives.
Has your salary outpaced your value?
If you have been at your employer for a while, your salary might have silently crept up above market value due to standard annual raises. Is your functional experience, institutional knowledge, and industry expertise worth your salary? Or are you just more expensive than someone with less experience?
Take an audit of the value you bring to the company, and make sure you’re not an easy target for the next restructuring.
Has your value outpaced your company?
On the flip side, you might be a superstar performer but trapped in a company that can never accommodate your level. I once managed an individual contributor who was so talented she could have done my job (and in fact, she now has a bigger management job elsewhere). But she would never have gotten my job for reasons unrelated to her performance: the group was small and didn’t need another person at my level. The company tried to manufacture a meatier role for her but if she wanted that executive title (and she did want it and deserved it), she had to leave.
If you find yourself in this situation, it might be time start looking elsewhere.
Have you stopped growing?
Maybe you are not raising your hand for stretch assignments, or are not connected inside and outside your group to even hear about stretch assignments. Maybe you are not attending industry-related events or conferences. Or maybe you are not keeping yourself up-to-date on trends, technological advances, and thought leadership in your area.
Career advancement doesn’t just happen by clocking in time. You need to contribute value and increase your value over time by growing yourself and following emerging trends in your area.
Are you on auto pilot?
If this is the first time you’re even thinking about whether you’re doing the right tasks, supporting the right people and goals, and contributing enough value, then your career is on auto pilot. What you did before, even if it served you well, may not be relevant as market conditions change and companies respond accordingly.
You need to regularly look at your career and proactively manage your work habits, your focus, your network, your skills, and your expertise.
Career mistakes
In 2015, after I heard about 7,800 layoffs announced at Microsoft, I checked in on a former colleague who was working there. Luckily, she had already moved on five months earlier. She mentioned that it was obvious things were going south and wondered why more of her colleagues had not decided to leave earlier – before everyone who waited would be flooding the job market at the same time.
Failing to act is a mistake many professionals make, not just in response to layoffs. Here are other common “sins of omission” – career mistakes that might be impeding your career advancement:
Weak connections
Connecting to people is never supposed to be urgent. Urgency comes when you need something, and in that case, your reaching out is about transacting rather than genuinely connecting.
If you don’t take the time to build a relationship, the networking police won’t ticket you. But you’ll have weak connections that won’t support you in a pinch – like when it comes time to make decisions about who gets promoted, or not.
Small network
You might think you’re OK because you have a handful of strong relationships. A small, dedicated group of friends is a blessing, for sure, but a strong network is about quantity, as well as quality. The bigger the network, the more likely you will have access to what you need at any given time. Many career advancement decisions are made across different groups and departments.
If you don’t proactively expand past your inner circle, you’ll be limited in how much your network can support you.
Compensation plateau
It’s not just your role that is danger of stagnation, but also your compensation. How many people do you know who are longtime at their company and making less than a counterpart who is new? These longtimers failed to mark their compensation up to market value.
Inaction shows in not keeping up on information about what is fair compensation and not asking for what you deserve.
Mission drift
I hear from professionals who are fine with their level in the company, and fine with their compensation, but still have a general malaise around “is this all there is?” In the busyness of day-to-day, the meaning behind why we do what we do is easily lost.
If you don’t proactively think about the weighty issues like legacy, purpose and fulfillment, they will likely only surface in a crisis.
Letting yourself go
When one of my daughters was young, she started playing around with the piano in our living room (currently used more as a coffee table than a performance instrument). She asked me if I could still play all the scales. I trained at Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music, but decades ago at this point (wow, I’m old!), and I hadn’t played in years. Yes, I could remember the scales mentally but my fingers wouldn’t follow so easily. I had really “let myself go” regarding my piano skills.
Letting yourself go professionally might show up in coasting at work. It’s diminished effort over time in the small but important habits that turn into the barnacles that sink the submarine. It’s not what you did; it’s what you didn’t do or stopped doing.
Career fears
If you want to advance in your career, you need to exude confidence, not fear, anxiety or worry. Invest some time to identify the fears you might have for your career, and address them.
This is as good as it’ll get
You fear that you will never advance, you’re topped out at your job, with nowhere else to go. Your boss isn’t going anywhere so you won’t move up, and there aren’t other departments to transfer to. You’re not afraid of losing your job, but you’re afraid that it will be more of the same forever.
First of all, make sure that there isn’t a way to add more variety to your role even without a promotion or transfer. For example, you can work on a cross-functional team. Or, you can switch clients or assignments within your own group.
Secondly, professional development and fulfillment doesn’t only happen on the job. One of my clients started teaching and writing about his expertise and expanded his career that way, rather than moving upward within the company.
I’m settling
There might be something better out there, and the fact that you’re not going after it scares you. Does it reflect negatively on your courage, confidence, or ambition?
Confirm whether it really is that you want something more or just that you think you should want something more. Is there a prodding friend or family member who reminds you to be further up the ladder or making more money?
Decide for yourself if you want to raise your hand for a promotion, raise, or challenging assignment. If it’s meaningful to you, then by all means, budget time and effort to do something about it. Otherwise, drop it – there are worse problems to have than being content on the job.
I’m never getting promoted
You feel like you’ve done everything you can to move ahead but are getting nowhere. Are you in the wrong company? Are you doing the wrong things? Is it you personally?
Getting a promotion is more than just doing a great job. Make sure you understand exactly how the decisions are made – who makes them (it’s not just your boss), when they’re made, what the criteria are. Take an honest look at what you contribute – skills, expertise, results, intangibles (e.g., fit, presence). This is one fear where direct, concerted action is the best cure.
I’m underpaid
You fear you’re making less than your peers, and you don’t see any relief.
Similar to getting a promotion, you want to understand the compensation process – decision-makers, timing, criteria. Check market data at Salary.com, GetRaised.com, or other salary sites. Audit your own performance and value to ensure that you merit a raise. Create your arguments and practice your negotiation skills.
I’m stuck here
You want to leave but are unsure how to get your next job. You have tried to leave but aren’t successful in landing anything else.
First of all, check your job search technique. You might think you’ve conducted an exhaustive search but you might not have put out enough inquiries or applied in the right way.
Secondly, job search is about timing. There might have been companies who would have been interested in you but weren’t hiring. Business conditions change so your results from months ago don’t necessarily predict the success of a job search you launch today.
It’s too late
You may feel confident about finding another similar job, but advancing your career what you want. Now you’re afraid that the leap is too big and you’ve waited too long to switch.
Let’s be honest: there are certain careers with very specific timetables (e.g., prima ballerina). But specific expiration dates are actually rare, so it’s probably not too late in the literal sense. You will have to overcome the years you spent at the same level or in a title that doesn’t accurately reflect what you do. But with good research, a rebranding of your marketing, and enough preparation you can make late-stage career advances.
I’m in over my head
You actually did not settle or get stuck, and you got the promotion, the raise, or the title you were seeking. Now you actually have to deliver, and you’re afraid you might not deliver as expected. You might look foolish or fail.
Get support.
- Your boss can give you more direction, more information, or more resources so don’t be afraid to ask for what you need.
- HR will know if there are training resources for skills or expertise you lack. Your mentor can give insight or at least encouragement.
- Your friends can offer emotional support.
Finally, a big part of the fear of being in over your head is fear of the unknown, and a lot of your role is unknown because it’s new. Start working with what you do know, itemize what you still need to know, and chip away at the fear one step at a time.
Limiting beliefs
The last way in which you might be held back in your career is by believing the career advancement you seek is not possible, so you come up with excuses that prevent you from taking the necessary steps.
Do any of these sound familiar?
As soon as my work / my pitch / my [insert yet one more step to take] is ready, I’ll put myself out there
“The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we’re ready for it” – Arnold Glasow
I see this one from my clients all the time – the middle manager who wants to check off all the skills in the executive job description before expressing their interest; the entry-level professional who wants to manage but thinks they need just a little more time.
You will never feel 100% ready. Do it anyway.
I’m too old to start something new
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today” – Chinese proverb
I hear this limitation too, as moving into senior levels requires years invested into a role. Yes, there will be upheaval. Yes, it’s more complicated when you have family obligations, financial obligations and multiple existing commitments – all things that tend to increase with age.
However, the older you are, the more should appreciate how quickly time moves and how precious each day is. Start now.
I don’t have the time
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time” – Leonard Bernstein
Ambitious professionals looking to advance their careers typically have busy jobs with little extra time. However, there should also be time to work on your career and not just in it. The lack of time excuse is typically a front for some other fear, a scapegoat to explain your inertia. Sure, you can read productivity tips and hacks. It is always useful to know how to maximize your time. But the very first step is recognizing you already have the time.
What you need more of is the urgency.
Section 2: How To Assess Your Situation
OK, so now you understand some of the reasons behind your lack of career advancement. Let’s dig deeper into what is keeping you stuck.
Have you fallen for this success trap?
Sometimes the strategies, actions, and/or approach that made you successful before stops working. You can’t tighten a screw with a hammer – you have to change the tool you are using.
If you over-rely on the same management approach, same communication style, or the same career plan that got you this far, you may not get any further. Here are some scenarios where your success strategy may have topped out.
Your new role is too different to rely on what you did before
This happens a lot on the career path to leadership. What works for a star individual contributor is different from a good manager and is different still from a good leader.
- When you are an individual contributor, you have just yourself to motivate, organize, and ensure you get the job done.
- When you manage, you have others to coach, train, and corral. You have a budget and deadlines. You have colleagues, vendors or consultants to convince.
- When you lead, you have followers to engage. You have a vision and strategy to communicate.
The circumstances surrounding each role are different, which require skills you might never have used before.
Your circle of responsibility has expanded to where you need to flex your communication style
As you advance in your career, you work with more people – constituents as an individual contributor whose scope expands, more staff as a manager whose responsibilities increase, more people at all levels and functions as a leader whose scope has broadened.
You need a broader array of communication skills to interact with the wider variety of people. You might be a very direct, decisive manager whose small team responded positively. Now you have a bigger team, and some need a more nurturing, encouraging approach. While you can wait until they “get” you, if they ever do, you can also adapt to meet them where they are in their development.
Your past success strategy may be irrelevant to your new circumstances
I’ve heard several successful executives comment on how success in their workplace required a completely different approach than success in school. As a former corporate executive myself, I agree.
As a student, you have a clearly defined schedule, curriculum and challenges (whether tests or research reports). There is no comparison to the frenetic, unpredictable nature of running a line of business or a region. Many executives are formerly successful students, and had to discard some of the now irrelevant tricks of the school trade.
What do you need to discard? This doesn’t mean you have to become a whole new person or never refer back to past successes, but check your assumptions about what works.
What exactly does career advancement mean to you?
Getting to the next level isn’t a specific enough goal because “next” means different things to different people.
Do you want more money?
You may want to ask for a raise, rather than a promotion – it’s not the same thing. Or you might start a side hustle.
Do you want more recognition?
A promotion is one way to be recognized. However, so is getting more involved in other areas of your company where you’re visible to more people. Employee Resource Groups are a good way to get in front of senior people.
Do you want to challenge or grow your skills?
You can develop your skills outside your job. I’ve been an adjunct at Columbia University for 20+ years, and in addition to cementing my understanding of my area of expertise, I have expanded my communication, presenting, and teaching skills. Yet this is completely separate from advancing my business.
Do you want more fulfillment?
You may think you will be fulfilled with a promotion, but changes in other areas of your life could give you more fulfillment. Experiment with changing your free time, your relationships, your environment, or other areas before assuming advancing your career is the answer.
Are you performing well enough in your current role to advance beyond it?
Your annual performance review can give you a sense of how your boss and your company feel about the work you are doing. It is also important for you to do a self-assessment on how you are doing. Here are some questions to help you check in:
What was my biggest accomplishment?
If you decide to make a job change, you’ll need to understand this, as most job interviews include questions about your biggest accomplishment. You want to have something recent to say, ideally as recently as this year.
What result did you achieve? What expertise did you gain? What area of the company did you improve? Remember not only those things you directly impacted but also where you contributed to a big accomplishment – for your department or an organization you support.
Write down all of your wins, but select what you felt was the most significant. What makes it significant? This gives you a window into what you’re proud of, what you prioritize, what you’re passionate about.
Whom did I help?
You don’t advance your career by yourself. Someone (likely several people) promotes you. Since, the strongest networks are built on give and take, what have you given back to your network recently?
It might have been pitching in for a colleague who is overwhelmed, offering encouragement or sharing advice. As you reflect on all the ways you helped people in your network, you might see that:
- your focus was only with people you know well, instead of expanding your allies to people you may not see day-to-day;
- your helpful gestures were with your immediate team instead of across all areas of the company.
- your relationships revolve around people at one level –only junior or senior or peers – instead of a diverse network.
- you lose touch with people you haven’t worked with recently and need to stay connect over time.
Who was my biggest champion?
Collaboration and relationships are critical to career advancement. It’s important to recognize who is helpful, and what makes them helpful, so you can thank people. You also want to nurture these relationships.
Don’t just focus on big or obvious gestures, like when your manager gives you a plum assignment or a client praises your work. Remember the colleague who helps you out when you’re overwhelmed, the informal mentor who listens and encourages, the savvy junior assistant who’s great for finding that tricky piece of information or getting you a slot on an executive’s busy calendar.
Many of your supporters help you in an ongoing way. What makes someone your biggest champion for this year? This speaks to what you really needed and who really stepped up.
What is coming up that most excites me?
This question is one that is very important to help determine if you are on the right path to advancement, or not. If this question brings up a lot of different commitments, pull out your schedule and plan for when you will pay attention to each of these. On the other hand, if you have trouble thinking about anything that excites you, now is the time to explore if a job change is needed.
Reviewing your past year can provide insight into areas to focus on. Reading business stories and biographies can plant ideas for problems to solve – maybe some are relevant to your company and can be worked into your day-to-day, or they can increase your enthusiasm for your next career move.
It could also be that the most exciting thing coming up is personal in nature – a milestone in your family, a hobby you’re taking up. It’s important to acknowledge this and give space in your schedule for this, as you plan your upcoming professional commitments. If more work/life balance is required, advancing your career may not be the right goal to focus on at all.
Section 3: Grow your Career
Now that you have identified some common career pitfalls and asked yourself the tough questions around how you might have contributed to a career plateau, let’s get unstuck and moving forward.
The skills you need to be a successful manager
Manage up
When you advance your career, yes, you’ll be managing an individual, or individuals below you, but many times a bigger part of your job will be managing the expectations, preferences and demands of senior people above you. Even the CEO manages up to the Board, the customers and the public. As you move up the management ranks, you’ll have a bigger scope of responsibility and higher expectations placed on you. Management success requires you to manage up to maintain your credibility and solidify those senior relationships.
Business understanding
As an individual contributor or middle manager, your responsibilities were more likely task-oriented and/ or shorter-term. The more senior you are, the more likely you’ll have longer-term projects with more direct impact on the bottom line. If you didn’t need to understand your company’s revenue sources, cost structure, and balance sheet before, then you will now, in order to ensure you’re making good decisions and getting desired results.
Synthesizing
The larger the scope, the more important it is that you are able to distill the wider body of information to its essential meaning. You will need to explain what you’re doing to senior executives who are time-pressed. For management success, you will need to let your boss know that you’ve thought through a project from start-to-finish.
Presenting
You may have had some chances to present at team meetings before, but these public speaking requirements will only increase as your responsibilities increase. You may have to present to more senior executives than you did in the past, or directly to clients. As you get more senior, you may also be asked to represent the company at conferences or recruiting events.
Listening
At the same time that you’ll probably have to present more, you’ll also have to listen more, as well as listen more effectively. You need to listen for company priorities, your boss’ priorities, and your team’s needs both individually and collectively. You will probably be working across departments more often than before so will have a whole new host of colleagues to get to know.
Motivating
One of your team’s needs will be motivation. You need to engage the people who work for you so they’re excited about doing a good job.
Developing
In addition to motivation, people need direction and tangible skills to get a job done. If your team needs more specific direction, you need to provide that.
Coaching
Some team members need motivation. Some need development. Some need both. These needs change over time. Good coaching means you discern what your team needs, when they need it, and you get them that support – either directly through you or by marshalling resources from the company.
Influencing
Getting what you need for your team is one example of when you’ll use influence – your boss won’t automatically sign off on additional resources. Generating consensus for an idea is another example of when you’ll have to use influence. Even interacting with colleagues, perhaps collecting data or information that you need for your work but is not part of their everyday job, is another common situation where you need to exert influence to be effective.
Balancing
While you’re managing teams and/or projects, you’re also still working on other daily, weekly and longer-term commitments, meaning yet another requirement – the balancing act.
The intangibles you need to move into a management role
In working with executives, these are some of the more intangible requirements of leadership roles:
- Ability to collaborate
- Staying front of mind
- Developing a differentiating “edge”
How do you collaborate, stay front of mind, and develop an edge?
Expand your relationships
Use your lunch break: The best way to develop relationships is to break bread with people. Getting to know someone over a meal makes it easier to collaborate later.
Enroll your manager’s support: Let them know that you want to meet more people, and ask for their suggestions. The ones who are happy to help will refer you gladly, and the less-supportive ones will at least know your intentions so it won’t look like you’re going over their heads when you reach outside your immediate area.
Take it outside: Relationships are not only developed at the office. Don’t forget a company softball league or affinity group. You’ll meet people you don’t normally work with.
Maintain an ongoing presence – promotion decisions happen quickly
Set weekly reminders: Let’s face it – you’re not going to remember to network with people. Set a reminder on your calendar to prompt you automatically. Then reach out to 1, 3, 5 people, whatever you can muster for the time you blocked off. It forces you to keep relationship management front of mind.
Send regular updates to your boss in-between official reviews: People are busy. Your boss can’t keep track of everything you’re doing. If you wait till the year-end review, you miss out on the other 11 months of the year. A regular update plan also forces you to be mindful that you’re getting regular results.
Update your LinkedIn status: Recommend an interesting article you’ve read (that happens to be related to what you do professionally). Celebrate the completion of a project – “excited to be more than halfway to our fundraising goal and still 8 months to go!” Raising your profile outside your company can help raise your profile internally.
Build a thought leadership platform
Make a leadership role: You don’t have to wait for a promotion to get into a leadership role. Promote yourself by volunteering to put together a panel for your professional association or alma mater. This gives you official cover to research a topic of interest and network with people of interest. This also gives you a public result to share with your manager.
Get published: You don’t have to start a blog (but you could). You can guest post on an existing one, or write an insightful and engaging comment. You can post for your professional association or alma mater. You can give a quote or be a source for a journalist on one of their pieces.
Find your go-to superpower and nurture it: When I did executive reference checks, one of my favorite questions was, “What is [insert your name here] the go-to person for?” Well, what are you the go-to person for? What is the thing you do that makes people wonder, how do you do it? Everyone who is talented enough to advance into executive leadership a superpower. if you don’t know what yours is, ask your colleagues, current and former, what your key strengths are. You’ll see a pattern and will now know what to highlight.
