Comparable to a goal in a game of football, a career promotion is one of the many achievements all careerists hope to score and multiple times in their career. However while we know that hard work and smart networking will get us that career promotion seemingly on presentation of ourselves, we don’t realise there are many things we may do that could disqualify us from getting that golden ticket. Let’s take a look at a few of the pitfalls that we may not even know we’re slipping into.
Be Honest
Control over our reputation is something of an illusion we believe we have and when things get rough we may do things to prevent our reputation from slipping but if we’re genuinely struggling or behind on a project our initial instinct is to hide it; this is the worst thing you could possibly do if you’re aiming for that promotion. By not being able to own up, or ask for help, we open ourselves up to the possibility that we are unreliable. Sure if you’re able to hide transgressions from prying eyes long enough to fix your problem, you avoid a bad apple in your path to career promotion but the majority of the time you’re not going to get away with it. When you are inevitably discovered, you’ll look self-interested and unreliable; would you want to reward that behaviour?
Be Genuine
As far as tips go for career promotion, never be one who is afraid to admit you do not know something. If there is something you do not know, then rather admit it and gather the skills and experience necessary to learn. Possessing that knowledge for real means when you earn that promotion, your career won’t be a definition of a lie; if you get that promotion disingenuously, you’re likely to be out of your depth which will inevitably lead to stress of the highest calibre.
Be Humble
One final item of humility we need to learn before we can hope to gain that career promotion, quotes will support this, is to learn how to handle criticism gracefully. No one is perfect and we will all inevitably make mistakes in our career, with a plan for promotion or otherwise, and gaining the skill to take critique constructively is one skill that genuinely makes us the right person to climb the career ladder. If you react negatively to criticism from your superiors then they may avoid critiquing you at all and while that sounds like a positive, it also means they’ll likely avoid you when considering who is ready to progress up the ranks. Don’t alienate your supervisors by taking things too personally, because they’re only out to squeeze the best performance out of you, not to change your inherent personality. Aiming for that career promotion can lead us to put a lot of pressure on ourselves and this is the last thing you want; be yourself, be humble and work hard – everything will fall into place.
Eugene Calvini is a writer who served as a career coach at Atlanta office space for many years gathering enough experience to share his advice online.