If you’re aspiring to join the C-suite and beyond, the tips below may help:

Speak effectively about your work

All candidates considered for senior-level roles are qualified. The biggest differentiator is your ability to effectively communicate the work you’re doing. You want to educate others about your accomplishments in a memorable and likable way.  Learn to be a spokesperson for the amazing work you’ve done and share the lessons learned that can help others in the organization. Avoid the trap of focusing only on the pursuit and execution of your goals without communicating the results you’re achieving.

Executive recruiters can’t extract the complexity of what you’ve done from your resume without your narration. Recruiters for senior-level positions expect a healthy list of impactful accomplishments. On-time and on-budget are no longer enough. What grabs their attention is the candidate who can go beyond WHAT they accomplished and articulate HOW they accomplished it.

• Can you clearly demonstrate your ability to bring people along with you?
• Did your relationships deepen after the assignment or did people want to lean away from you?
• How did you drive transformation and what was the specific business impact?

Get personal

One of the board directors at the session mentioned that she was passed up for a C-suite level role because her board didn’t “know her”. She recognized that she only talked about business with the board and skipped the relational stuff, worrying that the board directors were too senior for small talk. Since then, she’s made the time to connect more personally with these important decision-makers and not only did she make it to the top job at her firm, she’s now an independent director on several public and private boards.

Stay connected and be helpful

If you are shooting for a C-suite role, what are you doing to get relevant face time with individuals who are exposed to high-level opportunities? To get in front of key decision-makers, find time to reconnect with senior-level contacts in your industry, grab lunch with executive recruiters, or join a non-profit board. Once you do connect, deepen your impression by finding ways to authentically help the people around you. Sponsors and mentors are also critical. If you don’t have any, that’s a warning sign. According to one executive, if you want others to advocate for you, first, they must like you. Then they must believe you generate good ideas. And lastly, they must believe you can execute.

Take the high-visibility assignments

To get noticed in your organization, work on projects and initiatives that matter. This will probably mean taking a risk that’s outside your comfort zone. Figure out what is keeping your executives up at night and volunteer to help solve their problem. Remember that for senior-level projects, you can’t win by yourself since the scope of your projects will likely be enterprise-wide. You’ll need to work with others to succeed and build a track record of delivering results. What are you doing now to build up your influence structure to succeed across your organization?

Understand and assimilate key trends

In the past, recruiters were looking for leaders who were decisive and could make tough calls. Now, they are also looking for softer skills – the ability to relate to the workforce and think about diversity, to name a few. As an aspiring leader, you should focus on the business impact of prevailing trends. How will artificial intelligence change the profit and loss equation? How do you think through your investments around cybersecurity? How do you leverage international assignments to add value to your company? How does diversity impact your organization?

Focus on Employability as opposed to Employment

When you’re assessing professional opportunities, think about the skills you need to enhance your employability. Don’t get hung up on a particular function, job track, or title. Leverage your current role to improve how you add value and leave the role better than when you found it. Find ways to build core business skills, connect with key stakeholders, and raise your public profile. You want your boss to know that you’re agile and an asset to any employer. Summed up memorably by one of our senior speakers,

“I love you and the organization. But please don’t confuse that with needing you and the organization.” 

Play politics well

In most companies, politics exist because you have limited resources and competing motivations. At the most senior levels, this dynamic is supercharged because ambitions are bigger, and all the players are good at getting what they want. If you’re not willing to play politics, you’ll be a victim of politics. Learn to read the people around you. Are they looking out for themselves or looking out for the organization? What makes them tick?

One board director recalled the importance of asserting yourself without making others look bad. She recounted a time when someone was claiming credit for her work and instead of calling it out, she found it very effective to play dumb. Instead of, “Why are you taking credit for my work?“, she said, “I heard this was represented in this way. Is there anything I can clarify to help you move forward with your goals?” The other person got the message.

Rising to the pinnacle of your organization is not easy but if you can speak effectively about your work, build authentic relationships, and help others achieve their goals, you’ll have a good shot.

Photo by Benjamin Child

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During a recent trip to Los Angeles, the head of sales for a top financial services firm reflected on his career and shared with me that the #1 factor for most employee’s success, including executives, is the quality of their boss.

When you work for a manager who is a superstar, they will continue to move up in their career, which creates space for you to advance. If they get promoted, there is a good chance that they will actively pull you up with them as long as you have a strong working relationship and continue to perform.

If you don’t work for a top performer, you run the risk of that person seeing you as a threat since there is a good chance you’ll end up taking their job. Instead of focusing on their goals and finding ways to outperform their peers, they will expend their energy holding you back and shooting down your ideas. It’s not personal, it’s self-preservation.

Poor performing managers will also have trouble fighting for the limited resources of the firm and influencing the organization to focus on your team’s initiatives. This means working with smaller budgets and working on low-priority projects.

If you are a high-performer, you want to work for someone who is constantly growing so you don’t outgrow them. An easy way to tell whether someone is a superstar is to look at their work history. In their LinkedIn profile, bio, resume or website, do you see any of the following:

• Promotions every 2-3 years
• Activities that show they are learning new skills
• Thought leadership or involvement in industry groups
• Recommendations or endorsements from others
• Credentials that match those of the senior leadership team

You may want to change your boss if they are (1) staying stuck as a mid or lower-level employee that’s been in the same role, title, and function for the last 10 years, (2) trying to limit your exposure to other senior people or departments, or (3) constantly taking credit for your work.

Your boss matters so if you are ambitious and want to move up in your career, follow someone who is heading to the top. If you work for a true superstar, they will pave the way for you as long as you can keep up just like you will pave the way for those behind you. If you can’t find a great boss and still want to move up quickly in your career, then you might have to switch firms or strike out on your own.

Photo by Kiran Foster

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“So, what can I do to get promoted?” 

Many of the managers I coach have told me this scenario is becoming more and more common. In an era of ever-shortening job tenures, employees seem to be taking the initiative on advancing their own careers more than they used to. They’re less likely to wait for someone to give them what they believe they deserve.

That may not always pay off. Instead of admiring your initiative, your manager may find your request annoying, entitled, and lacking in the self-awareness it usually requires to earn a promotion. In fact, after reading my article on asking for what you want, one senior executive wrote to me to vent his frustration on precisely this point. Here’s how he put it:

“there’s a certain level of accountability that’s missing in our society today. Before you ask, I think you need to demonstrate a level of proficiency/impact … I have had people ask me for more when they haven’t finished their “current job”. One needs to be self-aware and assess where he is before asking for more. I am put off when folks ask for more too early. This is also the number one gripe managers have with millennials.” 

He goes on to suggest that employees ask themselves (before asking their managers),

“What do I need to do before you say yes?”

To get the guidance you need without coming across entitled, consider doing the following before you approach your manager:

1. Master your current role

Doing your job competently does not mean you’ve mastered it.

In Joe Azelby’s book, Kiss Your BUT Goodbye, he highlights how what he terms “PSA”, or “Premature Self Adulation,” limits one’s career. The key point is that you want to have a clear picture of your abilities—specifically, one that squares with your boss’s view of them.

You may believe you’re doing a great job, but is that recognized by others and reflected in the less-subjective measures of your performance? If you’re in sales, for instance, are you the top seller on your team? If you’re in a service role, are your client-satisfaction scores the highest possible?

Before you ask for a promotion or more responsibility, crush your current job by doing every aspect of it consistently better than others. “Satisfactory” probably isn’t good enough.

2. Know your WHAT as well as your WHY

To make for the most productive conversation with your boss, know not just WHAT you want but WHY you want it. Sometimes your boss may not be able to give you WHAT you ask for at the time that you ask for it, for reasons beyond her control – office politics, market conditions, what have you. But she may still be able to meet your requests in other ways if you can articulate your WHY.

When you ask for a promotion, what is the real ask? Is it more engaging work, better access to key clients, developing your skills, earning more money, etc.? None of these is necessarily more valid than the others, but you need to be clear and honest about your rationale. Once your boss knows why you’re interested in a promotion at this stage, they’ll find ways to accommodate you as best they can if they truly value you.

3. Make it easy to say “yes”

Be ready to have something to show for yourself that proves your worth. Have specific evidence of your performance. Especially if you’re worried your boss will feel you’re not ready, you want to show that:

• You’re already doing what will be asked of you in the new role
• Your new role will help your boss or firm achieve their strategic goals
• Others, including those senior to you and your boss, will vouch for you

When you show how your promotion helps your boss and remove many of the risks, the decision becomes much easier to make.

The next time you want to ask for a promotion, remember to first:

1. Crush it in your current role
2. Understand clearly WHAT you want and WHY you want it
3. Collect evidence that makes it hard to say “no”

One bonus tip is to pick the right time to ask. Know what’s happening around you – if you’re not in the right industry or your firm is experiencing tough times, there might not be any room for you to move up. If you’re in this situation, figure out what you want and why you want it. This will help you decide whether it’s worthwhile to stay or to go.

Adapted from Robert’s article at Fast Company.

Photo by Jason Hargrove

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