Tamara joined her company as a group manager. Her deep technical skills, competence in managing people, and ability to deliver results helped her get rapidly promoted to vice president. Tamara was well-regarded by the executive team at her company, many of whom continued to encourage her professional advancement. In her organization, several of her peers had been promoted to the next level within three years. After her third year as VP, Tamara asked her manager what it would take for her to get promoted again. Her manager said, “You need to be more strategic.” When Tamara pushed for more specifics, he said, “I’ll point it out next time I notice it.”
Get the Actionable Feedback You Need to Get Promoted
When you advance through the executive ranks, one of the commodities in scarce supply is actionable feedback from those you report to. Useful feedback is hard to come by, because managers aren’t clear what feedback is actionable or think that, as an executive, you have the seniority to translate their high-level edict into behavioral changes. How do you make sure you get feedback that you can use to become a better leader? Here are five ways to solicit concrete, actionable steps that can result in being promoted faster: Be proactive; ask questions that require specific answers; guide your managers to an actionable response; dig into compliments; and listen to criticism — and be gracious. Take charge of the feedback process and free up the feedback provider to do only one job: provide you with the input you need to become an outstanding executive.