How to Get to the Top – If You Really Want It

You, and you alone, own your career path. No one will ever care about your career as much as you do. No matter what they say or what they tell you, you are the navigator of your destiny. Being a good navigator, however, is not just knowing where you want to go; it’s also planning how you intend to get there and staying in control.

Getting to the top is not about reliance; it’s about resolution. Don’t make the rookie mistake of believing that someone else is going to make it happen.

If you really want it, you will not let someone else determine your destination.

Here are some resolutions that I have learned from my own professional experience and others that you can use to help you get to the top.

Believe in Yourself

Roy T. Bennet, author of The Light in the Heart: Inspirational Thoughts for Living Your Best Life, wrote, “Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt, you can achieve what you never thought possible.”

Believing in yourself is only half the battle. The other half is this: don’t listen to the negative voices in your head or those who are against you. You must decide not to entertain the thoughts of self-doubt that are thrust at you.

This is easier said than done. But I believe what we may not realize is that it begins with resolve. It starts with a singular, determined choice. When you make the conscious decision not to listen to self-doubt, and begin practicing not listening, it gets easier and becomes less difficult over time. It then becomes second nature.

Feedback is the Ultimate Win

Ask for it from the toughest critics that you respect and ask for it often. Iron sharpens iron, and when you ask for feedback and improve, you set yourself apart. You can’t know everything, and when you understand that early on and take the necessary steps to learn, you increase your value and improve your skills.

According to an Indeed article, “Asking for feedback is important because it demonstrates to others that you are committed to improving your skills and contributing to your team.”

Focus on making the conscious choice to believe in yourself and not listen to the naysayers, choose to ask for feedback, for this further shows that you are willing to learn and that you realize you need sage advice from respected leadership.

And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback in the tough areas: communication (both written and verbal), leadership, and collaboration. These are often the main struggle areas and what prevents and impedes one’s climb to the top.

By asking for feedback, receiving it graciously, and implementing it, you are taking control of your career and advertising that you are upper-management material.

Have a Plan

A strong, successful plan includes realizing where you need to improve, planning how to improve in tough areas, and sticking to it. The key here is going to be consistency. Your plan will not work if you only follow it sporadically.

The most successful plans will include self-assessment, goals, feedback, resources, timelines, schedules, strategies, and more. Part of getting to the top is a balance of following proven methods while also recognizing what works best for you. Think of the structure of plans as guides, rather than as regulations.

Research, experiment, and develop a plan with methods that work best for you. List the areas that are tough for you, make them part of your plan, and work on your plan. Remember, it is your plan, and you must recognize when changes and adjustments need to be made to your plan. Adjustments are not failures; you’re finding your sweet spot, the intersection of your strengths, expertise, and interests.

What Prevents You from Getting Ahead?

While believing in yourself, asking for feedback, and having a plan can help you get ahead, there are a few areas that can impede it: not having advocates and sponsors, spending too much time on blockers, and being overly emotional. Becoming aware of these areas and responding accordingly can result in a quicker, more successful climb.

Not Having Advocates and Sponsors

There is no downside here. You need people who will speak favorably and confidently about your skills and abilities, or at least not condemn you in talent reviews. A sponsor may be your boss or your boss’s boss, but they should be someone with the power and influence not only to advocate on your behalf but also to place their reputation on the line for you.

It is also a good idea to have diversity within your sponsors and advocates, by having a mix of both men and women. Don’t feel beholden to one or the other. It is always good to show that you work well with everyone. Perhaps you feel you get along better with one or the other, but it is never a bad idea to expand your professional horizons.

Don’t overlook the fact that this is an excellent mentor relationship and provides you with the opportunity to learn from their experience and develop your own professional skills. Demonstrating that you are teachable, take direction well, and implement what you learn will help mold you into a high performer.

Sponsors and advocates are looking for talented, high performers, and why should that not be you?

Not Proving What You Can Bring to the Table

Be a high performer. As Tim Notke, a high school basketball coach, observed, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Sponsors seek talented individuals who perform at high levels. That is, individuals who produce, take initiative, improve, go above, go beyond, and make it happen.

As you are working your way to the top, think about what you are making. What is your product? Where does your proof come from? Think about it and don’t overlook the less and non-tangible products. Products such as communication, collaboration, conscientiousness, and politeness, for example, can, in fact, be your products, your proof.

Are you a productive, reliable member of a team that offers suggestions and recommendations? Do people look forward to working with you on projects? Are you a contributor? Does the work you present to reflect the level you would expect if you were the manager?

In other words, don’t forget the little things, realize that your daily actions and behaviors are proof of your claims to upward mobility.

Not Building Your Influence or using it to Your Advantage

Building your influence has many benefits, not the least of which is that influence puts you in a position to be heard, respected, acknowledged, and appreciated. But acquiring that influence takes time, effort, and finesse.

Jason Demers, founder, and CEO of AudienceBloom suggests there are seven ways to build your influence in the workplace. What they all have in common is building “mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual teamwork.” In other words, building influence is a two-way street.

One of the benefits of building your influence is promotion, and getting to the top. After all, you’re believing in yourself, asking for feedback, and following your plan with the goal of advancing your career. Keep in mind that asserting influence, while lucrative and advantageous, involves earning respect in the workplace, not practicing cunning, opportunistic methods for personal gain.?

As Demers cautions, “One is a respectable journey to greater prominence and productivity, while the other is simply a Machiavellian power trip.”

However, as you earn and demonstrate respect and the right opportunity presents itself to you, now use your influence to express your professional aspirations to your sponsors and advocates.

In addition, remind them that your success is also beneficial to their own reputation. They have successfully put their own reputation on the line and sponsored a winner for the company.

Not Supporting Others

True teamwork means supporting ALL your peers. Make sure to practice what you preach, because there is nothing more damaging to your reputation than saying one thing and then behaving in ways that contradict them.

What does it look like when you are not a supportive team member? I call this practice “intentional exclusion.”

These are the three biggest red flags that I notice when intentional exclusion is happening among your team:

• Gossiping/slandering
• Criticizing (different than offering constructive feedback)
• Purposefully not including others in meetings

When we practice “intentional exclusion,” we undermine our message of inclusion as well as hinder our own progress on our career path.

There is a special place in hell reserved for those who create an environment that enables and encourages intentional exclusion. Especially those that are designed to have women undermine other women, so that they can obtain individual success in their careers.

Think of supportive and constructive ways to point out gossip and slander, destructive feedback, and purposeful exclusion in meetings. Always aim to elevate others instead of putting them down.

Spending Too Much Time on Blockers

According to Victoria Butt, in her LinkedIn article “Why Career Blockers are Impacting your Salary,” “Career blockers are those people who will inhibit your career in some way...they will openly block your promotion in a leadership forum and explain to others why you should not be eligible for a promotion/role change...they do not recommend your skills when asked.”

While you may not see them openly, your sponsors, advocates, managers, and peers may. This provides another opportunity to solicit feedback from them to help you identify your career blockers. You can employ strategies such as meeting with them, sharing more about yourself with them, prioritizing their projects, understanding their drivers and pain points, and asking them to mentor you, but you can only do so much.

If the blocker is the one person who makes all of the decisions in your company MOVE ON. You can’t please everyone. If the blocker does make all the decisions, and you can’t get them on your side – recognize this early and find a new company to work for.

This is where you need to remind yourself that your career path is yours, not theirs. Blockers, especially, don’t care about your career path at all, so be empowered to move on, whether it is moving on to someone else within the company or moving on to another company.

It is your path. Don’t let someone else dictate your path by blocking it.

Being Overly Emotional

If this is you, accept that you are emotional and just learn how to manage it. Use your emotional awareness to your advantage. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, and a Korn Ferry study of 55,000 professionals, “found that women more effectively employ the emotional and social competencies correlated with effective leadership and management than men.”

Being “emotional” is not a bad thing, and just because women are inherently more emotionally aware, doesn’t mean that we are good at it. It still takes commitment and strength to develop the gifts we are given.

Along these lines, stop being offended by taking things personally. Don’t let your own emotional reactions get the better of you. When you feel yourself becoming offended, stop and ask yourself, “How is this making me better?"

I am sure you already know the answer to that question. It isn’t.

Final Thoughts

Getting to the top is a game and there are rules. You must understand the rules of the game and play them better than everyone else.

My encouragement to you is to play offense, not defense.

Linda Betz, the chief information security officer at The Travelers Companies, says, “I play my game. I focus on what I am good at.”

If you really want to get to the top, perfect your offense by believing in yourself, asking for respected feedback, improving in the tough areas, associating with favorable advocates and sponsors, performing at high levels, using your influence, supporting others, and employing your emotional competencies effectively.

You, and you alone, own your career path. Only you can make it happen.