The quickest way to get promoted is to get your boss promoted. Do something that makes them look amazing to the people that are evaluating their work. Making your boss look good gives you the highest likelihood that they’ll bring you along with them in rank and/or compensation as they move up too.
How do you get your boss promoted? Find out what their job depends on, and tie your job directly to theirs. Here are some ways to find that out:
- Ask.
- Talk to your boss’s boss about it.
- Find out what got your boss’s former peer promoted.
Some examples of what you can do to get your boss promoted at any level:
- If you’re an independent contributor designer, your boss is probably some form of design manager. Design managers are often evaluated on the quality of the craft of the work they’re overseeing. Volunteer to run critiques, and give your boss a monthly report in a format they can pass along that shows how the design team is improving month-over-month.
- If you’re a design manager, your boss is probably a VP. VPs are often evaluated on whether their impact is felt on a company level. Identify an important initiative your VP has committed to and take on the responsibility of becoming their right hand person on it. Make it your professional mission to help this initiative succeed this quarter. Think of yourself as your VPs head of public relations to make sure that everyone knows how your VP is making impact.
- If you’re a design VP, your boss is probably part of the C-suite, like a Chief Design Officer or a Chief Executive Officer. At this level, they can no longer be promoted any higher, so their incentive is less about rising in the ranks and instead making some kind of progress. Lucky for you, many C-level folks are very plain about their missions; it’s all they talk about. For some, it’ll be something like increasing their status in the world on behalf of their company, so perhaps you can suggest and even line up speaking events and podcast appearances they might enjoy. For others, it'll be a pet project like starting a new branch of their team or changing something major about the way their division works, so consider yourself part of the insider crew that they’ve trusted to help these things come to life. Channel your inner rascal and get to work.
That’s the quickest way to get promoted.
