The Top 2 Reasons You Aren't Getting Job Promotions

You think the time has come. You 're ready for a promotion so you’ve been applying for several positions, but nothing is coming through for you. You feel that you have been in the?same position for too long, and now your career prospects are starting to look bleak.

To get out this rut, you have to figure out what you may be doing wrong.

I am privileged to speak confidentially with a lot of different managers and executives from a multitude of industries, and here are the top two reasons they have shared with me for why they don’t promote certain employees to higher positions of authority or responsibility even when that individual appears to be an otherwise high performer.

1. You Aren’t Genuinely Open To Feedback Or Constructive Criticism

As difficult as it might be to receive what you perceive as negative information about your work performance or project deliverables, it is crucial that you not only seek out?feedback?but also appear to welcome it.

The time to worry is not when you are getting constructive criticism. The time to worry is when you are no longer receiving it.

If your supervisor or colleagues are no longer offering up any meaningful feedback, it typically means they have given up on you. When people care about you, they really do want to help you do your best work.?When you make it difficult for those around you to give you honest feedback, you will surely lose.

After those around you stop caring, they will also stop giving you the kind of feedback and constructive criticism that you need to achieve greater heights of success. Be on alert because when this happens—when colleagues stop giving you feedback—your promotional prospects are indeed in trouble.

How you demonstrate this:

When you resist feedback and constructive criticism, your colleagues can easily tell because you make it very uncomfortable and difficult for them to give you any.

• You do this by quickly coming up with excuses and reasons for why information you are receiving is somehow incorrect or why the person giving it is mistaken in his/her findings.
• You do this by crossing your arms and becoming openly defensive or even hostile in your body language when someone tries to deliver feedback.
• You demonstrate resistance by trying to justify the points at issue instead of soaking in what you are hearing and processing it respectfully.
• You show your disdain for the feedback by not responding with any meaningful questions or positive responses, and you certainly don’t attempt to expand the conversation to learn specifics or understand how or what you can change.

Why this is stalling your career:

This is stalling your career because people start to view you as closed minded when it comes to your own professional development and growth, and they expect this would be a problem for the organization as a whole if you were to be promoted.

Leaders and managers want to work with people who can be developed and who clearly seek out methods and ways to learn, unlearn and grow so they can deliver higher and higher levels of performance.

Remaining open to receive guidance, advice and feedback from others is a critical element of leadership success, and it is very important for team development and cohesiveness.

When a person is open to feedback and constructive criticism, he demonstrates it by proactively seeking out and creating the space for others to honestly share their thoughts on his performance, work product and service deliverables.

This employee—one who welcomes feedback—intentionally engages in dialogue to not only learn what people think about his work but also why they think what they think and how he might use this information to improve in certain areas.

2. You Cater To Positions And Titles But Neglect Regular Folks

You think you have your eye on the ball – you even consider yourself to be one of the company’s rock stars. You are focused on understanding the organizational strategy and achieving operational goals. You know the KPIs (key performance indicators) and excel at achieving them.

But everyone believes that you don’t really care about the people. You too often show that other employees don’t really matter to you. Despite your high performance, you are indeed failing.

How you demonstrate this:

When it comes to people with power and status within the organization, you're up at the ready and insist on meeting their needs, but when you perceive colleagues or managers to be lacking in power and status, you're quick to neglect their needs.

If you perceive someone to be inferior to you or disconnected from your career trajectory, their concerns or struggles just don’t make your radar and never will make your priority list.

You demonstrate your lack of value for every-day employees and those without power and status by saying and doing things such as this.

• You refer to your staff or other colleagues and managers with phrases like he is 'only' a clerk, she is ‘just’ a front-ling supervisor, he is ‘only’ a nurse, or she is ‘just’ a deputy.
• You believe you are the smartest person in the room and because of this, you don't ever ask for help even though you often offer it. You are unaware that this actually makes you look insecure and is one of the?five behaviors that make you look inferior.
• You openly acknowledge employees who you view as important to your career progression but have no problem at all ignoring all the rest - even other managers and directors.
• When you do take the time to talk to employees who you hold in low regard, you are quick to immediately – and rudely – disregard them or end a conversation when anyone with more status walks up.
• You ask others for input and information, but you never actual plan to use it. You believe that your opinion is the most important one in the room, and everyone knows it.
• You are the friendliest person in the office when it comes to working with people whom you believe can advance your career, but all the niceties go out the window when you are dealing with the regular folks.

Other people can see that you clearly have a preference for the so-called?‘somebodies’ within the organization and view all the other people as ‘nobodies.’?They don’t like it.

Why this is stalling your career:

This is stalling your career because you happen to work in an organization where the ends does not justify the means. The people where you work have established standards for how everyone should be treated and defined values for a high-performance workplace that extends beyond simply accomplishing performance goals.

Where you work, things like behavior, respect and value for each individual matter, and you forgot to take this into account when you set out to be a star performer.

This is stalling your career because the messages you send in the workplace matter just as much as the performance goals you accomplish.

• You aren’t being promoted because you have become viewed as someone who will lift himself up by pulling other people down.
• You are viewed as someone who sees everyone else as there to elevate you and your needs while you neglect their needs.
• You have made it about you too often and too much, and others have noticed.?They care that you act like you matter – you even act like they matter – but others clearly don’t.?They care that you send messages and use language that implies that anyone else could be insignificant or inferior.

The most effective organizations strive to elevate and promote those performers who welcome feedback and show appreciation and value for every person within the organization.?You aren’t being promoted where you are because you still haven’t gotten this.

This article has been adapted from?its original version?which was first published in Forbes in October 2018.

Now you tell me –

1. Have you ever worked for or with someone who made it very difficult for you to give him/her feedback? If so, how did it make you feel?
2. How do you deal with team members who push back on feedback or openly show a negative attitude about it?
3. What do you think of employees who treat higher ups or the "somebodies" in the organization better than they treat everyone else?
4. Beyond low attrition or budget restraints, what are other reasons people get looked over for promotions?

#jobpromotion #leadership?#success?#careers

Related Reading:

• 4 Dirty Little Secrets You Need To Know About Successful People
• A Definition Of Career Success And Why So Few People Ever Experience It
• 6 Things Successful People Never Do
• 3 Fears You Need To Overcome If You Want To Be Successful

**************************************************************************

If something in this message resonated with you, share this article with someone and share your thoughts below. You can also get more exclusive content here at?terinaallen.com?or here at?arvisinstitute.com.