How to Get Promoted
For the person who works hard, wants the next role, and is quietly wondering why it has not come yet.
The way to get promoted at work is to start doing the next job before you have it, which mostly means making the people around you better without needing a title to do it. The interview for a promotion is not really the conversation in the room. It is the last year of how you showed up for your team.
I have interviewed and promoted a lot of people into leadership roles over the years, and I honestly enjoy those interviews, because you learn so much about how someone thinks when they sit across from you and talk about where they want to go. But I have come to believe something that I wish someone had told me much earlier in my own career, and it is the reason this page exists. The interview is not what wins the promotion. The last year does.
When I am filling a leadership role, I look at whether each person made the team better before they had any title at all. Then, without saying who applied, I ask the team a simple question: who do you think the next leader should be, and who makes this team better? If the team already trusts someone and already sees them as a leader, that person deserves the role.
In one promotion round, the team named someone who was newer to the organization, and she was promoted. They also named a woman who had not applied at all. I told her how her team saw her, and she is now in a leadership role at a different company.
For the people who were not chosen, I sit down with them and help build a development plan for next time, and we center it on developing the people around them, because that is something anyone can do without a title.
I share that because it changes the question you are asking yourself. Instead of wondering how to say the right things in an interview, you can start asking whether the people you work with are better off because you are there, and that is a question you get to answer every single day, long before anyone posts the job.
You do not need the title to start being the person the team already looks to.
Six steps to get promoted
Do the job you have well
My first leadership role was shift supervisor at a restaurant, helping run shifts and close down, and some of the people I suddenly had to lead were older and had been there longer. I earned that promotion the plain way, by working hard and doing the extra things nobody asked me to do. That is still where it starts for everyone. Before anyone trusts you with more, they want to see that you take care of what is already in front of you.
Make the team better
Pay attention to what happens to the people around you when you are on shift or in the meeting. Do things run a little smoother, do people feel a little more capable, does the mood lift or sink? This is exactly what I am looking for when I decide who to promote, and it is what your team will say about you when someone asks them, so it is worth noticing on purpose.
Develop the people around you
Help a newer teammate learn the thing that took you months to figure out, answer the question patiently even when you are busy, and share what you know instead of keeping it as your edge. Developing people is the heart of leadership, and it is the one part of the job that needs no title at all, which is why it is what I build development plans around. There is more on this in How to Lead Before You Get the Title.
Ask for honest feedback
It is hard to fix what you cannot see, so ask your manager and a peer you trust what would make you more effective, and then do your best to listen without defending yourself. The people who grow fastest are usually the ones who go looking for the truth instead of the compliment. I wrote about how to ask in How to Get Honest Feedback, and about how to hear the hard parts in How to Take Criticism at Work.
Say what you want out loud
A lot of capable people wait to be noticed, and while that is understandable, your manager cannot read your mind and may assume you are happy right where you are. Tell them kindly and clearly that you want to grow into the next role, and ask what they would need to see from you to feel confident putting you there. Their answer becomes your plan.
Learn leadership before you need it
When I became a shift supervisor, a manager I respected recommended John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and I needed it, because I did not yet know how to lead. I could not do everything myself, and I had to learn how to earn people’s trust so they would actually follow me. Start that learning now, while the stakes are lower. My list of the best books on leading yourself is a good place to begin.
The interview
for your promotion
is happening now.
If you were passed over
Being passed over hurts, and it is completely okay to give yourself a little time to feel that before you do anything else. When you are ready, ask the person who made the decision what they would want to see next time, and build a simple development plan from their answer. If you are not sure where to start, start with the people around you, because helping them grow is something you can do tomorrow, and it is often the very thing that changes how a team sees you. In my book I call this principle Lead Before You Are Asked.
Common questions
Why am I not getting promoted?
Often it is not about effort or ability. The people deciding are usually looking at whether you already make the team better and whether the team already trusts you. If that is not yet visible, ask your manager directly what they would need to see, and start working on it now.
Should I ask my manager for a promotion?
Yes. Tell them you want to grow, and ask what the next role requires and where they see your gaps. A good manager would rather know what you want than guess, and the answer gives you a clear plan.
How do I show leadership without a title?
Help the people around you get better. Train a new teammate, share what you know, take on the problem nobody wants and keep a steady attitude when things are hard. None of that requires permission.
What should I do if I was passed over for a promotion?
Give yourself a little time to feel the disappointment, then ask for honest feedback and build a development plan for next time. Centering that plan on developing the people around you is one of the best places to start, because it needs no title.
Tell your manager what you want, ask what they need to see, and spend this year making the people around you better. When the interview comes, the real answer will already be written.
You Are Capable
of More.
Ten principles for becoming the person you know you are capable of being, built from real stories of people who doubted themselves and did it anyway. Winner of the How-To category at the 2026 Paris Book Festival.
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