When you started out as an entry-level employee, you worked hard to earn your promotion to a management position. You led your team well and are proud of the work you’ve done, and now you’re ready to move up the career ladder once more. So how do you climb from the manager level to the executive level?
We asked 14 members of Forbes Coaches Council for their advice on how you can get yourself in line for that promotion. Their best answers are below.
1. Write A Forward-Focused Executive Resume
Many job seekers who are ready to make the next step up mistakenly write a resume that recounts their past experience and accomplishments without aligning it to the move up they want to make in their career. It’s important to position your experience and accomplishments to show you can solve the problems and meet the needs of the employer at that next level of leadership you’re targeting. – Jessica Hernandez, Great Resumes Fast
2. Learn To See The Big Picture
Focus on having a commercial mindset. Build a habit of seeing the big picture across the organization, connecting the dots, looking at things systemically and seeing patterns and connections. Excelling at a senior executive role requires being able to take perspective from all angles and being able to have a commercial point of view on what is best for the organization now and in the future. – Shefali Raina, Alpha Lane Partners
3. Help Create More Leaders
Though singular recommendations such as continuous learning and seeking out mentors and sponsors are all valid, those fail to address a more fundamental strategy: creating more leaders leads to higher personal success. Servant leadership is the real fundamental strategy for climbing the proverbial career ladder, as well as personal growth. Create more leaders; their growth will be yours. – Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group
4. Chart Your Own Course To The Top
In the new workplace paradigm, corporate ladders are less like upward climbs and more like walking up winding stairs or playing musical chairs, which can be exhausting and lengthy when playing by old rules. Under new rules, corporate roles can be viewed as part of life-long education. Hence leaders, managers and workers are advised to chart their own course to the top based on their own curriculum. – Lillian Gregory, The Institute for Human and Leadership Excellence
5. Develop Your Emotional Intelligence Skills
Study after study makes it abundantly clear: Leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence are more likely to succeed in senior management roles than those with just high IQs. The most successful leaders have developed the skill of being aware of their own emotions and those of others around them and are experts in using this information positively and productively. – Gregg Ward, The Gregg Ward Group
6. Consider Your Reputation Among Your Peers
Moving up the corporate ladder means that one day you will manage people who are your peers. Start with gathering some feedback from them concerning your current role. You might hear valuable information on your performance, networking skills and blind spots in your management skills. Apart from that, you’ll show yourself as a person who is eager to learn and change if you act on their feedback. – Inga Bielińska, Inga Bielinska Coaching Consulting Mentoring
7. Always Keep Learning
Join a leadership group, mastermind or management association outside of the company to sharpen your saw and keep abreast of new technologies, communication and leadership strategies that are enabling others to become more effective leaders. Networking with those outside of your industry, but within the same leadership and discipline can expand your vision and keep your career progression on track. – Debbie Ince, Executive Talent Finders, Inc
8. Treat This Position As Your Best One
When you treat your current position as your best, continuing to lead your team to success and create a succession plan, it demonstrates your readiness to move up. The senior leaders will see that you, in your effort to move up, have trained someone to continue your work without a stop in your teams’ success, and they have a proven record since you’ve been working with them since your arrival. – Claudette Gadsden, Coach Claudette & Associates
9. Find A Mentor
Find a mentor that’s currently in the position you’re striving for. They can show you the ropes of that position and help you develop the skills that you’re missing to reach that next level. They can also introduce you to the right people and help you form relationships with others who are at that level, which will only help you transition better into that role once you achieve it. – Andy Bailey, Petra Coach
10. Focus On Who You’re Being
We often get caught up in what to do to get to the next level. But, the more senior you become in an organization, it’s even more important to focus on the qualities you express or how you relate to others. When you become clear on who you want to “be”—for example, a leader, strategic, compassionate—you’re inspired to take the best “right” actions that will take you to the next level. – Rosie Guagliardo, InnerBrilliance Coaching
11. Get Clear On Your Contributions And Skill Gaps
Some managers feel that they are ready to move up, but have gaps in core skill sets necessary for leadership at the next level. Get clarity around your career contributions to date. Develop an Impact Inventory that articulates how you’ve leveraged your expertise to a positive outcome for the organization. This will illuminate any gaps in expertise so you can prepare wisely for your next move. – Erin Urban, UPPSolutions, LLC
12. Solve Unseen Problems In Other Departments
Executives are at that level because they see more than the details of the role, they see the bigger picture. If you’re ready for the next level of leadership, start to collaborate with other departments and find ways to contribute ideas or solve issues they’re working on. Don’t forget to give credit to your team for being so awesome that you are able to dig deeper into larger growth solutions. – Miranda Vonfricken, Miranda VonFricken Mastermind Coaching
13. Forge The Right Relationships
A manager’s first promotion is usually based on their technical skills. To grow in their career, it is important to focus on forming solid relationships with their co-workers, bosses and colleagues from other departments. To forge these deeper connections, set up coffees and lunches and ask what people do outside of work. Get to know what excites team members and bosses. Lead by listening. – Terri Klass, Terri Klass Consulting
14. Learn To Empower And Delegate To Others
The first half of your career is about relying on your own drive, ambition, skills and work ethic. The second half is all about getting things done through others, which takes a completely different set of skills. Empowering, trusting, delegating, developing: These are the skills that get you to the top. It’s all about how you get results through your team and how you make them feel along the way. – Sheryl Lyons, Culture Spark LLC
As Seen On Forbes Coaches Council –
Debbie Kassebaum-Ince
Founder & President of Executive Talent Finders
