He looks at me right in the eye and states it flatly. “You’re not doing anything.” Excuse me? I think I have misheard him. “You’re not doing anything.” At the moment I’m leading six committees, consulting to the executive of the business and designing and facilitating three-hour Diversity council meetings monthly. I protest.

“All that. Yeah. It’s not doing anything.”

I’m on a listening tour, meeting with each of the senior executives in my business to collect feedback. I’m sitting with the head of sales and I have to admit I did not see this one coming. He is one of the most important and vocal executives on the team. I am really confused. And pissed. In this moment he has given me an incredible gift, I just don’t realize it yet.

This when I first learned the importance of carefully managing your image. I really assumed that my contribution would be obvious to anyone who saw me working so hard and...

Every time I read a report about women in business like the one that came out last week from McKinsey and Lean In, it occurs to me that women need to take their advancement into their own hands.

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That means generating multiple options that will provide them with choices. That means owning their leadership and skill development as well as building relationships that will create opportunities.

Some work environments are better than others. Companies have great intentions and are trying to figure out how to make it fairer for women, yet in many cases change is happening quite slowly. We see it across industries and over time. I know from being on the inside just how complex it is to transform dynamics that have been in place.

Partnering with your company to build a career you love is ideal, and the more active your engagement in driving your path, the better you will fare.

In my upcoming free masterclass, I’ll lay out a three-pronged approach...

Imagine you’d like to take on more responsibility, complexity, scope, impact, and/or be promoted to the next level in your organization. How much time is enough time to start your promotion planning before you hope to move forward?

Leaving ample time to prepare yourself and implement your promotion plan is part logistical and part mindset issue. Allowing enough time to thoroughly research your proposed advancement can help you put your best foot forward.  As we’ve already discussed, before you ever initiate a promotion conversation with your manager, you would have already: 

·          Ensured your performance has differentiated you positively 

·          Gotten to know norms and people involved in the promotion process 

·          Established and begun to build trusting relationships...

Strengthening your ability to request and graciously receive direct feedback to build your awareness of your strengths and weaknesses will serve you well as you work to expand your career possibilities. The key is to have an open and honest dialogue with your manager and other stakeholders to ensure clarity about how you are perceived.

I interviewed a variety of Financial Services executives and HR colleagues about how and why people do or do not get promoted to more senior levels. Some of the perspectives they offered behind closed doors might seem a bit harsh. The good news is that by providing transparency about the tough reality, they help us to take actions to navigate the scene with aplomb.

In seeking examples of those who sailed through the system well and those who did not, there were many mentions of promising performers who were passed over for promotion and didn’t know why.

“...was behind others -- has never been given feedback to understand why...

You might use the less-successful career development strategies below when focused on surviving the day-to-day demands of your current role. We’ve all at one point or another succumbed to these default-mode approaches. Recognize any of these?

1. Not understanding how the talent management system in your company works overall – what it is, who is involved, and who is well regarded
2. Not knowing what factors are considered high potential and not using those to inform your development plan
3. Presuming you know what skills and experiences you’ll want or need later or in what direction your career will go
4. Not continuously and actively working on growing capacity and capabilities
5. Failing to intentionally build a portfolio of leadership skills and experiences early in your career when you have more leeway and less pressure to get it perfect
6. Not letting key leaders know what you’re up to and expecting them to discover it
7. Not investing a little at a time to build long...

When I think about the executives I interviewed to learn more about the promotion and talent processes from their vantage point, one quote sticks out for me.

“Do not assume you’re doing a good job—find out whoever makes the decision about promotion and what they’re looking for – if it’s a panel decision – make sure you know who they are - make it easy for them—can’t be oblivious to how decisions are made and how to influence decision – must ask for it”

So he’s really suggesting three actions, and they all include playing a more active role than you might have thought – understand how talent decisions are made in your organization and who is involved in making them, find out how you’re perceived with regard to those criteria, and showcase to the decision makers great examples of how you are aligned to make it easy for them to weigh in in your favor. Another exec said something similar.

“Solicit...

Understanding the criteria for advancement and emphasizing your aligned attributes accordingly, or working hard and expecting to be recognized for your contributions. Which strategy do you prefer? Many women, myself not excluded, wittingly or unwittingly have employed the latter. I think we can do better.

Two work experiences illustrate the importance of understanding the system and positioning yourself appropriately. In one case I was responsible for Diversity at an Investment Bank where only a handful of women had risen to the highest level title, Managing Director. I was researching how promotions worked so that I could better support creation of more balanced leadership teams.

I found that a large committee reviewed the candidates who were up for promotion to MD each year. The committee broke the list into three groups: those who were an obvious no, an obvious yes, and the maybes. The candidates in the obvious yes and obvious no groups were barley discussed; the...

I’m at school getting ready to participate in a negotiation role play. The exercise is part of my practicum course in conflict resolution and mediation.

We’ve had to mediate several different kinds of scenarios in this class, like land boundary conflicts and union workers’ concerns, but this particular one is a husband and wife trying to resolve some domestic discord. He wants her take care of everything in the house and she’s not having it. There are two pairs of partners who will take turns working in a ‘fish bowl’ – meaning everyone else in the class observes and assesses each negotiation as it takes place.

I am working with the other ‘wife’ preparing our side of the case while the two ‘husbands’ are in another room getting ready. The woman from the other pair is very optimistic and as we prepare she is saying things like ‘oh this is not so hard’ and ‘I’m sure we can work it...

Working to answer this question has been a recurring theme for me given the disproportionately low representation of females in senior roles in most companies. Figuring out what the senior women have done that worked for them is something I’ve explored from the perspective of diversity and inclusion champion, leadership development consultant, and executive coach.

I had the chance to interview business and human resources executives specifically about promotions at senior levels, what women could to do to make it over the threshold and to possibly even accelerate getting there. I used this data to craft a process that women can use to drive their career progress more intentionally. Since I’m getting ready to launch a course on that very topic, I've been enjoying reviewing those very interesting transcripts.

Here’s what came up for me as I considered that work. The process was good -- once I was back in corporate I had in fact used it to finally get myself...

It’s about 2001 and I’m facilitating a Diversity Council session at a big New York bank. About 30 of us meet monthly to plan and execute initiatives that will drive our our part of the company to be more inclusive and diverse, and better able to leverage that diversity on behalf of the business. I love this team and this is one of my favorite roles.

Sonia asks if she can present a volunteer opportunity to the team. She introduces a non-profit, Unlocking Futures, that supports at-risk youth in the poorest communities to overcome challenges presented by their environment and lead a life of their choosing. They have demonstrated impressive results.

They are holding a bowl-a-thon fundraiser and looking for captains to recruit and lead a team that will raise the funds to put one young person through their proven, effective and inspiring program.

Two senior executives volunteer, as do I. They each assemble a huge team from their department and spare no expense to outfit...