If you're thinking about becoming a manager for the first time, you may have some concerns. Concerns that women have shared with me about transitioning to leading a team include things like how do I know I'm going to be a good manager? I've never done that before. How do I know I'm going to like it? I'm going to be affecting other people's careers, what if I'm not great? Or what if I hate it? What if I have an underperformer who's going to totally blow up my experience of being a manager?

Right. All legitimate concerns, because you've never had this experience before and it's different from what you're doing now. Even though the underlying technical capabilities are the same, being a manager of others is very different from being an individual contributor.

In this post, I’ll share five strategies to prepare so that if you become a manager, when you become a manager, you'll have an effective transition process, you'll be at ease, and you'll be able to step into the role with...

Wouldn't you love to know what those executives are talking about in talent review meetings? Who are they talking about, and what are they saying? Let's pull back the curtain a little bit, it's such an interesting process.

What is talent management? Talent management is a process by which senior leaders come together to consider and plan for the people in their organization to make sure that they're preparing a great bench of future leaders to be ready to go when they are needed.

Senior leaders want to ensure that they don't have any big risks (e.g., only one person can do a mission critical job), that they don't have continuity issues (e.g., someone’s getting ready to retire and no one is ready to step into that role), and that they have leadership development practices that produce the results they’re looking for.

To get the most beneficial impact for your career out of understanding of the talent process, I invite you to put yourself in the execs’...

Career success is based on three key factors: performance, image, and exposure, according to a theory published by Harvey Coleman in 1996.

The relative importance of these factors might not be how we typically think of them though, because the performance, while being imperative, only accounts for 10% - 20% of the success.

The other 80% - 90% is accounted for by image and exposure. Often, we are so focused on our performance that we're not managing our image and exposure. What I’ve heard about those who are considered to be rockstar, easily promotable candidates is that they're definitely managing their image and their exposure.

How exactly does one manage their image and exposure? In this post, I'll provide you with a step-by-step approach to integrating managing your performance, image, and exposure into your career efforts and your daily way of doing business.

The first time I got really present to the importance of managing your image and your exposure was a bit dramatic....

What distinguishes the high potential, high-performing, promotable rock stars from everybody else?

One thing I discovered in my interviews with executives about this topic is that the rock stars actively seek to find out how the promotion and talent management processes work in their company. Specifically, they look to uncover how the company identifies who they want to invest in and who they feel has the potential to go to the next level. Then they reverse engineer their career development and perception management efforts accordingly. And those conversations begin to foster alignment and trust.

Consider the impact of that action. Now they're competing for the best development the company has to offer and future leadership roles with their colleagues who maybe don't know how the process works, who are quietly waiting to be recognized based on what they're doing intuitively, and whose actions may not be best aligned with what needs to be done for them to be perceived in the best...

Your executives are probably getting briefed on the measurable traits of high-performing leaders before they going into the talent meetings where they're choosing which individuals in which to invest their development dollars. This is where they discuss, calibrate and agree on the assessed performance and potential of key players in the business. Wouldn't it be interesting to understand their criteria and use it as a way to guide your own leadership development planning?

The premise is that building your development plan to focus on the leadership attributes that have been shown by research to predict who will perform well at higher levels is probably a good bet. It also makes sense to find out what your company uses as its specific criteria to assess talent to guide you as you prioritize your development activities.

Companies use different frameworks to organize their thinking around spotting high potential future leaders. A popular one is the Seven Signposts, by KornFerry, based...

Since I’ll bet you're curious about what the easily promoted rockstars do that distinguishes them from everyone else, I'm going to share one of their secrets with you. It has to do with getting and using really honest feedback. I’ll also leave you with five scripts that will help you more easily and confidently request actionable feedback.

One of the things I had to do when I was responsible for Diversity and Inclusion was to really figure out how the promotion process really worked.

What I learned was that there's a promotion committee. They put the candidates being considered for promotion into three groups: definite yes, maybe, and definite no. The committee doesn’t spend any time on those considered definite no. They spend very little time on the definite yes candidates. They spend most of their time arguing, negotiating and jockeying around the maybes and figuring out who's getting through and who is not.

My question was: What is it about the definite...

Let's say you're working on getting promoted or somehow taking your career to the next level, but you're not sure if you have your manager's support.

Here are three things you can do to make sure that you're aligned and that s/he is fully behind you. These are relevant for getting great support in a promotion process or in moving your career forward, whether it's winning a new role, taking on more complexity, responsibilities, taking on managing a team, or even upping your game and your compensation in your current role.

High level: the first one is check in on your current performance, second one is to get into the right mindset to negotiate your next step forward, and the third is to make a forward movement plan together with your manager.

More detail: the best place to start is to check in about your current performance. You want to make sure that before you have any conversations about moving forward that your manager and your stakeholders are satisfied with the performance...