Managing Your Career: What It Takes to Be a High Potential and Get Promoted

Take any two people in the same field: They attended the same prestigious university, studied the same subjects and got the same GPA. What makes one a future executive and the other have a solid but lower-level career? This is a question I posed recently to the Pelican Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. when I spoke at a recent meeting.The answer: One of these people is a “HiPo,” a high-potential employee, and the other is not. Both are valuable and essential, but the HiPo has the ability to move up and effectively contribute in next level roles in the organization.How can you manage your career and be seen as a HiPo? And how can you identify other HiPos in your organization? Here’s what you need to know.

Soft Skills Are a Must

Years ago, companies took a simplistic view and focused almost solely on technical competencies. “We only hire the top graduates,” they’d say. Now we know that traits like GPA and school involvement are important, but they won’t necessarily tell us who will be successful. High potentials exhibit technical proficiency as well as demonstrate interpersonal and leadership competencies.Hard skills are those that have to do with your field and your specific job and are relatively easy to measure: technical expertise, writing, planning, presentations, negotiating, delegating, time management and goal completion. High-potential employees are good at these things.Just as important, however, is how the high-potential employee manages relationships, navigates change, approaches learning and innovation, understands the bigger picture, and not just what results he or she gets but how he or she gets those results.  Building trust, approachability, interpersonal relationships, the ability to motivate and inspire others, listening and political savvy are all important to leading people and projects effectively.

Do People Want to Work With You?

This is an important question I asked the group to consider. I told a story about a gentleman I worked with who was often the top performer in his role in the company. He was on a list of high potentials and his 360-degree feedback was strong, except for his peer relationships.He took pride in “crushing” his goals and his co-workers, whom he saw as competition. Though he was a high performer, I told him he was hurting his career. If he were to be promoted, would anyone he’d “crushed” want to work for him? Or, how would things work if someone he had “crushed” was promoted over him and was suddenly his boss? He was short sighted, only thinking of being a successful individual performer and not considering how his lack of soft skills affected others and ultimately his career.Being a high-potential employee is not simply about showing up to work every day and doing a good job. Like it or not, you work in a fishbowl. People are constantly observing your actions and behaviors and judging your competence, character and commitment, and they are sharing those judgments with others who have the power to influence your career, promote you — or not.

Exhibit Leadership at Your Level

Regardless of where you are now, you can build and exhibit leadership skills that show you’re ready to move up. Here’s what’s important at each level of a career:

• Individual contributor: Be good at your job. Work well with your teammates. Understand your manager’s goals and objectives and help drive to achieve them.
• Manager: Get things accomplished with and through your team. Build strong peer relationships. Drive the goals of your department and understand how your department impacts the organization as a whole.
• Executive: Have a clear vision.  Inspire the organization around that vision.  Make decisions with an eye on the big picture and future of the organization.

You can test for many things, but no test in the world can tell us for sure who will be a high potential. Leadership skills typically emerge “over time and under fire.” So, if you want to be seen as a high potential, show what you can do by taking on a significant project. Ask to deliver a key presentation, manage a new process or software implementation, or take on a big corporate or international assignment. Development events like this allow you to grow your business acumen, expose you to key stakeholders and can be an opportunity to demonstrate  your leadership skills.

Take Ownership of Your Career Management

Most organizations don’t know where they’ll be in five years, let alone where you’ll be. That’s why it’s up to you to manage your own career. Here are a few key things to help you plan for the future.

• Be an expert in your field. Never stop learning or keeping up with trends.
• Build reciprocal relationships. Have a network of at least 200 people you can call on for advice. Be open when they reach out to you for things also.
• Be visible about your accomplishments. Understand how to share quantifiable successes. Share accomplishments effectively on a resume and in an interview, internally in performance appraisals and when you are reporting on your team’s accomplishments.
• Quiet your noise. What is that one thing that gets in your way? Are you perpetually late? Do you talk too much? Too competitive? Are you reluctant to take on new tasks because you might fail? Whatever it is, work on it.
• Answer the “but…” question. We all have one. If you’re on the short list for a next-level job, what will people say about you? “He’s great at this, but…” “She’s excellent at her job, but I’d be worried about…” Is it your experience? Your soft skills? Your leadership abilities? If you don’t know what your “but…” question is, ask someone, and be open to what they tell you.

Success Labs is a leadership-development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.