You have already achieved success by being promoted to a management role, but as one of the best leadership thinkers and coaches, Marshall Goldsmith, said, “What got you here, won’t get you there.” This means you need to build a strategy, strengthen some of your current skills and start working on the new ones that you haven’t even started using yet. Here are five good strategies you could try:

1. Be Sure You Have A Successor
If you don’t have a successor, your boss might be worried about promoting you to a senior managerial position and losing your expertise. Therefore, don’t be afraid to be replaceable: find someone with talent in your organization and start to empower them by involving them in the strategic projects, meetings and tasks. Their success will be your success.

2. Delegate More

If you do this right, you will have more time to take on other tasks and responsibilities from your boss. You will get opportunities for exposure and, at the same time, you will gain new skills and competencies. You can delegate to your future successor, or to other team members, depending on the task and their experience. If something is really urgent, you can give instruction on how to do it, but if you really want to see long-term advantages, believe in their ability and allow them to do the task their own way. You will be really surprised how creative people can be. Just remember to give clear outcome expectations and provide support if needed.

3. Gain More Exposure
Being known within your organization is a very important factor in securing a promotion. If people don’t know you and don’t recognize your achievements, it is less likely you will be considered for new opportunities. You can, for example, take the floor during meetings, share your opinions, actively participate in key projects, and try to offer innovative solutions to problems. Another option is to take an assignment abroad.

4. See The Bigger Picture

Show that you understand your organization, its values, and its goals. Imagine yourself observing everything that is going on in your organization from a bird’s eye view. You can review or draw E2E (End to End) process maps to understand them better and compare them vs. company strategy. Then challenge some assumptions and status quos by asking questions such as: Why do we do it this way? How can we make a process more effective/shorter/ cheaper? What are other units’ responsibilities and goals vs. company strategy and goals? You can also change your responsibilities horizontally, which will help you to get to know other areas and see the bigger picture rather than just your unit’s perspective.

5. Leverage Your Leadership Skills

Identify and then choose one or two of the key skills, competencies or behaviours for senior managers. You can do research within your organization and ask people in higher positions what skills and competencies they use most often and which they think are the most important. Check with the human resources unit for what are they looking for when recruiting people to higher positions in your company’s context. General leadership skills could include emotional intelligence, influence, communication, listening, strategic thinking, problem solving, empowerment, or motivating others.

Visit Ginger CTC to find out more about Malgorzata’s work.

_{Edited by Nedda Chaplin
Image credit: business colleagues from Shutterstock}

Did you enjoy this post? Please comment, like and share!