Welcome to Work Tip Wednesday, where every Wednesday I get ready and share one lesson I've learned about career, leadership, and success from working at some of the world's biggest brands.
When I was a senior manager, I could see the Director role opening up. My boss was moving on, the seat was going to be empty, and I wanted it. I knew I could do the job. The hard part was the move itself, because going from inside a team to leading that same team is one of the toughest transitions in any company. Six months later, the role was mine, and it was my first Director title. Here are the three things I did to get there.
The Real Challenge
Most people treat a promotion as something that happens to them. They do good work, they wait for review season, and they hope the org rewards them with the next level. That is a passive strategy, and it loses to the person running an active one almost every time. A promotion, especially a jump in scope like moving into leadership, is a case you build over months, with intention, before the seat is even open.
The reason the internal-to-leadership move is so hard is that the people deciding already have a fixed picture of you in your current role. To them, you are the strong senior manager, not the Director, and your job in the months before the decision is to change that picture on purpose. The three moves below are exactly how I did it, and none of them required working longer hours. They required working with a plan.
1. Get Specific About the Exact Role You Want
Vague ambition is easy to ignore, and easy to lose. Before I did anything else, I got specific about the promotion I was going for: the title, the compensation, and the expanded responsibilities and scope the Director role would carry. I wrote it down in concrete terms, so I was aiming at a defined target instead of a general wish to move up.
This clarity does two things. It changes how you show up, because once you know the exact scope of the role you want, you can start operating at that level before you hold the title, which is what makes you look like the obvious choice. And it makes you legible to the people who could advocate for you, because you can tell them precisely what you are working toward instead of leaving them to guess. A specific goal is one you can actually plan backward from. A vague one just sits in your head as a feeling and quietly expires.
2. Pick One Thing to Be Famous For
One of my favorite managers gave me advice I have used ever since: pick one thing to be famous for. It means attaching yourself to one key project that matters to the business, and then repeating your impact on that project over and over, rather than presenting a scattered list of everything you touched.
Most ambitious people do the opposite. They try to prove their value with a long inventory of projects, assuming more is more persuasive. It is not, because a laundry list is forgettable and gives the people above you nothing clear to hold onto. When you anchor to one important project and keep coming back to it, you become the person the organization associates with that win. That association is what people repeat when your name comes up in a room you are not in, and being known clearly for one thing beats being vaguely connected to ten. Choose the project that matters most to the priorities leadership cares about, own it visibly, and let it become your reputation.
3. Make Sure the Right Three or Four People Know
Doing great work on the right project only converts to a promotion if the specific people who decide are aware of it. Inside a large global organization, a promotion is rarely one person's call. There are usually three or four key stakeholders: the hiring manager for the role, the people that manager works closely with, the dotted-line relationships around the position, and sometimes a respected voice from within the team itself.
My job in those six months was to make sure each of those people had a clear, accurate picture of my impact. I did not leave it to chance or assume the work would travel on its own. I identified who they were, and I made sure my contribution on my one key project was visible to each of them, whether that was through the updates I shared, the meetings I made sure to speak in, or the projects I volunteered for that put me in their line of sight. Map your own three or four before your next opportunity opens. When the decision conversation finally happens, you want every person in it already familiar with what you bring, so your manager is confirming a shared view rather than arguing an unfamiliar case.
The Bottom Line
I got the Director role in six months because I ran an active plan instead of waiting to be chosen. Get specific about the exact title, comp, and scope you want, pick one important project to be famous for and repeat your impact on it, and make sure the three or four people who decide already know your name and your work. Start now, well before the seat opens, and you turn a promotion from something you hope for into something you have quietly set up.
Want a step-by-step way to do this? My free 5-Day Visibility Challenge, "5 Days to Getting Noticed at Work," walks you through exactly how to raise your visibility and set up your next promotion and raise. Join the challenge →
Jeanelle Teves is the Chief Commercial Officer at Bugaboo and founder of Work Lunch. She teaches communication, presence, and strategic leadership for ambitious professionals.
