“Sarah” was exceptionally qualified and consistently delivered top-tier performance, but she was being repeatedly overlooked for a promotion within her company.
Frustratingly, Sarah was unable to understand why she was being passed over for a role she felt she deserved.
She was stuck in a revolving door of confusion.
When Sarah first reached out it was clear that she was exceptionally skilled at her job.
Which raised some serious questions – was this a case of discrimination because of her gender? Her direct manager was female, and so was the senior manager above her…
Her team was a mix of men and women…
She didn’t think it was about her gender.
So was there something else barring her from a position of leadership?
The Journey
We embarked on a discovery journey, focusing on how Sarah engaged followership.
And it became clear that one of the main reasons she was having issues was because her team didn’t feel like she was supportive and helpful.
When she first figured that out her mind was BLOWN.
She always got her work done on time.
She participated in every meeting.
She was
We started by unraveling Sarah’s thought patterns and behaviors, touching the roots of her relationship with her leader and team.
We discussed how followership – understanding her role within the team and organization, actively supporting her superiors’ vision, offering support of others – was a big part of fostering an environment of trust and cooperation.
While Sarah was super courageous in her followership – speaking truth to power – she was not strategic.
We needed to figure out which locks and keys she needed to engage to unlock her desired promotion.
Sarah, equipped with her new understanding of followership, started aligning her actions, decisions, and communication style with the core needs of her team.
The Focus
She hadn’t worked on building up the Trust she needed for her team and leader to see her as someone who should be promoted.
We spoke about the four variables of Trust – credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation.
She understood that the focus during this process was building relationships with her colleagues and superiors.
Sarah felt pretty solid in terms of her credibility and reliability.
She knows what she knows and was very clear about it. She didn’t have any issue saying “I don’t know”. And her knowledge base and work showed that her team and leader knew that her opinions were based on solid information.
And her reliability wasn’t even a question. She did what she said. She made sure people knew what was going on with her projects. She was very open about how her tasks were going.
In fact, she was certain her credibility and the level of communication about her work was enough to create the relationships she needed to be trusted.
But it became clear that wasn’t the case.
Her communication style and focus meant that people saw here as self-oriented. That she wanted to get her work done, but wasn’t taking opportunities to help others.
First was her focus on her projects in her communications. There was an imbalance between how often she was communicating her situation versus addressing other people and their projects.
But more important, it became clear that she was missing “bids” by her leader and teammates to step up and relate.
We spoke about how her teammates have presented bids for her to help them or discuss their projects.
She went back over some of her communications with her leader and realized that there were times she was being given opportunities to engage – to take greater responsibility or help with a project outside her purview.
Essentially she had been missing or rejecting these bids. And that led to a barriers in how people feel about her and how much they can trust her.
Once she started seeing this, she also realized that she didn’t have many intimate conversations with her team or leader. Most of the talk was about work. Also, the fact that they didn’t all come into the office on the same days meant that some of them weren’t really intimate at all.
So in addition to her not catching and responding to their bids, she needed to create opportunities to “get to know” the people on the team and create deeper connections with them.
She started inviting people on the team to Zoom meetings where they would body double. She took these times as an opportunity to work with her teammates. And she also started asking power questions about their work and their life outside work.
By engaging active listening during these sessions she was able to learn a lot about her teammates, where they were struggling and how she might help them.
And she was able to share some of the tricks she was using to focus and get work done.
Which improved how others were seeing her performance.
She also looked for bids by her leader and started asking for suggestions about how she can help the team.
Which led to several projects outside her field that helped raise her profile with other team members and leaders on other teams.
A few months later, Sarah was in a 1:1 with her team lead and the topic of a promotion came up.
Her team lead let her know that she had seen the difference.
While she didn’t get a promotion right away she received high praise for her transformation and fresh approach to her role.
And less than a year later she was a team lead.
One of the things she said to me was “Dr. D. – You know, now that I understand followership better, I think I’m going to be a better leader as well. I definitely see how my team members are engaging strategic followership and how I need to help them with it. “
Want to find out more about working with me? Reach out and let’s chat.
