You
just found out you got a promotion and feel both utter excitement and sheer
terror at your new responsibilities. You think you have what it takes, and you
know others believe in you. But after moving up the ladder, you need to assess
the changes you’ll need to make to succeed in your new position.
There’s probably still a hint of insecurity about
whether or not you can excel at this next level. To counter this, you pour
yourself into learning what you need to do next and whom to impress.
If
you only think about doing more work and making more people happy, then you’re
setting yourself for potential failure, burnout... or both. To succeed after a
promotion, you need to go beyond the average strategies to the exceptional.
Here
are three counterintuitive truths that will improve chances of success after a
promotion:
Define
What You’ll No Longer Be Doing
It’s simple arithmetic. If you spend
more time in one area, then you need to spend less time in another. That means
in addition to determining what you will do following your promotion, you need
to define what you won’t do anymore. That could mean decreasing the amount of
projects you’re responsible for. That could mean putting some of your direct
reports under another manager. That could mean answering fewer emails that an
assistant can reply to instead.
It’s essential you clarify what you
won’t do for a number of reasons:
- It helps you to recognize when you need to delegate versus doing it
yourself.
- It forces you to really do your new job.
Initially, it’s worse at doing new
tasks than you were at doing the work that you’ve been doing before. But if you
take courage and master those new skills instead of clinging to the
familiar territory of your last position, then you give yourself a great chance
of growing into mastery at the new level.
Depend on Other People More and Don’t Hesitate to Delegate
Yes, you got promoted because you were recognized for your skills, hard work, and potential. This can make it tempting—particularly if you’re feeling a bit uncertain about your promotion—to host work. You want to show you can do it all yourself—and well.
The only problem is every time you get a promotion, you need to depend on others more, not less. That means getting the team in place around you in the office who can take responsibilities off your plate so you can get the higher level strategic and management work done and also finding mentors and coaches who can help up-level your leadership skills from time management to communication and everything in between.
You’ve never done the job you’re in before, so it’s normal to not be exactly sure what to
do. However, you won’t excel if you don’t learn the skills to thrive at
this next level.