Legendary CEO, Jack Welch offers some advice on how to get promoted in his book, Winning: The Ultimate Business How-to Book. All careers, no matter how scripted they appear, are shaped by some element of pure chance, Welch writes. Sometimes a person just happens to be in the right place at the right time, and (s)he meets someone –– at an airport or a party, for instance –– and a career door swings open.
According to Welch, in the long run, luck plays a smaller role in your career than the factors that are within your control. Basically, getting promoted takes these imperatives:
- Do deliver sensational performance, far beyond expectations, and at every opportunity expand your job beyond its official boundaries.
- Don’t make your boss use political capital in order to champion you.
- Do manage your relationships with your subordinates with the same carefulness that you manage the one with your boss.
- Do get on the radar screen by being a nearly champion of your company’s major projects or initiatives.
- Do search out and relish the input of lots of mentors, realizing that mentors don’t always look like mentors.
- Do have a positive attitude and spread it around.
- Don’t let setbacks break your stride.
Change your job in a way that makes the people around you work better and your boss look smarter. Don’t just do the predictable. To get ahead, you have to want to get ahead. Some promotions come because of luck, but very few. The fact is, when it comes to careers, you mainly make your own luck.
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