3 Ways to Get Promoted as a Manager (Your CEO Will Notice) with Gene Hammett, Founder Coach

Want to get promoted as a manager? Doing your job well is no longer enough. In this episode of Growth Think Tank, Gene Hammett speaks directly to managers who want to move up, and to the CEOs who want them to. Too many managers say they take ownership, then blame people, process, or circumstances when things go wrong. Promotion goes to the manager who owns outcomes and makes the leader above them more effective. Gene breaks down three moves that get you noticed: take work off your leader's plate, solve a valuable problem outside your own team, and develop your replacement so you are free to move up. You will hear how one new manager turned a weekly meeting agenda into earned trust in just three weeks. This is managing up done right, and it is how leadership potential becomes a promotion. CEOs, share this episode with your managers. Then visit Core Elevation to learn how to build a business that runs without you. Episode Highlights & Timestamps 0:04 How Managers Get Promoted 3:24 Go Beyond Doing Your Job 4:13 Take Work Off Your Leader's Plate 7:15 Solve Problems Beyond Your Team 9:07 Build Your Replacement 11:11 Turn Initiative Into Promotion What You'll Learn ✅How taking work off your leader's plate can demonstrate ownership and initiative. ✅Why solving problems outside your immediate team can increase your visibility. ✅How proactively creating solutions can signal that you're ready for greater responsibility. ✅Why developing your replacement is essential to moving into your next leadership role. ✅How consistently performing at the next level can create a natural path to promotion. Key Takeaways ✅Don't just do your job—look for ways to add value beyond it. ✅Take ownership of responsibilities that reduce your leader's workload and stress. ✅Look beyond your team for problems you can meaningfully solve. ✅Develop your people instead of becoming the person everyone depends on. ✅Build someone who can eventually step into your role. ✅The best candidates for promotion are already demonstrating the behaviors and ✅responsibilities of the next level. Pasted text(3) Resources & Next Steps 📘 Founder Freedom Download the book for free and learn more about breaking through founder dependency: GetFounderFreedom.com 🎙️ Founder Freedom Strategy Call If you're a founder who has built something significant but still feels too deeply involved in the day-to-day, Gene offers a free 30-minute strategy call to explore what's keeping you stuck. Schedulewithgene.com 🌐 Explore More: training.coreelevation.com 🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Today, we're going to talk about how you can get promoted as a manager. Now, it's not that typical content we create here on Growth Think Tank, but I see this over and over and over. And so I thought I would create something for managers who are stepping into leadership. Now, you can be a new leader, or you could be someone that's very experienced. I think this will play well, no matter what. And I want to frame this in for you because this is, this is what I experienced a lot of times. I am a founder coach, CEO coach. I've been working with these founders in growth-oriented companies for about 16 years. I know it sounds like a long time, and it is. It's the longest I've ever done anything in my professional career. I am a serial entrepreneur, and I've been an executive coach for that 16 years.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  And when I listen to founders and CEOs about the challenges they have in their business, many times it comes down to the managers that they hired, that they're paying good money to, said that they could lead their teams and perform on the goals of their teams and the company. But yet, they continuously let those founders and CEOs down. Now, I know it's not 100% their fault. I know that the managers sometimes really do believe that they're good managers. And what we're here to talk about is not just what the problem is, but what is the solution for it? Most of the content that we create is giving you insight and distinctions that allow you to move forward.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Today, we're talking about how to get promoted as a manager, and maybe it's something your founder has shared with you. And that's because they see potential in you. They see that you can step up. And don't take it a slight of this. This is just what will help you, I think, succeed in the workplace, to make more money, to receive more accolades, if that's what you're into, or just create the kind of team that really makes you proud. And that really comes back to your identity. And it is something to be proud of, is to develop a team that is, performs well, and gets along, and really aligns with the company values. So just to introduce myself, I'm Gene Hammett.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  I'm a founder, CEO coach, and I have been helping growth-oriented companies for over 16 years to really help them tame the chaos, if you will, of growth, and to understand the different inflection points. Typically, our clients are around 20 or 30 employees when they start with us, and they've grown past 20 million, they've grown past sometimes 100 million because of the long work that we do in the realm of leadership. And so today, we're going to talk about how you can get promoted. Now, for the founders out there that might be listening to this and want to use these as talking points, I've written a book with my co-founder and my wife, Amanda Hammett. It's called Get Founder Freedom. If you want to download it, it's absolutely free right now.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Go to getfounderfreedom.com. And if you are a manager listening to this for the first time, that book won't make as much sense unless you want to be a founder someday. I'm not going to say you can't read it, but you could look at it from the perspective of how do you build a team that is running without you? And if you look at it from that, I think it will be very valuable, especially the earlier freedoms. There's eight freedoms in there. So getfounderfreedom.com is your free book. So let's dive into this, this whole concept, getting promoted as a manager. It is no longer enough to just do your job and be a good person. And I say this because I used to think that. Just do your job, put your head down, do quality work, meet the deadlines, and you will get promoted.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Well, maybe that's the case. But what I've seen over and over and over is those people that really want to get promoted are willing to do the extra. They're willing to take on more than what they've been asked to do. They take ownership. And today, we're going to unpack three specific moves you can do. I'm going to give you some context around them, and then this will be something you can come back to. And I'd love to help you. I'd love to hear about the stories of you being promoted because you've done one of these, or two, or three of them. So let's start with the first one. Take something off your leader's plate. Now, I shouldn't have to explain that, but maybe misinterpret taking something off someone's plate. It's nothing about food. Every leader I know is stretched. They're overworked.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  And this could be your founder, or this could be your VP, or it could be a director. Doesn't matter. They have more work to do than they typically can handle. And so your job is to notice an area within their work that you could take off their plate. You could take off their stress level. I'll give you an example of this. I won't use real names, but I will just tell you. I had a client many years ago, and they had a new manager. And that new manager and I were working one-on-one together to help him become a better leader. And one of the things that we discussed is taking things off the plate of the founder of the company. Now, the founder of the company happened to be not only the CEO, but also operating as a CMO, the Director of Marketing, and even the Manager of Marketing.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  And he had a team of about six people. And every week, they had a meeting, like most teams. And every week, that CEO would create the agenda and deliver and facilitate that meeting. Well, when I was working with this new manager, he wanted to do a good job. It wasn't about getting promoted. He just wanted to hold on to that position and really do a good job. And I said, "Well, what is something you could take off their plate?" And he's like, "We looked at a couple of different things." He's like, "Well, we do a meeting every week, and I know that he does the agenda. I think I could handle that." And so we talked about a game plan. And the short version of that is, he did the agenda for the next week, a couple of days before, and he sent it as a draft to the CEO and said,

• 5:56Speaker 00

  "Hey, I just took a stab at what our priorities are for the projects and the things that we typically discuss. I just thought it might help you." And the feedback was, "Oh, my gosh, I really appreciate that." The CEO made a few changes, and he delivered that, used that agenda for the meeting. And after doing that for about three weeks, eventually, the CEO came to that manager, my co-CEO, and said, "Can you just do this? Like, you did a great job. I'd like to still fine-tune things as needed, or maybe add a bullet or two when necessary. But if you'll do that work, that would really be helpful." So what I'm trying to share with you is, maybe it's a small thing, but look for opportunities to take something off their plate, something off their schedule, something off their, their stress level, and do it for them. Do a good job with it, and then own it.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Be open to feedback. Don't let it hurt you, but take something off their plate. You will get noticed, and that really is a pathway to promotion. If you're listening to this show, chances are you're a founder who's built something significant, but you're still too deep in the day-to-day to see the path forward. That's exactly what the Founder Freedom Strategy Call is for. It's free. It's 30 minutes with me personally. And we'll pinpoint exactly what's keeping you stuck and what you need to do about it. Book your time with me at my personal URL, schedulewithgene.com. Now, back to the podcast. So let's look at a second one. Solve a problem outside your team. Now, I'm not going to tell you to put your nose where it doesn't belong,

• 7:24Speaker 00

  but I do want to let you know that no matter where you are in business, there's, there's problems everywhere. And if you have a skill set, if you have, if you see something, you should be able to identify, is this a priority for us? Is there a return of value? And you should be able to use your skills to solve that problem. Now, think about what I'm asking you to do here. I'm not asking you to shuck your work. I'm not asking you to be nosy and do something you're not supposed to be doing. But sometimes things just don't get noticed, or they're just lower priorities, and so they're not getting fixed. And so your job is to pick your head up every once in a while, see something that needs to get done, and do it.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Now, the pathway to get there may be, you see a problem, you think about the, the impact that it's making, you, you find a solution, and then you go and discuss that with your leader. If you're new, that's, that's definitely what I would recommend. If you are a middle-level leader, you've got some, some years behind you. If you've been very experienced with this, you don't have to ask for permission. If you really believe that you can add value, you can identify this problem, research the solutions, and find something that's resourceful, elegant, maybe even cheap or free. And you can solve this problem proactively, and that too will get you noticed. And I say this with a smile because if you solve a problem outside your team,

• 8:52Speaker 00

  it signals that you care about the company, you care about the success, and that will get you noticed by people in the organization. So take the time to not only do your job, but to look for opportunities to add value. And that's the key, adding value. Point number three behind getting promoted as a manager is build your replacement. I've talked about this within our Leadership Development Program, that one of the things you are tasked to do is go beyond just the goals of the team, the work that you're, you're working on, the projects that you guys have. But you've got to build the people. And in fact, I can give you story after story after story of, of managers who have failed to truly develop their team. In fact, they protect them.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  They are afraid of having the tough conversations with them. So this is another book that, that I've written with my co-founder and wife, Amanda Hammett, called How to Have Tough Conversations. You've got to be willing to have the tough conversations. This is not free. You can buy it wherever you buy books, online. You can get it on Audible, whatever it is. But you can even download the frameworks for free if you go to howtohavetoughconversations.com. But if you really want to go to the depths, I recommend you read the book. It's very short. It's probably like 140 pages. But you want to be the kind of person that develops their team. Now, I said specifically, develop your replacement. Think about this for a second. You are going to have a tough time to get promoted if there's no one to backfill you. And your job is to not just have a team to get the work done,

• 10:22Speaker 00

  it's to build the team around you, build their capacity to lead. Maybe they learn to take things off your plate. Maybe they learn to solve problems outside your team, like I did, I mentioned in points one and two. But your job is to identify those people that could replace you down the road, and to nurture them, to develop them, to develop their confidence, to have the tough conversations, give them the feedback, and grow them so that when the time comes, they're no longer going, "Well, we can't promote John or Sally because we have no one to backfill them." You want to make sure that they see you as a person who has been developing their team over and over and over. You've got the skills of doing that because as you get promoted, you'll be asked to do that even more.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  And so they want you to demonstrate that you can do it. Show them by doing it. Now, there's many different ways to do this. I'm not going to unpack them for you because I think it's fairly clear. But these are just three of the things that you can think about. You can look for opportunities. You can do one, you could decide to do two, or you could really go for it and do all three of them. Imagine six months from now. You're the kind of person that the CEO or your VP sees as someone who can take things off their plate, and do it well, and handle it without issues. They can solve problems outside your own team proactively. And then they can also be someone who can develop other team members.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  That set of skills, that outcome, is what will get you noticed and promoted. Because here's what I will leave you with. I personally, every time I talk to a founder, I will tell people not to just give people promotions and more money, more responsibility, without those people demonstrating they can do it. And so I will tell them over and over and over again that the people who get promoted should be the ones not that you think have the potential for this next level, but those that are already showing up, doing the, the next level work. They are doing it proactively. They are doing it with the right attitude. They are doing it because they care genuinely, not because they want to get promoted. They do care.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  And I share this with you today because I want to help the organizations we work with to continue to grow. And they, they can't do that without managers stepping up. These are just three ways that you could get promoted as a manager. And I share them with you. Hopefully, you'll take it and run. And share back your stories. I'd love to know how this worked for you. Thanks for listening in to Growth Think Tank. Remember, as always, when you think of leadership and you think of growth, think of Growth Think Tank, and leave a good.