Ready for a promotion? Wouldn't it be great if ...

Our guest blogger, business mentor Ghilaine Chan, shares her insight on climbing the career ladder and poses the question, are you really ready for a promotion?

So you have managed to do a great job at whatever it is you do. You know who's who, you know what's what. You find your days reasonable, nothing too hard to manage and if you have to firefight, nothing you can't cope with. Even if it is a new issue, it won't take much brain power to solve it somehow.

You think that it may be time to take on a new challenge. Perhaps something a bit higher up, doing what you do, but bigger. What does this mean? Often it means leading/supervising/managing a team of people just like you.

Yey! People to do all the stuff that I find boring. I get to boss people about. I can do what I want and leave the other stuff to everyone else. How often have you felt that life would be so much easier if you had people around to do stuff for you? If you haven't had a team, you may feel this will make life easier, but those that have will likely tell you otherwise.

What to consider before you say you're ready for a promotion

You will become responsible for other people's well-being, workload, schedule and performance. If you have not thought about that on your way up, now is the time.

Often those that are great at the job are the first people to be asked to manage teams of people doing that job, but the skill set required can be very different. Are you a people person, do you care about the ability of others to do a good job, can you train someone up to do what you need them to? Can you give them constructive feedback on what they do? Can you manage it when they are unwell? Can you handle it when they come to you with their challenges, personal or business? If you find this tough for 1 other person, imagine that multiplied by the number of people in your team.

Now think about how you handle being accountable for someone else's work output. Will you be the person to take responsibility for the task to be completed and not get defensive when someone you trusted to get it done well and on time, doesn't.

You have the added bonus of making sure that everyone in your team has the possibility to develop themselves, not only for them but for the good of your company too. You need to manage, monitor and engage your team.

Statistics show, people don't leave their company, they leave their manager. Regardless of the reason for leaving, you have to fit recruitment into your rapidly expanding to do list too.

As well as all of the above, you will be expected to complete tasks of your own that you are completely responsible and accountable for.

And don't even get me started on how you determine what to delegate and to whom!

It's not easy being a manager, but here's what makes it all worthwhile

When thinking about taking the next step, consider all of the above; some people will relish the challenge; others, not so much. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and be aware of the situations that you might struggle to deal with. Also keep in mind that, for the right people, taking on a senior role can be an incredibly rewarding experience. No, it’s not easy, but the sense of achievement you feel, the personal growth you experience and the positive impact that you can have on other peoples’ lives, makes all of the hard work and sacrifice more than worthwhile.

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others

Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.

She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to: 

• Do their best work and delighting others
• Create some boundaries, but not cages
• Know they are acting for a purpose
• Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful
• Have autonomy over how and when they produce

She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.

Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures, UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. 

Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website,Ghilaine & Co.