You have the degrees, racked up the experience, made the right moves, and now you have the title and the responsibility that you wanted. Congratulations!!!!! Now what?

For many newly promoted leaders – regardless of title – this is the part of the job no one prepares you for. You may be elevated because you have a specific set of skills or strengths. You may have received the role due to a corporate mandate or a reaction / over-reaction to social change. You may have been promoted due to a manager’s need to diversify their workload. Whatever the reason, without coaching and development it can become a lonely and challenging journey. Because the truth is, often the skills that got you the title are not the skills that will make you successful in the role. And although that sounds counterintuitive, it’s the reality of what’s happening across organizations every day.

The Challenge

In many cases, what happens is that a BIPOC employee has consistently excelled and demonstrated exemplary work in their area of responsibility. That gets the attention of a decision maker, and that decision maker decides to give that employee a promotion. That decision is usually based on their confidence that the employee can handle all of the additional responsibilities; most of which they themselves were not formally trained on either. What is missing from this employee’s journey? Often the coaching and development that would help them to be proficient at all the new tasks they will be required to do. This could end in a number of ways, all of which are likely to exact an emotional toll on an otherwise well prepared employee. Let me explain.

Let’s say the employee succeeds. That will be because that employee shouldered the responsibility of figuring out how to be proficient at the new tasks, or the manager identified the gaps and provided the necessary development retroactively. That’s the best case scenario. Either way, it doesn’t feel good for the employee to have to struggle or find their own help. If the employee doesn’t succeed, it’s worse. Feeling like you failed can be demoralizing even if no one says it out loud. And it can be ten times worse if you feel like a manager has lost faith in you.

Solutions

There are better ways. Depending on the time and resources available, it would be good to offer employees the option to learn the skills they will need to succeed at a higher level before they are promoted. If that isn’t possible, creating an intentional onboarding plan after the promotion that extends for three to six months is also a good option. It gives the manager the opportunity to set the expectation of supporting for an extended period of time on the front end. If the employee acclimates faster, it is a great confidence booster. The extended onboarding also gives the manager an opportunity to assess the newly promoted employee’s strengths and areas of growth. They can use that information to design a coaching and development plan to support the employee after the onboarding period is over. This, provides the employee the comfort to ask questions, reduces the pressure to become an expert on day one – as if that’s probable, and increases the likelihood of success or negative attrition.

Let’s face it, recruiting and selection is costly financially and takes a significant amount of time. It makes better sense for organizations to invest a little extra time to onboard newly promoted employees to their positions. Unfortunately, this is the exception and not the norm. So if you just got the title, the promotion, the responsibility and you are feeling a bit out of your depth. Don’t stay there. Seek out help.

Here are some things you can do.

• Do some research to learn how to do the things you don’t know how to do. It may mean you have to do it on your own time if you aren’t being supported at work, but once you have the knowledge its yours forever. Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning have asynchronous options that allow you to learn at your own pace.
• If you can afford it, hire a coach to help you to grow and learn because the truth is you don’t know what you don’t know.
• Find someone who you trust that you can ask for context and clarity when you don’t understand the why or the how. This could be a co-worker, a mentor, or a manager. What really matters is how trustworthy the person is.
• Subscribe to podcasts and magazines that can help you in your role. Books are great too, but magazine articles tend to be more current and you can usually find the author and follow them on LinkedIn which generally yields even more content.

While it’s great to get the title and have an organization or leadership that has the time, resources, and inclination to invest in a development strategy, that is not always the case. If you are a manager, what time and resources are you able to invest in newly promoted employees? If you are a recently promoted employee, this is a great opportunity to invest in yourself.

The Pleiniche Group can provide a professional or personal plan that will meet your needs. Schedule a free consultation.