5 warning signs that you may not get promoted

Posted on January 09, 2023 by Johncey George, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

Everyone wants to grow. You too! That is intrinsic human behavior.

But occasionally, you can find yourself stuck in your organization without growth. Sometimes, you don’t realize this until it is too late. You must learn to recognize such situations early and take appropriate action.

Here are five warning signs that you may not get promoted; you should not ignore these:

1. Your Boss has started ignoring you and your contributions
Your boss used to have regular meetings with you; this is no longer the case. The meetings have become cursory and very infrequent. They may have started to feel that it is not worthwhile to spend more time with you and decided to allocate their priority to others.

2. You are being subjected to nitpicking
You are being criticized too often by your boss and sometimes, for minor issues or even when unwarranted. The criticisms may also come up during performance reviews and could be cited as reasons for not being promoted.

3. You are not getting invited to important or strategic meetings
You have started to notice that you are often ignored for certain important or strategic meetings. These may not be regular meetings but meetings of importance, like planning for the future.

4. Your Boss is over-dependent on you in your current role
If your boss is over-dependent on you, this is a warning sign that they will need you to continue in the current role. This is indirectly a sign that you are not capable of developing more leaders under you and hence not a candidate for promotion as a leader.

5. You are ignored for high-visibility projects
High visibility projects are the ones that will help you get noticed by senior management teams in the company. If you are ignored for such projects or programs, you can consider that your boss is not ready to put you in the limelight, which can be detrimental or slow down your career growth.
So what can you do about these?

I cannot say this often enough: your boss is the most important person in your corporate life. They need to like you. So you need to ensure that you build a good professional relationship through which you can have candid conversations.

When you see these warning signs, have conversations with your boss and nip them in the bud. Take the feedback and start working on it early.

You need to develop a high level of self-awareness about what is going on with you and also be equally aware of what is going on in the organization

You need to sharpen your leadership skills regularly so that you are ready when the opportunity presents itself.

It is essential that you invest in developing more leaders under you who can replace you so that you can take on more prominent roles.

Johncey George is a Leadership Coach helping Introvert Professionals fast-track their journey to Senior Leadership Roles. Contact Coach, Johncey George for more details