You’ve been working hard, and you’d like to see the results of this hard work. You feel like your promotion is around the corner, but you're not there yet. While your colleagues, who are not that smarter than you are, seem to be getting ahead of you for some reason.

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In this article, we will share the top 5 reasons why you’re not getting promoted, and recommend what you should do instead to spearhead your career and get what you deserve! 

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You don’t make friends at work

You don’t build relationships with your coworkers, always sitting in your corner. Nobody knows what you do, and you barely even say hello to your coworkers in the morning. You don’t show interest in other people’s work or life and “I'm here to have the job done and make money, not to make friends” is your mantra. That is not a helpful approach. Your coworkers are also people, and our most common basic need is the need for love and belonging.

What’s a better way to feel like you belong than to socialize? If you spend a third of your life at work, you just have to connect with people you work with and hopefully like those people too.

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If your colleagues and your boss don’t know you as a person, they just won’t trust you. They won’t know what to expect from you, or how to collaborate with you, and therefore, they obviously won’t know how good you really are. 

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For instance, if you don’t come off as a good communicator and a team player everyone loves, it’s actually a sign to your boss and your team, that you probably won’t be a good communicator with the clients or as a manager.

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To prevent that, start practicing your small talk and eventually get into deeper more sincere conversations. Be interested in your colleagues' lives and the work they do. By doing just that, you will see how much more fun your work days will become and you will make new friends you share hobbies with. Once you have that, your next promotion won’t make you wait too long!

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You’re not proactive

Imagine this situation: you’ve finished your project or a meeting with a client on time and shared the results with your manager. The next project is coming up in a week or two. You’re happy you’ve finished everything and you just sit and wait until your boss asks you to do something else next.

If that sounds like you, that’s exactly the reason you are not getting promoted. The success of teams and companies is built on initiative, motivation and drive. Teammates, who are motivated and are doing more than what’s expected from them, are getting noticed by management.

Think a step or two ahead of everyone including your boss, you will be recognized as a proactive, helpful and forward-thinking team member. It helps with the overall team workflow and builds your reputation.

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If you want to get promoted - show initiative. Do more than what you were initially hired for. That is a great foundation for promotion. At the time when your performance review comes and you decide to have a conversation about promotion, you would have good enough results and points to bring up during promotion negotiations.

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You don’t share

Did you ever come across a piece of juicy information, but you decided to withhold it from your team because you thought it gives you some sort of advantage? Well, it might give you some advantage in certain situations, but generally speaking, not sharing information, work, or tasks is not going to help you grow in your career.

You grow as your team grows. The better the whole team works, the easier it is for you to show better performance and put yourself on the map. No one wants to fail, and being the best among the worst isn’t going to do much for your career either. The success of your company is not measured by the success of just one or two individuals. It’s always teamwork, and by elevating others, you will always elevate yourself as a result.

Remember, sharing is caring - and not just at the workplace. Sharing information actually shows the team you have something of value to share, and they will be grateful for that. Sharing work and tasks also shows your delegation skills and is an indicator to your manager that you know how to work in a team and manage the team’s workload.

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You’re a top performer

You feel you’re the smartest person in your team (and you actually are), you show the best results and continuously beat your goals. Your team members or maybe even your boss have told you that you’re indispensable, a rockstar and they constantly say “What would we do without you?”. So if you’re so good, why are you still working in the same position?

Well, you are a top performer, and that’s exactly the reason you might not be getting that promotion. You are so good at that specific task you do, so indispensable, that your manager would rather promote someone less productive and effective, rather than lose you - the person that makes your boss's team look good, someone who completes 150% of what’s expected of them on time and on budget. How can your boss ever find a replacement for someone like you if you get promoted? 

If you’re a top performer and feel like you’re long overdue for promotion, try slowing down a little. Sounds counterproductive, but learn to read the room. Slow down, assess your situation and see what other teammates who did get promoted do. Which part of that are you missing out on? Look into expanding your knowledge in other areas and projects that demonstrate skills that your desired role requires. Talk to your manager about your promotion directly - ask them, what you need to do to get promoted next year. What skills are you missing? And if that doesn’t work - you might just have to switch companies. Yes, sometimes that is the best way to get promoted and get a raise too - find a better position in another company based on your acquired skills and experience and a well-written resume. We have a separate video about resume writing if you're interested, you will find the link to it in the description box below.

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You’re a threat to your boss

It is entirely possible that you do all of the above, but your boss simply doesn’t want you to get promoted for their own selfish reasons. If you’ve been promised a promotion but never actually got one - it’s a sign something else is going on that your boss is not telling you.

If your boss takes your work and never lets you speak or interact with senior leadership, they’re hiding you from everyone else, it means they’re insecure. 

It is possible that your boss wants to preserve their area of influence, and does not want to let you go away from your team, they want to keep you to themselves as much as they can, especially if you’re a top performer too!

Perhaps, they see you as such a good professional that they feel threatened by your charm, intelligence and grit. Promoting you would mean you would be on the same or similar level as them, and that in turn will expose how incompetent they are.

There are a few things you can do in this situation, you’d have to tap into your own values and motivations for that. You could have a sincere and open conversation with your boss, if that doesn’t work you could try building a deeper relationship with other leaders in the organization behind your bosses back - this is very risky, especially if your boss is an insecure type - do this at your own risk. Lastly, just decide for yourself - do you want to keep on working at a company that employs people who block your personal and professional growth?

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Ideally, you also want to screen for what kind of boss and team you’re signing up for before you get the job. Our recommendation is to be picky. 

You spend a third of your awake time at work, in your career, so you better treat it with intention. Don’t waste your time on crappy jobs and crappy teams, and if something isn’t working for you - look inside of you first! 

Is there something that I could be doing differently? Is there a skill set that I am missing that’s preventing me from moving ahead? Ask yourself these questions, and don’t be shy to ask your employer the same questions too.

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