The "Hidden" Criteria for Promotion That Nobody Tells You About
From overlooked → to recognized and promoted. Here’s how clarity accelerated one client's career growth.
Welcome to Reframed! I'm Ashley Rudolph and I write this newsletter for high-achievers ready for the next level in their careers. Reframed readers describe the experience best: “I read all of your posts and there’s something to learn from all of them! I love the personal stories of leadership and work the most.”
What if three simple steps were standing in between you and your next promotion?
If you’re anything like me, you thrive a little on being nosey. Some may call it curious 🙂 I love knowing where people shop, their favorite restaurants, what annoys them. It’s fascinating. All of this got me thinking — we rarely get the chance to engage in that same kind of unfiltered nosiness about work.
My hot take is that we can’t get nosey about work in the ways that we want to, because we’ve been conditioned to share and consume highlight reels: wins, achievements, fundraises, sales, flashy hires, etc. And when we see struggles or hear about work drama, they’re often the crash-out or “I’ve been wronged!” version of the story.
In general, people are less inclined to share how they got from point A to point B or how they rebounded from the crash out.
Because of this, many of us are left feeling like we’re the only ones who are stuck in the messy middle — feeling stuck in our careers, asking for a raise and not getting it (and why you shouldn’t always take it personally!), deciding whether to stay or leave a company, or figuring out what’s worth investing in versus what’s draining you.
In my coaching sessions, there’s this ever-present theme of “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Every single time my answer is “no” because I can always think of at least one high-achieving client, friend, or former coworker that is going through the same thing. If you’ve been thinking it, I can almost guarantee someone else has too. These conversations inspired me to share more of these transformation stories on Reframed, starting today.
I had a client go from stuck and frustrated to promoted and feeling appreciated…in two months.
She had been at her company for a really long time. Long enough to feel loyal. To feel comfortable. To feel like the quality of her work and her responsibilities had outpaced the role she was in. She came in saying:
“I’m looking to develop in leadership and feel like my growth opportunity is stalling. I don’t know how to communicate upwards, identify the right path for me, or advocate for myself.”
Immediately I thought, that’s the sound of someone who is over-delivering but under-recognized. The high achiever’s paradox.
We dug in and she was stuck in a loop of expanding her responsibility without any changes to her authority. In her own words:
“I feel very unclear on where I should be using my time”. The classic seniority / task mismatch.
“I don’t feel like I have leadership over the areas I’m actually leading”. Also common authority / remit mismatch.
If you’ve ever been there, you know exactly what this feels like.
One of my favorite lines is “the only thing that being great at your job guarantees is more work”. It doesn’t mean you can’t advance, but after a certain point in your career you won’t advance off of being a hard worker or overworking, alone. And that can lead to exactly the point my client was in: straight up career dissonance.
So the question became → how do you turn your loyalty and your ability to solve the trickiest problems into actual leverage for growth instead of silent suffering?
THE TACTICS: HOW TO SHIFT FROM FEELING OVERLOOKED TO THE NEXT LEVEL
3 Shifts That’ll Help You Get Promotion Ready
It was clear to me that our work wouldn’t be focused on things like motivation or “finding yourself”. Those have a place, but they wouldn’t have had the highest impact for my client. This was a clarity problem. Specifically, clarity about her impact and her approach. So after our first meeting, I identified the three areas that would have maximum impact and get her promotion ready:
Shifting from Doer to Leader
We discussed her wins and the value that she was adding to the business in detail. We talked about the processes she created and what that meant for the executive team and for the business as a result. I identified things that she was describing as “business as usual” and surfaced them as opportunities to own her impact further (without it feeling like bragging).
Ultimately, she needed to revamp how she was positioning her contributions — moving from thinking about tactical execution (aka the collection of things she was doing every day) to strategic impact (why her choosing to focus her time in certain areas led to major business results). It’s really about storytelling.
If you want to shift from executor to leader, start asking: how is my work changing the business? Can I tell that story in outcomes, not tasks?
In her case, there’s a huge difference between “I run a standing weekly meeting for leadership” and “I created the forum that equips leadership with the insights they rely on to steer the business.
That feels different.
KEEP SCROLLING FOR A SURPRISE →
I’ve got a special perk for Reframed readers at the end of this newsletter. Keep reading!
Translating Task Lists into Business Value
She needed to personally take credit for the impact of her work and how it actually changed the business — not just outputs, but outcomes. As I listened to her describe her work, I realized her wins often sounded like she was checking off busywork, but she was making material shifts to the business! So I put my brain to work, sorting her examples through a filter I use with clients all the time. I call it the IMPACT framework and it’s a quick way to translate your work into real business value:
Here’s a detailed look at my framework for quantifying your impact.
I - Influence: How have you shaped decisions, strategy, or team dynamics?
M - Metrics: What measurable results have you delivered (e.g., revenue growth, efficiency improvements)?
P - Profitability: How have you helped the company save or make money?
A - Accountability: What high-stakes projects have you owned and delivered on?
C - Culture: How have you improved team morale, retention, or workplace collaboration?
T - Transformation: How has your work created lasting change or innovation?
Building A Case Leaders Can’t Ignore
After she reframed the value of her work/time spent and was able to measure the impact of that work, it was about building the right case. Some may recommend putting a full list of all the things you’re working on and sending that to your boss. That doesn’t work once you’ve surpassed a certain level of leadership and that’s where many high achievers get tripped up. She needed to develop her own voice — the confidence to deliver a case that showcased the fact that she was already performing at the next level. As a high achieving leader, the key here is knowing how to master executive level communications, because senior leadership/executives are the decision makers you’ll need to convince.
Building a case is an exercise is selling your value, but most people build a case like they’re preparing for trial:
Exhibit A: the 47 projects I completed.
Exhibit B: the 120-hour weeks I pulled.
Exhibit C: my team likes me.
The problem? This reads like a defense. Executives don’t want to hear a laundry list. They want to know: why’s the business better because you’re on the team?
The answer to that question is what sells your value.
Once all of these things came together for her, the conversation changed. When it came time for her review, she was able to guide the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go all along → towards real growth.
The moral of the story? Clarity is an accelerator.
And yes, she was promoted.
Her promotion was about stepping into a new level at work — one where she could finally say: this is what I lead, this is where I add value, this is how I should be recognized.
Her promotion wasn’t the finish line. The moment she leveled up, a new set of questions popped up - the types of challenges she wanted to be solving.
How do I step back from being the safety net so my team can rise?
How do I balance strategy with execution?
What do I want to be known for at this next level?
Clarity got her unstuck and served as sort of a compass for what’s next in her career. If you feel stalled, circling themes like:
I know I can do more at work.
I feel stuck in my role/career/company.
I’m not sure if I’m manager/director/VP material.
You don’t need to start from scratch. Nor do you need to change everything about who you are or what you do.
You just need clarity.
And the outcomes — promotions, raises, opportunities you’ve been waiting for — flow from there.
READER PERK ❤️
Special Bonus for Reframed Readers.
If you made it this far, here’s the surprise!
I’m opening five complimentary 15-minute career clarity calls between now and September 5, just for subscribers!
[NOTE: all the slots filled up]
This is me trying something new (aka I don’t know if I’ll do it again lol).
I’m heading to West Palm Beach for Labor Day to hang out with my Mom and will be focusing on wrapping up my trend report. Outside of regular client meetings, these clarity calls are the only new conversations I’m taking.
Consider this your shot to bring me one big career question and leave with clarity you can actually use.
One more thing, subscribe to Reframed.
Not subscribed yet? I share fresh leadership and career insights every Monday at 8AM, right before you tackle your week.
If you’re curious, people who work at the following companies subscribe to Reframed. Join readers from Netflix, Google, Uber, Chanel, LinkedIn, and Sephora each week.
Always incredibly enlightening, thank you!
Great tips! Wrote a similar post on the habits that got me 3 promotions in 3 years early in my career. Shifting from Doer to Leader and solving big problems was the game changer. Honestly still true to this day.