I Asked 6 Executives How They Make Promotion Decisions. Here's What They Said.
Here's what your executive team actually think about before they decide to promote you or hire someone externally instead.
Welcome to Reframed. One idea, every week, that changes how you see your career.
I’m Ashley Rudolph. Last week, I spoke to Maria Weaver about her advice for executives focused on rolling out AI initiatives. She runs learning and development at Shopify, so she knows a thing or two. A few things she said reframed how I think about AI entirely.
The key to getting promoted isn’t working harder, it’s doing work at the next level before you officially step into it. Here’s why.
Many of my clients come to me wanting to get promoted. It’s one of those things that feel straightforward: do hard work, get promoted. But it doesn’t work that way and more often than not, the actual solution is a mystery to them.
Recently, I asked six executive women what factors they consider when they decide to promote employees internally or hire external talent. These women have scaled brands like Tiffany’s, Shake Shack, Ollie, Starface, Kate Spade, and Glowbar. One of them even sold their company for $500M and wrote a book about success. They have collectively promoted and hired lots of talent.
Their responses were revealing. But before we get into them, I want to start with a bit of intel: their answers were a roadmap for getting promoted.
Here’s what you should do if you want to be the internal candidate that doesn’t get passed over
There were 5 common themes across their responses, if you want a promotion you should:
Find out what skills, competencies, or scope is required at the next level
Build trust across functions — not just with your direct manager.
Operate at the next level before you have the title.
Chase glamour work. Delegate office “housework”
If they choose to bring in someone external, ask direct questions before you disengage.
Early in my career, I had real misconceptions about what gets you promoted. I thought it was dedication, hard work, taking on extra assignments. I’ve written about what those misconceptions led to: disappointment, frustration, and tears. At some point something clicked: I wasn't going to get promoted for doing my job well. I was going to get promoted when I was already doing the job above me. Once I understood that, everything changed. When I walk my clients through that same shift, things change for them too. They either get promoted or they find the right room somewhere else. There’s almost no in-between.
The data backs up that it’s easier to hire internally too: 46% of new hires fail within 18 months. Almost half. Which means every time your executive team considers making an external hire, they’re weighing a bet with a coin-flip success rate.
They want to promote you. The question is whether you’ve made it easy for them to justify it.
MY ADVICE
You can’t just be smart, you can’t just be hungry, you can’t just be good at your current role. You actually have to do two things:
Understand what it takes to be successful at the next level
Demonstrate those competencies
These two things make an internal promotion a slam dunk (in most cases). If you take the approach of waiting for them to see your potential based on your doing a great job in your current role, then they’re going to place their bets on someone that has proven experience at the next level.
6 Executives on When They Choose to Promote vs. Hiring an External Candidate
I talked to Allison Stadd 🥁 , Ashley La Fleur, Muna Ikedionwu, Allison Ginsberg, Lisa Rossi, and Catherine Connelly. What I got back was more candid than I expected. Career advice is everywhere but you rarely get to hear directly from people making hiring decisions. That’s what this is.
1. On why they almost always want to promote from within
Lisa Rossi, VP of People at Starface:
Most leadership teams would prefer to promote from within. It’s faster, more cost-effective, and significantly less risky than bringing in external talent. So the default assumption on promotion readiness should be: the organization is on your side.
Allison Stadd, CMO at Ollie:
I promote internally when someone is already operating at (or clearly approaching) the next level — not just excelling in their current role. The signals are things like: they’ve expanded their scope without being asked, built airtight trust across functions, and demonstrated the ability to think at an enterprise altitude.
Allison Ginsberg, Fractional Head of People:
I believe the strongest teams are built through a deliberate balance of internal and external talent. I choose to hire externally when it allows me to fill critical skill gaps, introduce fresh perspective, or bring in experiences the organization does not yet have. In those moments, I’m not looking to replicate what already exists — I’m intentionally adding new capabilities, ways of thinking, and value that strengthen the team and accelerate the business.
The next exec raised an important point: there's an underrated advantage to being at an early stage or growth stage company. New functions get built, teams get restructured, and roles get created that didn't exist six months ago. The person who usually steps into those opportunities often already knows the business well enough to run something new from day one. Sometimes institutional knowledge is an incredible edge.
Muna Ikedionwu, Founder of MKEDI Consulting:
Understanding a company’s history and brand philosophy, their product offerings, and their ideal customer is a major asset that is very rarely found in external hires. On the flipside, there’s an expectation within early stage startups that employees become jane-of-all-trades who can learn any new tactic or skill that’s needed. So when an external hire is made it’s almost always because we need someone who already has the skill set and track record that proves they can come in and perform at a high level from day one. Brand knowledge is less important in this case and being able to deliver results is the primary metric.
2. On the work that actually gets you promoted
Getting to the next level requires being strategic about your time, not just how hard you work, but what you work on. The work you say yes to is consequential. If you find that you’re not able to take on strategic work because you’re bogged down with “office housework”, this Forbes piece has practical tips for getting it off.
Catherine Connelly, Author of Designing Success:
I love Jason Feifer’s idea in Build for Tomorrow that you should be working your next job. Do not just build competency in your current role. Start building the skills, exposure, and judgment required for the role you want. Make it obvious that you can handle what comes next. That might mean staying informed by listening to podcasts and reading industry news, or even starting a newsletter or building a special project internally.
One more thing, especially for women. Be mindful of the difference between glamour work and office housework. Research by Joan C. Williams and Marina Multhaup shows women are 29 percent more likely than white male colleagues to be assigned office housework like note-taking or planning events. White women are 20 percent less likely to report equal access to desirable assignments, and for women of color that gap grows to 35 percent.
Volunteering for ERGs and Bring Your Kid to Work Day is generous, but promotions often come from glamour work. The high-impact, visible projects that move the business forward. Make sure you are in the room for those. (I wrote a bit more about this here).
3. On what it means when they bring in external talent instead
It’s hard not to take it personally when your company makes the decision to hire externally for a role that you thought you worked hard to earn. I think it presents an opportunity for dialogue. As a high achiever, when you’re passed over, it’s almost never just about your performance.
Lisa Rossi, VP of People at Starface:
When a company chooses to hire externally instead of promoting you, it usually signals one of three things: (1) they don’t believe you’re ready yet and feel the business can’t absorb the ramp time, (2) they’re entering a new phase (e.g. growth, transformation, complexity) that they believe requires experience not currently on the bench, or (3) there’s a gap in trust, influence, or readiness that hasn’t been explicitly addressed.
The biggest mistake I see high performers make is skipping the fact-finding step: They either argue emotionally or quietly disengage and start job hunting. The more strategic move is to ask direct, probing questions and understand the real rationale, without defensiveness. That clarity gives you leverage. From there, you can make an informed choice: support and learn from the new leader, advocate for what you’d need to earn the seat next time, or decide your growth will happen elsewhere.Performance matters, but promotability isn’t just about performance - especially the higher you climb - it’s about perceived readiness, trust, and alignment with the company’s next chapter.
When I read Lisa’s point about being aligned with the company’s next chapter, it gave a name to the unexplainable “politics” around promotions. Sometimes your vision for the future (how you work, what your values are, the kind of company you see yourself at) just isn’t aligned with what the company wants. That is their perspective. Sometimes they’re right and other times they’re wrong. But ultimately, once you have information, you can decide what you want to do about it.
As I was writing this, it made me think about another tricky scenario. The times when you don’t get promoted because you’re too valuable in your current role. When your manager is scared that systems would break without you, that processes won’t be followed, or that relationships would falter. So they choose to keep you right where you are.
Sometimes the better you are at your current role without making yourself replaceable, the harder you are to move.
If this is your situation, it’s a challenging one. You have to do two things at once: demonstrate you can function at the next level and make yourself easy to replace where you are. Document your processes. Develop your backfill. If leadership can't picture the team running without you, they won't picture you anywhere else. And if they still can’t see it — move on.
4. On setting yourself up for success in a new role, whether you’re an internal or external hire
Starting a new role requires a different mindset and sometimes employees underestimate how much they need to optimize their time to impact after being promoted or stepping into a new role as an external hire.
Ashley La Fleur, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Root3:
Once you step into the role, you’re evaluated against the full job description. Expectations shift quickly, and there’s often less grace because you’re now at a different level with different compensation. That adjustment can be challenging.
If a leader is hiring externally, it’s usually because there’s a specific gap they need to solve, and they’re looking for someone who can step in and lead. If you’re coming into a new organization, there is a short window where you have some grace as you learn the team, product, and expectations. But that window closes quickly. If you don’t use those first one to three months to ask questions, build relationships, and get up to speed, the team you’ve been layered over can start to lose confidence. You have to show why you were brought in while also listening closely to the people around you, because you’ll need them to succeed.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I hope you take this information and use it to architect your next step. If you’re a high achiever, the thing you often don’t realize is that you’re more powerful than you think. You can ask for more, you can push for the next level, you can walk away on your own terms. It really doesn’t matter whether you do it at your current job or elsewhere, the point is — you can. You just have to prove it.
Thank you to Lisa, Allison G., Muna, Ashley, Catherine, and Allison S. for graciously sharing their thoughts.
Which insight surprised you most?
Good luck. See you next week!
Ashley
Subscribe to Reframed.
Most people find this newsletter the same way: someone they trust forwarded it to them. If this one resonated, subscribe. Then forward it to someone who’d like it too.
This is F U L L of great advice! Thanks so much for including me. ♥️