Your Career Growth Is Not Your Manager's Top Priority - And What To Do About It

At higher levels in the organizations, your manager has increasingly less direct influence on your promotions. Instead, investing in sponsorship,

In the early phases of your career, your manager greatly impacts your career trajectory. They assign you projects, coach you on critical skills for your job, and make your promotion case to others. However, at higher levels in the organizations, your manager has increasingly less direct influence on your promotions. As a result, at a certain point, typically around the manager or senior IC level, there needs to be a large shift in how you manage your career.

Shift #1: Your Manager Is No Longer the Expert In Your Domain

In the early days, your manager is who you learn from. It is generally expected that your manager has done your job and is coaching you on the critical aspects of the role. Your work is also relatively self-contained — you do not venture far from your core team and your manager’s scope. They know what needs to be done and hold the quality bar. As a result, your manager is the one person to go to with challenges, keep abreast of your wins, and ask for support to progress your career.

The more senior the role, the less your manager will know what is technically required to do your job well. You are expected to be self-sufficient, figure out what needs to be done yourself, and “hit the ground running”. A CEO is not more financially savvy than the CFO, and is much less technical than the CTO. A VP of Product who leads research and analytics is rarely an expert in those areas. As a Chief Product & Technology Officer, I was much less technical than the entry-level engineer on my team. At these higher levels, the manager is less a prescriber of tasks and more of a partner, advocate, and supporter of your goals.

In fact, one of the primary dimensions of a great leader is the ability to hire and retain a team of experts with more work experience than you in their areas. When I was an M1 at Meta, one of the accomplishments cited in my promotion case for M2 was my ability to hire and retain a higher-level product leader with 10+ more years of product experience than myself at the time.

As a result, self-advocacy becomes a critical skill. You need to build the narrative for your manager on what you are good at, the impact you’ve driven, and why you are ready for that next step. It is only through speaking up about the value you have created in terms that they can understand that you finally get the credit and visibility you deserve for the work. The work (or impact) does not speak for itself.

Shift #2: Your Work Crosses Org and Functional Boundaries

As you get more senior, the scope and reach of your work expand meaningfully beyond that of your team and manager. Early on, your projects have few dependencies on other teams. You and your team can align on a direction with your manager and then get it done. You have a few teams or key cross-functional partners to align with, but for the most part, it is your and your manager’s responsibility.

As you get more senior, driving results requires building deep relationships across org and functional boundaries. The project or change is not something you can do with just your team. Your product idea requires sales support, a financial business case, and support from 3 other engineering teams. Your new commercialization strategy requires product updates, regional customer operations teams, and a new PR campaign. A majority of time is spent with leaders of other functions or teams to align on strategy, resolve conflicts, or brainstorm new areas of growth. As a result, the opinions of other senior leaders hold more influence in promotion conversations.

Often, I see leaders underinvest in this part of the promotion process ( 3 common mistakes in senior-level promotions). They are well-aligned with their manager, and their team members love them. But their promotion is blocked because of a critical comment from another influential VP or a lack of knowledge of their accomplishments with other influential executives.

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Shift #3: Your Manager No Longer Controls Your Opportunities

Early on, your manager mostly manages what projects you are assigned. Your scope is a subset of their scope of work. Even with projects on other teams, your manager is usually the one bringing you the opportunity. As you get more senior, it becomes more difficult for your manager to fully own your development. The growth opportunities you need are often not within your manager’s scope or organization — these projects are too small. You need opportunities to lead projects across teams or across functions. Due to their scope, your manager is rarely aware of all the possible opportunities. Even if your manager does come across an option, he is usually not the primary decision-maker on who is on the project.

When I was at Meta, I wanted to manage a larger team. It was clear that within the scope of my current manager, this would not be possible. The organization was not growing very quickly. I had peers who were more senior and more likely to get bigger teams first. While my manager was very supportive of my career, he was not going to be the one to find me the opportunity for a larger team. In fact, he had a bit of the reverse incentive — to keep me as long as possible on his team to drive additional value and impact, even though he could not offer me a larger team.

This is where sponsorship becomes so critical for growth. Sponsors are leaders two or three levels above you who are invested in your career and are in those rooms where these higher-level projects are resourced. From this higher position, they have a broader view of projects and more knowledge of what is coming down the pipeline in the next few quarters. They also have the authority and influence to successfully advocate for your involvement.

After the first one or two steps up the ladder, your career is yours to own. Your manager will always be an important stakeholder who can make a huge impact (positive or negative) on your career trajectory. However, it becomes necessary but not sufficient. The opinions of other leaders are critical to landing growth opportunities, increasing your influence in the organization, and getting promoted.

That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm.

Yue

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More on Getting Promoted From The Archives

• Passed Over for Promotion. Will it really happen in the next 6 months?

• Being Collaborative May Hurt Your Chances For Promotion

• How Your Manager's Growth Potential and Willingness to Share Power Affects Your Career Trajectory

• The Art of Securing Sponsorship In Your Workplace

• How I Transitioned Into People Management Twice

• 3 Common Reasons Your Manager Will Fail You During Promotions And How To Have A Back Up Plan