8 Skills That Will Accelerate Your Promotion

You either get promoted, demoted, or fired. That’s how the work-life is. As we advance into the future, various countries are investing heavily in knowledge-based economies. New-age skills are on-demand more than ever.

Long gone are the days when you could only study engineering or medicine and just stick to that. In any workplace, people who go the extra mile are more likely to survive sudden changes in the job market. COVID-19 has been a perfect but unfortunate example of how disruption can render millions of people jobless. 

The World Economic Forum notes that 2 out of 5 jobs lost during the pandemic may never come back. In the article, Steven J. Davis of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business says that “42% of recent pandemic-induced layoffs will result in permanent job loss.” Where does this put you? Now is probably the best time to rethink your skills if you wish to stay relevant in the economy.

Skills that you actually need most

There is an increasing demand for upskilling and constant personal development in the workplace. In this article, we will not focus on the kind of skills everyone is already talking about. We have mentioned essential career skills in the past. Having digital skills now can increase your chances of employment. However, if you want to stand out, you need more.

The stakes are getting higher and you need to do more to stay afloat. People who go the extra mile will be the ones who stay relevant decades to come. Beyond having your 3-D printing skills, or producing virtual reality applications, you need something unique. Competency will be based more on soft-skills than technical skills. Companies now need people who can lead themselves and others. They want people who are not only intellectual but also innovative. Complex problem-solving and adept planning are indispensable.

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We have combined a list of skills that will make you stand out from the crowd and get you on the fast lane towards promotion. These skills, if well mastered, can even last a lifetime. As they are transferable skills, you can mentor others to uptake them and practice them.

1. Self-leadership

In their 2012 book on this topic, Andrew Bryant and Anna Kazan describe leading yourself as “the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions towards your objective/s”. Simply put, it is the ability to understand yourself, acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, and identify ways to channel this knowledge into achieving your life purpose.

“If you cannot lead yourself, how can you lead others? Before leading others, you have to lead yourself first,” said Debasish Mridha. This means that you need to know if you are proud, hot-tempered, energetic, or workaholic. Then, you will use a subset of skills such as intention, self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-efficacy to better lead others.

You need to believe in yourself, be aware of your shortcomings, have a purposeful approach to doing things, and have a positive mindset when handling challenges. If you practice these at your workplace, your boss will be more than impressed. You can be trusted with leading teams without biasedness or selfishness.

2. Data-based decision making

Do you want to manage a multi-million dollar business and make well-informed decisions that have a higher chance of success? Then you will have to put aside following your gut. This is money you will be dealing with and investors, business owners, and partners will be watching you. 

You cannot just make assumptions about what needs to be done in order to increase revenue or profit. That’s where another skill comes in. You can start off by mastering advanced Excel. Ever heard of PivotTables, SUMIF, Slicers, or Sparkline? If yes, you are on the right track. If not, this should be your starting point. 

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You may be dealing with large, complex data sets that need fast calculations and reporting. You will not have the luxury of using your smartphone calculator to do these calculations. Others involve predicting trends or using past data to make decisions. These include where to spend more money, is it advertising? Increasing human capital in a certain department? Is it divesting from a certain portfolio and putting money elsewhere? These are the types of questions that you cannot answer without these skills. 

Data-based decision making will set you apart from the crowd. You will get promoted when your seniors know that they can trust you, as opposed to someone else without the necessary know-how. If you have these skills already, consider taking a Masters in Predictive Analytics, or shorter big data courses. 

3. Communication

You may be thinking this is all about being vocal in office politics but that’s not it. Communication, if done effectively, can get you promoted. One way to do so is by being relevant. People have an increasingly short attention span. 

Please do not waste their time. If you are too general and people see no value in what you have to offer, no one will bother giving you a chance to lead. You should also be intriguing. Always start your conversations with interesting facts, stories, or observations that get people to listen to you. 

You should also be memorable. You can do this by having a unique style of communicating. Do you tell your stories using anecdotes? Do you tap into people’s emotions by speaking about personal experiences? These are some of the things to consider. For more tips, check out this fantastic Forbes article. 

4. Critical  thinking

Another crucial thing that cannot be ignored. Critical thinking is simply described as “ to the ability to analyze information objectively and make a reasoned judgment. It involves the evaluation of sources, such as data, facts, observable phenomena, and research findings.”

If you can think logically and offer the best solution to a problem – while ignoring the less important details – then you are more likely to get promoted than someone who cannot. 

Businesses are championing self-driven decision making and cutting down on delegation and management. In fact, micromanagement is the biggest thief of time. 

A senior manager wouldn’t be willing to spend a huge chunk of his time bossing around adults. One of the most important parts of a job interview is to test your critical thinking ability. That is why you get asked how you have handled certain situations in the past (e.g. disagreements with your boss) or how you can handle future ones. 

You can upskill in this area by reading good books on this topic and practicing what you learn. Apply lessons learnt in real-life, daily situations; don’t just imagine.

5. Innovation and entrepreneurship

Owning your work is also part of the journey to get promoted. You may be working for your local government office. The job entails serving your fellow citizens. However, the culture in the office is based on laxity, offering sub-standard services (as it is the government, nobody can do anything to you) and outright mismanagement of funds.

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You cannot afford to be part of the status quo. Going beyond that can help in you getting promoted. Imagine you are the leader of the country. It is your government; ‘your’ business. It is imperative that you succeed so that you can get improve the lives of fellow citizens and get re-elected. 

Be innovative by researching how processes can be improved by the use of technology. Can registering of businesses be purely paperless? Can citizens apply for replacement passports with already available data and not come with all the needed documents? Such kind of stuff. Be entrepreneurial by taking initiative. 

6. People leadership

Once you have mastered self-leadership, you can now be a leader. What is leadership? This can be defined in a million ways, depending on how you were raised, where you studied, or what you perceive as great leadership from your experiences. 

You can be a politician, CEO, university class representative, local senior health officer but not a leader. Leadership isn’t management. True leadership demands selflessness. It requires you to translate vision into a reality. It requires a clear mind. 

You need to be sane, healthy, and well placed financially to lead. Take good care of your body and mental health. For you to lead a big financial institution, a school, a home, a country, or a non-profit, you cannot are always in personal debt. Charisma isn’t a necessity for you to be a leader, but you definitely need to command influence. Also, be an avid reader. For that, we recommend this amazing article on what leadership truly is.

7. Systems leadership

Now that you’ve learned how to lead people, you also need to be aware of systems leadership. What is it? In the wake of the recent racial profiling and unjust killings of black people in America, you’ve heard a lot about systems change. 

According to the World Economic Forum, it is ‘a set of skills and capacities that any individual or organization can use to catalyze, enable, and support the process of systems-level change. It combines collaborative leadership, coalition-building, and systems insight to mobilize innovation and action across a large, decentralized network.’

That means that to be able to change how things work at your workplace, you need to start something, commit to it, engage others, and influence them and be accountable. You also need to be constantly looking at your project and revising to ensure that it is right on track. 

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If you exhibit this skill at your job, you are more likely to get promoted. Be sure to document your progress so as to justify the impact you have made. You do not have to do this for the purpose of promotion only. You can do it to actually improve how the organization you work for operates. This way, you will not only add value but also be proud of yourself. This kind of satisfaction makes you a happier person.

8. Planning and execution

Many are the times when you plan something big and rarely follow up to its completion. Whether it is regularly working out, toning down Instagram usage, enrolling for a foreign language class…we all have had those moments.

One of the best ways to avoid this is to commit to a small number of goals at any given moment. Do you want to buy a car in the next 18 months? How about that executive education program? Building a house for your mum? It is not a great idea to push them all concurrently.

Instead, have two goals, give them ample time, undivided attention and effort. Make sure you reward yourself for the simple milestones achieved. If it is passing an exam, buy yourself a good meal or favorite wine. This will help you stay motivated along the way.

As for the workplace environment, do not uptake too many tasks to impress your bosses. You will definitely fail to hit targets. This will land you in trouble or even get you fired if the consequences are damaging. Having ambitious professional goals is great. However, make sure they do not bog you down.

So starting now, upskill on the technical side but more importantly have these intangible skills. They will take you a long way. Out of the skills that we’ve talked about, which ones resonated with you the most? Tell us in the comments section below!