If You're "Indispensable" Does That Make You "Unpromotable?

High performers are difficult to find and, well, can be difficult to manage. They challenge managers to improve their own performance management skills. They out-perform, by definition, their peers. And they know it, and they expect whatever "recognition" means to them.

One of the hardest skills to learn as a manager of a high-performer is how to end that person's career doing what they were doing so well so that the individual can move to a new position and contribute there. It's about taking people who were indispensable at one level and successfully promoting them.

Why is this hard? Multiple reasons:

1. Being good at one set of challenges is not the same as being good at a higher-level set of challenges. The talents that made you excellent at the current level (execution, individual output, mastery of a defined problem) aren't the same traits the new level tests (ambiguity, influence, developing people instead of doing the work yourself). At the very least, that new promotee is not going to be as successful right off, which can be unsettling for someone used to success. They may not handle that unsettled feeling well, start to flail, lose focus, and cost the function more than they are worth. They go from hero on Day 1 to also-ran on day 90.

2. High performers carry a higher load of work. Now they are recalibrating their workload and contribution, and that takes time. Burn-in time is not on your side.

3. It's typically difficult for a high performer to transition well. I see this all the time as a consultant. The person has become so invested in their current role that they want to package it up and hand it off so it will continue to be successful. This is normal. But you must transition. Show that you trust the system.

4. By definition, promoting someone means you need to back-fill the position or reconfigure the role. It takes effort. 

High performance gets you noticed for promotion, and political skills get you air time with decision-makers. And then you're on stage. What is your act that gets you into promotion consideration?

It's about what makes Team USA "the standard" in women's international basketball. No one owes you the promotion. Yes you are indispensable now but tomorrow is another day. The key is to be indispensable for the new team you're on. If you lift the performance of the team you joined, then you become indispensable to that team. Moving up universally means more interaction laterally with peers and less interaction with tech tasks, even if you're the "Senior" cyber-defender. Selflessness is not realistic but selfishness is unnecessary and counterproductive.

The graveyards are full of indispensable men. Technically Charles de Gaulle did not say this, nor did Georges Clemenceau, but regardless the sentiment is one that should be etched on your leadership brain when contemplating promotions.

Ask us how you can balance promotion and performance.

(image credit: Briantist at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)