Leadership stories
When success isn’t the finish line…
One client and I worked together for a year getting her ready for a big promotion. She was all but guaranteed to make it. We worked on her business case, her personal case, ran mock interview panels, worked through her anxiety. All of it.
Then one day I got a call out of the blue.
They'd passed her over.
"Probably next year," they said.
She was inconsolable. I mean, it broke her.
As we worked together to understand why it had hit her so hard, we discovered it wasn't really about the promotion. Part of it had something to do with her dad and family expectations she’d grown up with. It had even more to do with integrity and honesty. If she hadn't been promised the promotion, it would still have been disappointing, but it wouldn't have broken her in the same way.
Eventually she was promoted.
In the meantime, we'd worked on her resilience, reconnected her with her "why", and explored the possibility that there might be other paths open to her if things didn't work out as she'd hoped.
She's now been in the role for more than five years. We still check in from time to time, and now she’s mentoring others on the same journey.
I’ve seen different versions of this story over the years. Sometimes the promotion is exactly the right next step. Sometimes it isn’t. Either way, a promotion is never your whole story.
A wider perspective
She discovered a promotion didn’t define her.
More than one path
Given the opportunity to explore, she saw there was more than one way ahead.
A different kind of resilience
She learned she could survive something she once thought would break her.
Paying it forward
Years later, she’s mentoring others on the same journey.