Deal Making with Your Manager

In this lesson, we discuss how leaders manage high-performing employees who are also highly ambitious and demanding about their career progression. Rather than viewing those ambitions as a problem, effective managers can turn them into mutually beneficial agreements—clearly defining what the employee needs to accomplish and, in return, committing to advocate for the opportunity or promotion they want.

• Turn career demands into mutually beneficial deals: When a high performer wants a promotion or greater opportunity, managers can establish clear expectations: deliver exceptional results on important business priorities, and leadership will help create the case for advancement.
• Trust depends on following through: These informal agreements only work when leaders honor their commitments. Circumstances can change, but employees can often distinguish between a manager who breaks a promise and one who genuinely loses the ability to deliver it.
• Senior promotions often involve a queue: At higher levels, promotions become rarer, more expensive, and sometimes constrained by organizational needs or quotas. Leaders may maintain forward-looking promotion plans, making career progression partly about understanding where someone sits in the pipeline and what they need to demonstrate to move forward.

Original podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WaeGfLnRvc&t=24s