You may have heard of the expressions "Patience is a virtue" and "Everything comes to those that wait" but let me assure you, in the corporate world, if all you are doing is being patient while waiting for someone to promote you because you have been there so long now, then you are mistaken.

The only sure way to get the promotion for which you are looking is to make sure that you stand out from the rest of the crowd, do more - show initiative and make sure that your boss knows that you are reliable and willing to do the work that is required, and even then there are no guarantees as to what will happen. All you can hope for is that when the time comes for them to promote someone, you will have shown them that you are the only logical candidate. Of course you have to hope that their logic and yours are the same, but generally speaking the boss is looking for someone that is willing to put in the effort and do the extra work as well as someone that is responsible enough to make sure that while doing the extra, their own work does not suffer.

Sounds like a tall order? Well trust me it is, but if you are wanting to get somewhere in the company for which you are working then you have to have some way of making sure that you get noticed, and getting noticed for the good things that you do is always better than getting noticed for the things that you do wrong.

Make no mistake, there are times when you will mess things up, and they will not go the way you wanted them to, own up to it and make sure that you learn from your experiences. Making one mistake is acceptable, repeating it because you did not learn from it is an entirely different thing. Of course you should always try and ask for help when you are unsure of what you should be doing, and certainly try to make sure that you know what the end goal is, else you will never know when you have done that which you were supposed to do.

In short, don't be afraid to try and do something, make sure you know what it is you want to achieve and get whatever help you need to get there.

This will get you noticed for the right reasons, and of course when the time comes for someone to get promoted we can only hope that you have distinguished yourself from the rest of the applicants.

Good luck with that promotion !!

Lori Smith

Lori Smith - Chief Energy Officer

Lori Smith is a professional coach, consultant and founder of Foundation Coaching and HyperClique Career Coaching.

She shares what she learned after 8 years in the IT Service Desk support arena. Where she started as an help desk analyst and worked her way up to be a Technical Team Lead. She shares her knowledge and experience of both being in the trenches and being a tortured Mid-manager stuck in the middle of Head Office and employees. She shares her experience of breaking free of the old Corp world and following her true passion.

Lori believes there is a better way to lead people... Empower them. Empower them to define and reach their personal goals, Empower them to define and reach the companies goals. Simply put workforce morale is directly linked to profitability. Low morale - low profits, High morale - high profits.

People that are happy, people that feel valued and appreciated are more productive and more productivity means more profits for the company.

Do you feel your company needs to make these changes? Take action now to value your employees and change the way you do business.