How to Get Promoted When You Switch Jobs

 

Something shifted in the room when I said this: “If your resume says Director and the role says VP, most people will not do the imagination work for you.”   I was teaching a three-hour bonus workshop inside Success Builders called The VP Leap: How to Level Up to VP by Switching Companies, and I could feel the reaction immediately.   Not because it was shocking. Because it explained what so many people had already experienced.   These were smart, ambitious, high-performing leaders. The kind of people who had already led teams, owned big outcomes, influenced across the business, and operated at a level that often exceeded their title. And yet, when they thought about applying externally for VP roles, the same doubt showed up.   “Will they take me seriously if my title still says Director?” “Do I need to take another lateral move first?” “Am I being unrealistic?”   This is the part nobody tells you about senior-level career moves.   More often that you think the problem is not your experience. The issue is whether the market has enough context to understand your potential. And when your current title does not match the role you want next, context matters more than most people realize.   Because if you apply cold to a VP role with a Director title, you are asking a recruiter, hiring manager, or executive to connect a lot of dots in a very short amount of time.   This is why so many talented Directors apply to VP roles, hear nothing, and assume the silence means they aimed too high. So they shrink the goal.   They apply for another Director role. And they tell themselves, “I’ll make the leap next time.”   But that “next time” can quietly become another two, three, or five years.   I see this pattern all the time. And the people who break it usually do one thing differently: They stop waiting for the market to figure them out. They make their value obvious.   The Real Problem With Trying to Make a VP Leap Externally The traditional job search process is built for obvious matches.   Director applying to Director. VP applying to VP. Head of Marketing applying to Head of Marketing.   When the title, scope, and story all line up neatly, the market does not have to work very hard. But when your current title says one thing and your target role says something bigger, the burden of proof changes.   Now you have to make the case. Most people try to make that case by polishing their resume. That makes sense, but it is incomplete.   A better resume can help, but it cannot carry the full weight of a skip-level move. It cannot explain your judgment in a conversation. It cannot show how you think through trade-offs. It cannot build trust with someone who has never met you. And it cannot create access to opportunities that are never posted or are already being discussed quietly behind the scenes.   The real challenge is not just getting your materials ready. The real challenge is helping the right people understand why you are the right bet before your title becomes the filter.   That is the difference between a regular job search and a skip level VP leap.   A regular job search starts with applications. An external VP leap starts with positioning.   And this is not theory. This is the strategy that helped Jessica go from Director to VP in six months.   It helped Shauna go from Director to VP in 90 days. And it helped Jennifer, D.J, Samir and Nick do the same.   Different people. Different companies. Different paths.   But the pattern was the same: once they stopped relying on their current title to tell the whole story, they started creating better opportunities.   Inside the workshop, I taught a simple framework called POLO: Positioning. Offer. List. Outreach.   That is the heart of the strategy.   You need clear positioning so people understand where you fit. You need a strong offer so they understand why you are the right bet. You need a focused list so you are not networking randomly. And you need outreach that opens conversations before the formal hiring process reduces you to a title.   Let me show you how that works.

The POLO Framework In Action 1. Positioning: Know the VP Lane You Are Playing In The first thing we worked on in the workshop was positioning. This is where a lot of ambitious people make the same mistake. They try to stay open to everything because they do not want to close doors.   They say something like: “I’m open to VP Marketing, VP Strategy, Chief of Staff, Product Marketing, Partnerships, or anything where I can make a bigger impact.”   I understand the instinct. Flexibility feels safe. But at the executive level, broad positioning often creates more confusion than opportunity.   If someone cannot quickly understand where you fit, they cannot easily refer you. They cannot introduce you to the right person. They cannot hear about a role and immediately think, “This is exactly who they need.”   Your positioning has to make you stand out for something specific.   That does not mean you are only capable of one thing. It means you are choosing a lane so the market can understand your value.   In the workshop, I had everyone build what I call a VP Thesis. This is not a tagline. It is not a LinkedIn headline.   It is an internal strategy memo that helps you decide what roles to pursue, what opportunities to ignore, and what stories to lead with.   A strong VP Thesis answers a few simple questions: What VP lane are you targeting? What business problem are you best equipped to solve? What proof do you have that you can operate at that level?   Weak positioning sounds like: I’m looking for a VP Marketing role where I can use my background in growth, brand, product marketing, partnerships, and strategy.   There may be nothing wrong with that experience, but the message is too broad. It makes the listener do too much work.   Stronger positioning sounds like: I’m targeting VP Marketing roles where I can own pipeline and revenue outcomes for a B2B SaaS company that needs to improve conversion, efficiency, or expansion.   Your positioning should help people place you. If it does not, it is not working hard enough. 2. Offer: Turn Your Experience Into a Future Impact Pitch Once your positioning is clear, the next step is learning how to talk about your value in a way that resonates at the executive-level. This is where many strong Directors lose momentum.   They finally get in a conversation with a recruiter, senior leader, or potential referral partner, and when the person says, “Tell me about yourself,” they walk through their career history. They explain where they started, what they owned, what team they managed, what projects they led, and how they moved from one role to the next.   It is accurate. It is also usually not what they were asking for.   At the VP level, people are not listening for a full timeline. They are listening for judgment, scope, ownership, and repeatable impact.   They want to know: What problem do you solve? How do you think? Where do you create leverage? Why should I believe your success can translate here? That is why we build a Future Impact Pitch.   The pitch has four parts: Positioning: what you do best in business terms Proof: one story that shows scope, judgment, and outcomes Fit: why your strengths match the company’s current mandate Operating system: how you approach the work in a repeatable way   Here is a simple version: “The through-line in my work is building revenue systems that are measurable, repeatable, and not dependent on heroics. In my last role, we had strong marketing activity, but inconsistent pipeline quality, so I tightened our ICP, rebuilt the handoff with sales, and shifted spend toward the channels that were actually producing revenue. That improved conversion and gave leadership a clearer view of where growth was coming from. For a company trying to scale without wasting budget, that is exactly the kind of problem I know how to solve.”   That is only four sentences, but it does a lot.   It gives the listener a lane. It proves the lane with a real business problem. It shows judgment and decisions, not just activity. And it connects your experience to the kind of impact the company likely needs next.   This is the part people underestimate.   When you are trying to move from Director to VP, your story cannot just be a record of what you have done. It has to help people see what you can be trusted to own next. That is a very different conversation. 3. List: Strategic Networking That Opens Doors The list is the least glamorous part of the process, but it is an important one. Once you know your positioning and pitch, go to LinkedIn and build a list.   A company list: the companies you would want to work for, and you are uniquely positioned to help. And a people list: The people inside those companies who might hire you.   The company list should include organizations where your background makes strategic sense. If your strength is building scalable go-to-market systems, look for companies where growth is getting messy and the business needs more structure.   If your strength is operational transformation, look for companies dealing with complexity, inefficiency, or integration.   The people list should include leaders inside those companies who would be the ones hiring you. This list is your access to the hidden job market.   This matters because VP opportunities often do not work the way individual contributor or mid-level manager roles work.   By the time a VP role is posted, the company may already have a short list. Someone may have been referred.   A trusted leader may have already made an introduction.   If your entire strategy is “I’ll wait for the perfect posting and apply,” you are showing up late to a conversation that may have started months earlier.   That is why the external VP leap is not just a resume strategy. It is a positioning and access strategy. And this list is how you get access in advance. 4. Outreach: Create Conversations Before You Need the Job This is where the strategy becomes powerful. Most people only network when they need something, which is exactly why the outreach feels awkward.   They reach out and say some version of, “I’m looking for my next opportunity. Do you know of any openings?” The problem is not that the message is rude. It is that it asks too much, too soon.   If someone does not know you, they have very little reason to put their reputation on the line. And if they do not have an opening, the conversation ends before it starts.   Strategic outreach makes the first step smaller.   You are not asking them to solve your job search. You are opening a conversation around something relevant: their career path, a topic they have spoken about, a challenge you are studying, or a transition they have made that connects to your own goals.   A weak message sounds like this: “Hi Sarah, I’m exploring my next career move and would love to pick your brain about your leadership journey. Are you open to a call?”   A stronger message sounds like this: “Hi Sarah, I listened to your interview on leading through a turnaround, especially the part about resetting priorities without burning out the team. I’ve run into a similar challenge as I’ve taken on bigger scope, and I’d love to ask you 2–3 questions about how you made that shift. Would you be open to a quick 20-minute conversation in the next couple of weeks?”   That message works because it gives Sarah a reason to respond. It is specific. It is human. It shows you did your homework.   And it does not make her responsible for your job search five seconds after meeting you.   Then, if the conversation goes well, you can share what you are exploring. You can explain the kind of role you are targeting. You can make it easy for the other person to connect the dots between your experience and a possible opportunity.   This is how people begin to experience you before they ever lay eyes on your resume. And when an opportunity comes up, you are no longer a cold resume in a pile. You are a person they already understand.   That is the real advantage.

Your Next Steps Your title matters. I am not going to pretend it does not.   If you are a Director applying for VP roles, some people will overlook you. Some recruiters will filter you out. Some companies will decide they want someone who has already held the title. That is real.   But it is not the whole story.   Your current title is one data point. It is not your entire business case.   The mistake is letting that title decide the size of your next move before you have even made the case. If you are not ready for VP, close the gaps. Build the scope. Get the experience. Strengthen the proof.   But if you are ready, or close enough that the right role would stretch you in the right direction, do not assume a lateral move is your only option.   Follow the POLO framework. It generated dozens of VP promotions, including my own.

How to Become the Obvious Choice for VP in the Next 90 Days

 

 

The 90 Day Plan to Become the Obvious Choice for VP Most people think becoming VP-ready takes years. It doesn't have to. What takes years is doing great work while waiting for someone else to notice.   If I had 90 days to shift how senior leaders saw me, here is the exact action plan I would follow.   Step 1: The VP Mirror Before you do anything else, you need to stop guessing how you're perceived.   At senior levels, promotions are less about output and more about risk. Executives ask themselves whether promoting you feels safe, predictable, and aligned with the business.   The VP Mirror forces you to see yourself the way decision-makers see you, not the way your performance reviews read.   Run The Perception Audit Answer yes or no: Do I know who actually influences VP promotion decisions in my organization? Do I know what those people care about at the VP level? Can I clearly articulate how they currently describe me in one sentence? Does that description emphasize strategy, judgment, and outcomes, or execution and effort? If a VP role opened tomorrow, would they say "ready now" or "strong potential"?   If you answered "no" more than twice, you're not behind. You're operating without a mirror.   That's the fastest way to work hard and stay stuck.   Your Action: Write down: The 3-5 people who shape VP decisions What you believe each one would say about you today What you need them to say about you to be seen as ready   This becomes the baseline for everything else.   Step 2: The One-and-Done Visibility Plan Once people realize there's a perception gap, they usually jump straight to "I need more visibility" and try to be everywhere. That's a recipe for burnout.   Visibility is not about being louder or busier. It's about sending the right signal, consistently, at the right altitude with the right people.   Senior leaders don't notice who is everywhere. They notice who shows up talking about decisions, tradeoffs, and outcomes.   That's why I teach a one-signal-per-week visibility plan.   You invest your time in one action that gives you the right kind of exposure and doesn't burn you out.   What counts as a real visibility signal? A visibility signal answers one question for senior leaders: "Can I already imagine this person operating at the VP level?"   Examples: Presenting a recommendation instead of a status update Leading a cross-functional discussion tied to a business priority Reframing a problem leadership is already debating Sharing an executive update that answers questions before they are asked    Same work. Different altitude.   What doesn't work Speaking more without changing the substance Volunteering for extra work that stays invisible Being busy in the wrong rooms   Your Action: Plan the next four weeks of visibility. For each week, write: Where will I be visible? (email, meeting, 1:1, Slack) Who will see this? (manager, skip level, leadership team, cross-functional leaders) What do they need to see? (decision-making, strategy, business impact, influence)   This is what strategic visibility is all about.   Specific and targeted action that puts you in front of the right people and creates the right perception.   Inside my program we provide a quarterly visibility plan with weekly action items so you never have to wonder, "Am I doing enough?"   Step 3: The Sponsor Matrix Senior promotions are a team sport. They happen when someone senior is willing to bet on you.   Mentors advise. Supporters encourage. Sponsors advocate when you're not in the room.   Sponsorship does not come from coffee chats or long relationships alone. You may have a standing one-on-one with your cross-functional SVP, but that doesn't mean they'll go to bat for you. Sponsorship comes from shared wins at the right altitude, with the right stakeholders.   Identify Your Sponsor Matrix You don't need to be everyone's best friend. In fact, you probably shouldn't. What you need is to identify the three stakeholders beyond your manager who matter most for your promotion.   That list usually includes: Your skip level Senior leadership team members C-suite leaders Occasionally board members in smaller companies   Then ask: What do they care about right now? How does my work make their priorities easier to achieve? Where could a shared win naturally exist?   Your Action: Choose one person from your Sponsor Matrix and get on their calendar in the next 30 days with a value-led agenda.   Less "Let's catch up." More "Here's how this initiative can help move one of your priorities forward."   Step 4: The Reputation Ladder As you grow, your reputation must move up the ladder.   Most high performers are described like this: She gets things done. He's reliable. They execute really well.   That's not wrong. It's just not senior enough.   At the VP level, reputation sounds different: She's highly strategic. He can handle ambiguity. They make strong decisions under pressure.   The Reputation Ladder is about intentionally moving your narrative to the next rung. It's how you shape how people see you instead of letting them make their own assumptions.   A great example of executive narrative done well is the 60-second executive introduction formula.   It's how you go from: "Hey, I'm Maya, Director of Marketing at ACME."   To: "Hey, I'm Maya, Director of Marketing at ACME. My team and I are focused on aligning marketing and sales to accelerate revenue growth. Over the last eight months we've completely overhauled our positioning, a $1M initiative that's already helped us land two new logos with three more in the pipeline."   Same role. Very different signal.   Your Action: Write two short paragraphs: Paragraph 1: How you're typically described today Paragraph 2: How a VP-ready leader should be described   That gap shows you exactly what needs to change.   Step 5: The Promotion Case You won't see this listed as a requirement anywhere, but a promotion business case is non-negotiable. If you don't make the case for your promotion, no one else will do it for you.   A Promotion Case is not: A resume A performance review A list of past accomplishments   It is a future-focused argument for why the business benefits from you operating at the next level.   A strong Promotion Case answers: What scope am I already operating at? What problems do I own beyond my role? What decisions do I influence? What outcomes have changed because of my leadership? What additional value could I unlock at the next level?   This is not something you send cold. It's something you use to anchor conversations with your manager and sponsors.   Your Action: Start a win bank to track your scope, impact, and influence. Ask yourself: If I was promoted today, what would I do differently?   The answer is the beginning of your future-focused plan.   The 90-Day Execution Plan Here's how this actually turns into action.   Days 1-30 Complete the VP Mirror perception audit Draft your current vs. desired Reputation Ladder Identify your Sponsor Matrix   Days 31-60 Build and execute your One-and-Done Visibility Plan weekly Start creating shared wins with at least one sponsor Refine your executive narrative    Days 61-90 Synthesize everything into a Promotion Case Align with your manager on readiness and timing Strengthen advocacy behind the scenes   Copy-Paste Checklist: Are You VP-Ready?  I've completed a VP Mirror perception audit  I know who influences VP decisions and how I'm perceived  I have a 4-week visibility plan  I've defined my Sponsor Matrix  I've drafted my Reputation Ladder narrative  I've started a future-focused Promotion Case

Stop “updating” your VP. Start leading

Your weekly meeting with your manager is one of the most important perception-building moments you have.   At senior levels, your 1:1 is not just a place to keep your VP informed. It is one of the few recurring moments where they get to see how you think. How you prioritize. How you make decisions. How you manage risk. How you influence across the business. How you turn messy problems into forward motion.   In other words, your 1:1 is not just a meeting. It is a stage.   And every week, you are training your VP to see you either as the person who manages the work or the person who is ready to lead more of it.   That may sound subtle, but it is not. It is the difference between being seen as dependable and being seen as promotable.   The Biggest VP 1:1 Mistake: Bringing Updates Instead of Leadership Most high performers prepare for VP 1:1s the same way.   They make a list: What got done What is in progress What is delayed What they are waiting on What they are doing next   There’s nothing wrong with sharing that information. Your VP does need visibility. The problem is when routine updates take over the whole conversation.   Because updates answer one question: “What happened?”   Leadership answers a better question: “What does this mean, and what should we do next?”   That is the shift.   If all you bring to the meeting is information, your VP has to do the executive thinking for you. They have to find the pattern, identify the risk, connect it to the business, and decide where to lean in.   That may be fine earlier in your career. It is not enough when you want to be seen as ready for the next level.   The higher you go, the less valuable it is to simply report activity. Your value comes from creating clarity.   How Better Executive Communication Creates Promotion Visibility I saw this with one of my clients recently. She was already doing work beyond her scope, but her VP wasn’t seeing the full picture. Their 1:1s were productive, but too operational. She was giving thoughtful updates, yet the leadership behind those updates wasn’t landing.   So we changed the way she prepared.   Instead of walking in with a long list of progress notes, she started bringing the few things that showed her judgment: the outcome she was driving, the pattern she was noticing, the tradeoff she was weighing, and the ask that would help her move faster.   Within a few weeks, her VP commented on how much she was doing that he had never been aware of before. Two months later, he brought up preparing her for promotion.   Her work didn’t suddenly become more valuable. Her leadership became more visible.   That’s the point. Your VP cannot advocate for the version of you they cannot see.

What Your VP Actually Needs From Your 1:1 Your VP does not need every detail live in the meeting. They need signal. They need to know what matters, what changed, what decision needs to be made, what risk is emerging, where you need support, and what you are seeing that they may not be close enough to see.   This is the difference between walking in and saying: “Here’s what I’ve been working on.”   and walking in with: “Here’s what I’m driving, here’s what I’m seeing, and here’s how I recommend we move forward.”   One version makes you sound busy. The other makes you sound like a leader.   The 3-Part VP 1:1 Agenda for Promotion Readiness The good news is that a strategic 1:1 does not mean you need a 47 slide presentation. Please don’t. Your VP has suffered enough.   It just means you need to stop spending your most valuable visibility moment on information that could have been an email. But you do need to walk in with more than updates.   A simple way to do that is to prepare three things: The outcome The insight The leadership move   Here’s what that look like.   1. The outcome: connect your work to business impact Start with the most important result you are driving. Not every task. Not every meeting. Not every moving piece.   The outcome.   Try this: “The most important outcome I’m focused on right now is…”   This immediately anchors the conversation in impact instead of activity.   For example, instead of saying: “We’re still working on the onboarding project.”   You might say: “The outcome I’m driving is reducing onboarding friction before the Q3 expansion push.”   See the difference?   The first version tells your VP what you are working on. The second tells them why the work matters.   This is a small shift, but it changes the entire conversation. Now you are not just reporting on a project. You are connecting your work to a business result.   That is what makes you sound more senior. Not to mention, it’s an opportunity to share a win when you eventually drive the outcome you’ve been focusing on.   2. The insight: show how you think Next, bring one thing you are seeing that matters. This could be a pattern, a risk, a customer signal, a stakeholder issue, a tradeoff, or a blocker that is bigger than one task.   Try this: “What I’m seeing is…”   This is where your VP gets to see your judgment.   For example, instead of saying: “We met with Sales and CS this week.”   You might say: “What I’m seeing is that the real blocker is not the onboarding material. It’s unclear ownership between Sales and CS in the first 14 days.”   Again, totally different signal.   The first version reports activity. The second version interprets what the activity means.   Executives do not need you to prove that meetings happened. They need to know what you learned, what matters, and what requires attention.   This is where so many high performers undersell themselves. They are seeing the right things. They are connecting dots. They are spotting patterns. But they leave all of that thinking in their own head, then show up to leadership with the most basic version of the update.   That is a missed opportunity. If you are doing the thinking, let them see the thinking.   3. The leadership move: bring a recommendation, decision, or ask Finally, bring the recommendation, ask, or next move.   Try one of these: “My recommendation is…” “What I need from you is…” “The decision I’m making is…” “The tradeoff I’m weighing is…”   This is where you stop reporting and start leading.   For example, instead of ending with: “Let me know what you think.”   You might say: “My recommendation is to pilot one clear handoff owner for enterprise customers before we scale it across all segments.” Or: “What I need from you is air cover with Sales leadership so we can make this the default process for the pilot.”   That is a much stronger conversation.   You are not handing your VP a problem and waiting for them to solve it. You are bringing them your point of view, showing your reasoning, and making it easier for them to help you move the work forward.   That is executive communication.   How to Send Status Updates Without Wasting Your 1:1 To be clear, I am not saying you should stop updating your VP. They still need updates.   But routine updates do not need to take over your most valuable leadership conversation of the week.   Send the basic status information in advance by email. That way, your VP still has visibility into the work, but you are not spending your 1:1 reading them a status report they could have skimmed in two minutes.   Send the update before the meeting. Use your 1:1 to show your leadership. And by the way, you do not need to cover all three parts every single time. Focus on what matters most.

Your Next Steps Before your next VP 1:1, do two things. First, send the routine update in advance. That alone will make the meeting more useful.   Second, prepare three lines for the live conversation: “The outcome I’m driving is…” “What I’m seeing is…” “My recommendation / ask / next move is…”   This is how you stop walking into high-value conversations with low-value material.   Your VP 1:1 is not just a meeting. It is a repeated opportunity to shape how senior leaders see you.   Use it well, and you stop being seen only as the person who manages the work. You start being seen as the person who is ready to lead more of it.

Levels

Write Your Executive Narrative Before Others Do It for You

 

One of the biggest mistakes high-performers make is assuming their work will tell the whole story. But the people deciding whether you are ready for more rarely see the full picture.   They do not see every decision you made, every fire you put out, or every smart move that kept a project from going sideways. They see pieces. A comment in a meeting. A project that landed well. The quality of your updates. The way you handle tension. The reputation you have with your team. The kinds of problems people trust you to handle.   From those pieces, they make a judgment.   She is strong, but still pretty tactical. He is reliable, but stays close to his lane. She creates clarity when things get messy. He already thinks beyond his title.   That judgment matters more than most people realize because when your name comes up in a promotion or succession conversation, nobody is reading your resume out loud. They are summarizing what they believe about you.   That summary is your executive narrative.   Not a polished headline you put on LinkedIn. The real story people believe because your behavior has given them enough proof And if you do not shape that story on purpose, people usually land on the easiest version of you.   Helpful. Reliable. Hardworking. Great executor. All positive.   Also exactly the kind of story that keeps a lot of talented people out of the VP conversation.   What executives are really trying to decide At senior levels, the question is not just, “Is this person good?” It is, “Can I trust this person with more?”   More scope. More ambiguity. More visibility. More business risk.   That is what your executive narrative is really doing. It is helping people answer the trust question.   Can this person think at the right level? Can they lead well when things get messy? Are they already showing signs of broader leadership?   Once you understand that, your narrative stops being fluffy and starts becoming useful.   You are not trying to come up with a smart way to describe yourself. You are trying to make your leadership team come to the right conclusion about you.

The three judgments leaders are making about you Whether they say it out loud or not, senior leaders are usually making three big judgments.   1. How does this person think? Do you jump into execution, or do you make sure people are solving the right problem? Do you bring analysis, or do you bring judgment? Do you understand tradeoffs, business context, and what actually matters most?   This is where a lot of strong people get underestimated. They may be perfectly capable of strategic thinking, but they are not making that thinking visible often enough. So leadership sees the output without fully seeing the quality of mind behind it.   2. How does this person lead? What is it like to work with you when things are unclear, tense, or changing? Do you create clarity or confusion? Do you make people steadier or more anxious? Do people trust you, follow you, and do their best work around you?   Leadership is not only watching what you deliver. They are watching the environment you create.   One of the strongest leadership signals in my own career was transparency. When things were changing, I did not try to keep people comfortable by hiding reality. I gave my team context. I told them what was changing, what was uncertain, and what we needed to do next. I treated people like adults.   That built trust fast.   My teams became more independent because they had the truth. They performed better because they were not wasting energy trying to decode what was really happening. And I became known as a leader people could trust, especially when things were messy.   That is the kind of leadership signal people remember.   3. What level is this person already operating at? Are you waiting to be told? Are you mostly focused on your own lane? Or are you already showing signs of broader ownership?   This one matters a lot.   People do not promote potential in the abstract. They promote proof. They look for signs that the next level is already starting to show up in how you think, lead, and take ownership.   Why smart people still get executive narrative wrong Usually, this is not an intelligence problem. It is an evidence problem.   A lot of smart people are doing excellent work while building the wrong case for themselves.   They show effort where leadership needs to see judgment. They solve problems without making their thinking visible. They are capable of more, but the signals they send still point to “strong performer” rather than “larger-scope leader.”   And that can keep you stuck in the “not ready yet” box.   Not because you’re not ready. Because the story in other people’s heads is still too small.   How to shape your executive narrative Let me start with what you don’t need; a fancy tagline. You can’t tell people how to see you, you need to act the way you want to be seen to shape the narrative in their heads.   Here’s a simple way to think about it and shape your story:   Step 1: Decide the reputation you want Start with the conclusion. What do you want senior leaders to believe about you?   Not a vague trait. A real, promotion-relevant takeaway.   One way to think about it is to ask yourself: what’s missing right now? Or what perception do I need to fix? Are you seen as too tactical? Then you want to reposition yourself as a strategic partner who understands the business.   Maybe you’re boxed in your lane? Then you want the reputation of someone who can think at the org level and drive impact beyond their role. Or maybe your leadership isn’t visible? Then you want to be known as the leader who makes teams stronger and more efficient.   That is the level of clarity you want.   Step 2: Identify the behaviors that would make that reputation believable Once you know the reputation you want, ask the next obvious question: What would the leadership team need to repeatedly observe in order to believe it?   If you want to be seen as strategic, the proof might be that you ask sharper questions, challenge assumptions, connect work to business priorities, and bring recommendations instead of just analysis.   If you want to be seen as a trusted leader, the proof might be that you communicate clearly in uncertainty, tell the truth without drama, remain calm under pressure, and build strong, independent teams.   If you want to be seen as ready for bigger scope, the proof might be that you notice issues above your lane, support goals beyond your own, represent your team cross-functionally, and show ownership before you have formal authority.   Once you know the reputation you want, outline the 3-5 behaviors that will prove your narrative.   Anyone can say they are ready for more, but the leadership team needs proof. They want evidence that betting on you won’t be a mistake, and the right behaviors send that message loud and clear.   Let me give you a few examples. I became known as strategic because I kept asking first-principles questions. Are we solving the right problem? Why are we assuming this is the answer? What would actually matter to the business here? What are we missing?   I did not need to announce that I was strategic. People experienced it.   One of my clients recently shared they were able to show next level readiness by looking for ways to support their manager’s goals and take meaningful things off their plate. Another client did it by stepping into a cross-functional project where they had to represent their team and influence beyond their role.   They didn’t leave it to chance. They were intentional about the signals they were sending. Instead of guessing what would make them ready in the eyes of leadership, they mapped out the right behaviors and started showing them.   Step 3: Make that proof visible in repeatable moments This is where most people chicken out. They outline the reputation, they map out the behaviors but… they never actually go for it. So they end up with a fancy word doc with a list of adjectives they want to be known for, and zero transformation.   Taking action means getting more intentional about where your proof shows up.   Meetings matter. One-on-ones matter. Written updates matter. Cross-functional work matters. Messy moments matter. Those are the moments that shape perception.   If you want to be known as strategic, then your questions in meetings matter.   A basic question sounds like, “Who owns this?” A stronger question sounds like, “Before we assign owners, are we clear on the actual problem we are trying to solve?” One shows participation. The other shows level.   The same is true in your updates. A weak update proves effort: “We completed A, B, and C. Next week we’ll move into D.”   A stronger update shows judgment: “We completed A, B, and C. What stands out is that adoption is slowing because ownership is still fragmented across teams. My recommendation is to simplify decision-making before we add more activity.”   Now people can actually see how you think.   The same goes for moments of uncertainty. When priorities shift, stakeholders get difficult, or a project goes sideways, people decide very quickly who creates clarity, who adds noise, who stays grounded, and who disappears into the weeds.   Those moments shape your story. Use them.   Step 4: Repeat until people can say it without your help I wish I could tell you that one meeting or one email would be enough to change your story. Reputation is built on consistency.   A narrative sticks when leaders have seen enough evidence to believe your narrative is the truth. The associate you with the story and can repeat it in rooms you are not in.   Try this quick test: If a senior leader had to advocate for you tomorrow, what narrative would they feel confident sharing (because they have proof)?   Could they say: This person shows strong judgment. This person leads well under pressure. This person is already operating at a higher level.   Or would they mostly say: Hardworking. Reliable. Always delivers. Great attitude.   There is nothing wrong with those qualities. They are just not enough on their own to make the case for bigger scope. That is the gap you need to pay attention to.

Your Next Steps If right now someone else is in control of your narrative, let’s change that.   Take ten minutes and answer three questions: What do I want to be known for? What behaviors would make that believable? Where in my week do those behaviors need to become more visible?   Then look at your meetings, one-on-ones, updates, cross-functional work, and messy moments. Those are not random parts of your job. They are the places where your narrative is being built.   Be intentional. Because people are already building a story about you.   The danger is not that they have no story. It is that the story is too small.