Way to go: Be a star and get noticed for that promotion

WELL DONE. You’ve made that important step up to middle management. Now all you have to do is work hard; or should that be work late? Get on well with your boss (and your boss’s boss) and senior management beckons. Or does it? Middle managers have just four years to prove that they are senior management material before being passed over — permanently, according to a survey by MRI Network, a recruitment consultancy. So the clock is ticking, but where should you start?

1. Take a step back. Ask what work means to you, says Helena Clayton, the principal consultant for personal effectiveness at Roffey Park, the executive education college. “Will (a promotion) fit with your broader life goals?” she says.

2. Avoid disappointment. Do you really know what senior managers in your company do? “Identify a couple of people at that level who are doing the job,” Clayton says. “Find out about the subtleties (of the role that) you wouldn’t see from a distance.” Do you still want that promotion?

3. If the answer is yes . . . Establish your career identity, says Steve Mills, the senior vice-president of franchise operations at MRI Network. “It’s much harder to be promoted internally than externally,” he says. “If you bump into someone senior, be prepared and have something to say. Don’t talk about your holiday, talk about the business.”

4.Take advice. “Ask people to comment on the things (that) you do well, and what you can do better,” Clayton says. The first step towards self-development is self-awareness.

5. Stretch yourself. Being great at your job is not enough and it might work against you. “Don’t be the person in the company who is relied upon to do one thing,” Mills says, or you’ll stay put.

6. Present solutions, not problems. “Go to your boss and say, ‘there is a problem and here are a number of solutions’, then recommend one and explain why,” says Jo Causon, the director of marketing and corporate affairs at the Chartered Management Institute.

7. Be a star. You have to show that you can work well in a team, but it’s important to get your name in lights, Mills says. Make sure that you have your name and your name alone on at least one important success.

8. Train your own successor. “Share your knowledge with your team,” Causon says. “Accept that there should be people on your team challenging for your role. It’s about confidence.” It also demonstrates leadership.

9. Keep learning. By joining a professional body you are showing that you have a commitment to your industry, Causon says. Get elected to a committee, Mills suggests. “Take on work outside the company to round your skills.”

10. Take a deep breath. “The people who get noticed are the ones who take risks and deliver on them,” Mills says. “You simply have to believe in yourself.”