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OK, how can I put this? Are you really sure you have, in fact, been promoted? I ask because, in my experience, people tend to notice real promotions. So, to the reader who asked this, I must very gently observe that if you are asking how to get your elevation recognised, then perhaps you are stumbling towards the uncomfortable truth that you have been duped.
There are lots of non-promotion promotions. The most obvious is a title bump. You’ve had the word “senior” added to your handle. Or maybe you’ve gone from executive to manager. Perhaps you hit the jackpot and are now a vice-president of something. It’s not nothing, especially if all your peers do not have the title. Mind you, many industries are experiencing title inflation, which sees the same job rebadged, perhaps to prevent someone leaving, or as an alternative to paying them more.
So before we get into how to disseminate the message of your success, let’s just check you have actually been successful. Ask yourself these questions. Are you being paid more? Do you have extra responsibilities? Do more people report to you? Are more people likely to defer to you or respect your autonomy? Are you now invited to a higher stratum of executive meetings? Did your “promotion” come with any of the visible boosts: a bigger office, a better desk, an assistant?
If the answer to most of these is no, the bad news is you haven’t been promoted. However, if you got a pay rise, at least you know you are valued, so that’s something. If all you got was the title, well knock yourself out updating your LinkedIn profile, but it’s probably best to approach this with the humility you would only be feigning were it real.
The general dynamic of organisations is that people pay attention to where power lies, so if you’ve just got more of it, word will get around. In many industries, word will also get around your rivals. In ultra-competitive areas such as investment banking, a promotion in one company will be common knowledge in all the others pretty swiftly.
But perhaps your promotion is real, and you are seeking advice on how to break the good news to those beyond the immediate world that recognises it. Possibly you are in a small, self-contained unit of a larger business. Maybe the people you wish to inform are your circle of friends, acquaintances and wider family. If this is the case, then there are a few options available.
The first, already mentioned, is to update your LinkedIn profile. This will notify your entire network. Updating your profile is a double-edged sword though. I once noticed my own profile was several years out of date and amended it to the job I’d had for three years at least. Everyone was immediately told I had changed roles when I hadn’t, and almost all assumed I was updating the profile as a prelude to looking for a new job.
Frankly, you could just go for a “Just Promoted” lapel badge. It’s a trifle gauche, but it has an essential honesty. Updating your LinkedIn profile is essentially the same thing but somehow feels less egregious.
The second step is to start including your new title on the footer of your emails. The good news here is that people will notice. The bad news is that they may notice and conclude you are a self-aggrandising, attention-seeking self-promoter.
Finally, there is the social media humblebrag in which you write posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or whatever, letting people know that you are thrilled to have been elevated to the position of whatever. You might begin this with the phrase “Some personal news . . . ”, which alerts readers to the fact that you are about to tell them something they may not care about.
An even more refined version of this is the one I noticed when people are shortlisted for awards, where the brag runs something like, “So excited and humbled to be nominated alongside these amazing people.” A more honest version of this might run, “Look how great I am, everybody. These are the bastards standing between me and the lucite.”
Anyway, may I be the first to congratulate you on your well-deserved advancement. Although judging by the question, it sounds like I am.
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