Jennifer Zamparelli chats to Career Psychologist and author, Sinead Brady, about promotions and when we should turn them down or weigh up our options. Listen back above.
Promotions, and the expectation that we should be chasing them at all times, can bring a lot of pressure to your job - not to mention the jump in responsibility that you may not necessary want or be able to manage right now.
"When the promotion comes up there's an expectation that you're going to be gung-ho, ready to go for it. And we have to take a step back, I think. Careers are no longer linear, Jen, they don't just happen in this step-by-step process where in your 20's, you do X and in your 30's, Y and in your 40's, so on.
"Actually, careers happen alongside life, and they happen in this way that takes the tempo of life. In fact, we know that many people at the time of promotions are coming up, their life circumstances may not suit it."
Among these circumstances are recent bereavement, a health diagnosis and more, Brady says, adding that if a promotion comes up, you would want to be able to do the work to the best of your abilities.
"Maybe you don't want to have to tell that in your workplace, you don't want to have to go into the detail of why you don't want a promotion."
She adds: "Success is no longer linear."
Brady has worked with a number of people who have told her that their careers "just happened" to them, rather than being something they actively chased. "What happens is, you end up getting into a role, you start in a role and you follow the logical path that the organisation has kind of mapped out for you.
"You do what's expected of you, you go for the promotion, and then you find yourself maybe mid-career where you've just gone through a major life transition, had a child, maybe you're caring for a loved one, you've got an opportunity that you weren't expecting or you just sit back and go, how did this happen to me?"
She continues: "You've actually not been in charge of your own version of success."
She notes that often a promotion can mean stepping away from the part of your job you enjoy the most, such as teachers moving into management. "Promotion doesn't always have to mean, that's the only way you can progress", she says.
According to Brady, there are two different ways of progressing in the workplace: subjective and objective. Objective progress is the promotion where the movement is linear and up the ladder. However, subjective progression in the workplace is about how you feel about what you're doing.
"It's your connection to what you're doing and it doesn't have to mean that you must get promoted in order to do that", she explains. Crucially, Brady adds, this connection doesn't have to be in your career.
So if your boss approaches you with a promotion opportunity, how should you respond?
Brady suggests starting by thinking about how you define success at that point in your life, so that you can make a decision based on what you want. This could mean saying yes to a promotion, but not at that moment in time.
"You have to also understand that the promotion is taking you in a particular path", Brady says.
"If you like the idea of that, go for it. Straight up, go for it, be ambitious. This is not about suggesting not to be ambitious, not to be really engaged in your career. This is about saying, I'm going to do what's right for me and perhaps promotion isn't the right thing for me if it's taking me away from the function of what I'm doing and that I really enjoy."
For more advice, listen back to the full interview above.
