Have you ever sat at a conference room table internally cringing at what someone else was saying and wondered just how they got there? Six months later you hear that they received a promotion. Yes, that person. The idiot, the one you can outperform because you have better projects, or deliverables, or more letters after your name? Yes. they got a promotion (and probably a nice raise too). Here is the real reason incompetent people get ahead and how you can follow their lead on what they did to win over the higher ups.
If you feel like your career has stagnated and incompetent people are getting head. Take a look at what these incompetent people may specifically be doing to shine brighter than you are.
But wait, I’m smarter or work harder then them!
Yes, you could be smarter than those who are in higher leadership positions. But leadership isn’t just about being smart, there are lots of other soft skills that are considered to be an asset.
I myself would not claim to be the smartest person on my team. But I do possess a lot of soft skills, such as relationship management, problem solving, and communication.
If you think you work harder than people, ask yourself if you work smart. Working smart is ensuring that you are using your precious time exactly where it is needed the most.
For instance, I can recall a person, lets call them Martin, who considered themselves to be very busy and overworked. They would toil over the projects and take way longer than the task would reasonably demand. They never got a promotion out of their entry level management position. Why? Upper management decided that they have poor time management since they seemed so overworked on the tasks in front of them.
BUT that story could have a different ending altogether. Why? Martin put on the appearance of being very hard working and dedicated, even though the was very slow at task completion. Martin could have been one of these incompetent people who get ahead.
How could Martin have gotten ahead? Read on!
What do they know? Understanding the real reason incompetent people get ahead
Alright, it’s time for a self-check. Yes, you possess valuable qualities as an employee or entry level manager, but you may be undermining your progress up the career ladder with some mistakes. Learn these 9 reasons why incompetent people get promoted and how you can learn and follow their lead!
Attitude is everything
Having a positive attitude towards change is an asset as a future leader. If you show up ready to work with a can-do attitude, people will take notice and want to work with you.
When it comes to setting up a great network within the organization, being friendly goes a long way. Find out the benefits to your career with having a friendly attitude here.
Know the company’s goal and become a champion of those goals
If you don’t want to get passed up for the seemingly incompetent person, you need to align yourself with the company’s goals.
While you don’t need to walk around like a cheerleader, research what the goals are and figure out how your work projects can align or support those goals. Ensure that you highlight those contributions to the company’s higher ups. See more information below.
Ease up on the alienation
Be honest with yourself, do you get people upset with your gossip, being overly defensive, always trying to one up someone else? If you do anything that annoys people, “because that’s who I am”, then you need to take a second look and see if your actions are holding you back.
Not sure what you may be doing to annoy your team? Read some of the 12 ways you may be accidentally annoying your team here.
Make yourself memorable – for the right reasons
Ensure that people know your name, your job title, and your area of expertise. Accomplish this by speaking up, get out and meet people outside of your team or department.
Go ahead, get out there in your organization, volunteer to get involved in events, join the company softball team. You never know who might influence your role within the company in the future and you want to leave a positive impression with as many as possible.
Authenticity in your actions
It took some work for me to go from “the loud blonde one” to the go-to problem solver on my team. Take the opportunity to define who you want to be and act it everyday.
This will take an authentic effort on your part over time. You can’t be a team player for a few weeks and then get frustrated because your boss hasn’t given you a gold star yet.
If you want to improve your authenticity, start small and build yourself up. Learn how to give authentic compliments to your team here!
Perfect the elevator pitch
You should be able to easily say what you are working on and what the positive impact is in 15 seconds or less. You never know when you will have some brief face time with your boss’ boss. For them, your work doesn’t speak for itself because they don’t always see it or your specific role in a project. Highlight where that work supports the company’s goals. Make yourself the one to watch!
Play nice in the sandbox
Simply getting along with others will go a long way. Don’t make upper management jump through hoops on how great your projects are to justify promoting a complete a$$#*!+.
Be a problem solver – include the really annoying problems too
Every team has those annoying problems that just don’t seem to go away. If you find a way to solve some issues, this will go a long way with the right people developing a favorable opinion of you.
Find something to automate, solve THAT customer’s problem, organize the closet where you cannot find anything. Figure out the pain points and work towards solving them.
Don’t compete with others – help others
Everyone loves to see a mentor. When you mentor it shows off not only that you are smart, but you are willing to work with others and develop them by sharing your own experience. Instead of trying to prove that you are the smartest in the room, you are demonstrating it by being a competent teacher. That has promotion written all over it.
Putting it all together: the real reason incompetent people get ahead
To put this all together, back to our original story with hard working Martin, how did he not get ahead? He was excellent at telling everyone how busy he was, and would actively self promote this level of busy by highlighting the number of documents on their desk to anyone who entered their office.
In Martin’s case, upper management used to specifically do his job about a decade ago. They could see through the nonsense because they had first hand knowledge of the work. But, we know that this would likely have a different outcome if the upper leadership was not familiar. In many organizations, upper leadership oversees teams of people who have tasks that leadership only understand at a high level. Martin’s charade of overwork may have been successful with a different leader.
To solve the real reason incompetent people get ahead can be a number of factors, but the theme of these is because they are well liked. They have either shone on a single project and are able to capitalize on this for years or people know who they are and would rather take a risk on someone they know. You have the ability to do this too. Adopt some of these tactics and you will be one of the stories about how someone competent achieved success.