Real-life example: turning down a promotion

Our next real-life example concerns passing on a promotion within a culture which prizes competition and quick personal advancement through stellar immediate results on projects. 

Shared by Tara Mohr in her writing, it is based on a conversation with one of the graduates of her Playing Big programme, Margaret, a director at a major global professional services firm. Their conversation took place several months after Margaret had finished the course, and Tara describes it as a story of positive change that moved her.

“[Margaret] explained to me that she’d been offered a highly coveted promotion, a role for which all her peers at the firm had competed. When Margaret “won”, everyone assumed she would take the job, but she turned it down – making company history as she did so. 

Why? When she was offered the promotion, Margaret was 50 percent of the way through a multi-year project she’d developed from inception. She didn’t want to abandon the work or her team. She valued relationships. She valued seeing things through to the end. Plus, Margaret believed that part of what created corruption and waste in her industry were the practices around promotions: a professional workforce that greedily leapt from job to job to advance as quickly as it could, one in which employees were held accountable for their immediate results but not their long-term impact. That led to poor decisions that weren’t really in the interests of people – the clients, the shareholders, the investors – who were impacted by them. Participating in that did not feel right to Margaret… 

When Margaret turned down the promotion, she let people know why she did it, and she established her reputation as a leader focused on long-term impact, not merely her title. That led to some even more high-profile opportunities coming her way. Further, she started a conversation with senior leaders about the costs of the frequent promotions and employees’ resulting short-term focus.”

Some thoughts on this example:

• The courage Margaret showed to stand up publicly against the prevailing culture in a consulting context, knowing she would be “making company history”
• Her choice to stand out (rather than fit in) because of the value she places on relationships and completing commitments, even given the intense scrutiny that would result  - including the cynical view that it was a masterful way to build her profile among the senior partners
• The importance of letting people know why she made the choice she did, instead of running the risk that others would spread untrue assumptions e.g. that she wasn’t committed to the organisation, or was pulling away due to pressure or personal reasons
• The dangers that she’d earn a reputation as being disruptive (and not in a good way) and not a cultural fit, even though her underlying motivation was to avoid disrupting her multi-year project and relationships
• Her admirable focus on long-term impacts in a world where that is increasingly rare

Please share your thoughts on this real-life example with our readers – have you seen this in your professional career? How did taking a stand against the status quo turn out for you or them? Were you/they able to influence the culture through your/their action?