How to Get Promoted in 90 Days

Summary

• To get a promotion, adaptability is imperative, not just efficiency. Being able to take on new challenges and adapt to changes is key.
• Successful individuals are those who can thrive despite their environment, driving change regardless of external factors.
• Technology is advancing rapidly, but adaptable people are essential for a company to keep pace with changes in technology.
• There are three levels of employees: producers, managers, and leaders, each with distinct roles and progression barriers.
• Producers create positive change through expertise, influence, and vision, and the best ones are industrious, driven, and autonomous.
• The ability to set personal goals, possess technical expertise, and manage time effectively are crucial skills for a producer.
• Producers often get stuck because they can't delay gratification, lack self-awareness, or have poor linguistic and people skills.
• Great managers believe that management is a service, not a means of control, and need to be reliable, organized, and confident.
• Key skills for managers include forward-thinking, holding others accountable, and effectively communicating and motivating.
• To move from manager to leader, you must not get bogged down by details, be able to solve problems independently, and treat your team as followers, not just employees.
• Leaders focus on growing their team to grow the business, requiring humility, empathy, and poise.
• Essential leadership skills include problem-solving, influence, and decision-making based on methodology instead of emotions.
• To shift from leader to owner, you need to see your team as the product, operate with a long-term horizon, and prioritize the company's needs over personal preferences.
• Identify your current level (producer, manager, leader, or owner) and the top one or two things you need to improve to advance to the next stage.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting by figuring out if you're a producer, manager, leader, or owner. Then, pick one or two skills you need to improve to reach the next stage. Write these on a sticky note and put it where you'll see it every day.

If you're a producer, focus on setting personal goals, building technical skills, and managing your time well. Make sure you're not just busy, but actually getting results and driving change. If you have trouble waiting to see results, practice patience and focus on helping your team solve problems instead of jumping in yourself.

For managers, being reliable, organized, and confident is key. Remember, managing is about serving your team, not controlling them. Learn to think ahead and hold your team accountable in a way that fits their unique needs. Keep your feelings out of your decisions and use solid methods to solve problems.

As a leader, you should grow your team because that will grow your business. Be humble, empathetic, and poised. Show your team that you are invested in their growth, treat them as followers who are loyal to the mission, not just employees. Your actions should inspire people to follow you.

To go from leader to owner, see your team as your main product. Think long-term and put the company's needs first, even if it means short-term sacrifices.

Remember, to improve, you need to know what you're aiming for. Keep those one or two things you need to work on in sight every day to stay focused on your goals.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Efficiency is important, but adaptability is imperative when it comes to getting promoted in an organization"

– Leila Hormozi

"Adaptable companies are the companies that are able to survive"

– Leila Hormozi

"A producer typically holds the belief that in order to lead the way, you must first go the way"

– Leila Hormozi

"The number one reason people cannot become a manager from a producer is that they don't know how to delay gratification"

– Leila Hormozi

"Management is service, not control"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

to get promoted I've seen a lot of videos out there where they talk about tactically how to ask for a promotion what it should be structured like and all the like Nitty Gritty pieces of it but I want to break down for you guys today is how to actually get promoted from a strategic standpoint so what I mean is like as somebody who's employed hundreds and hundreds of people what do I look for in somebody and what are the common character traits of how someone has to send through the organization in terms of how do they change the behavior to get promoted how do they act towards others how do they collaborate with the team and so what I want to talk about is basically those steps that I've seen I want to break it down stage by stage as well as why so many people get stuck and don't get promoted so here's the secret that nobody tells you or at least bosses don't talk about is that efficiency is important but adaptability is imperative when it comes to getting promoted in an organization it's actually much easier to be someone who can be constantly doing things staying on the same track doing the same thing day after day but what a boss wants is somebody that can constantly be taking on new things new challenges that they can adapt to change and so a lot of what you're gonna you're highlighted here is that your ability to adapt to change is going to be directly correlated with your ability to get a promotion and so a lot of people are as successful as their environments allow them to be but what creates someone who's going to be able to level up an organization is someone who can be successful despite the environment someone who can continue to level up in their behavior despite what's going on in the organization and that's really what bosses look for adaptable companies are the companies that are able to survive if you look at everything that's changing now especially within the workplace technology is like increasing at a faster rate than ever people are what create the change in a company and so if you actually look at the rate of change in the company technology is changing faster than companies can the reason for that is because people are what pre-adaptable companies you cannot have an adaptable company without adaptable people you can constantly adapt an organization and move up so you can get the promotion you wanted there's three levels of employees in terms of what they do in the organization and then what the sticking points are between each of those levels in order for those people to level up the first level is a producer a producer someone who is able to create positive business change through their expertise influence and vision now the level up from producer is going to be a manager a manager is somebody who's responsible for directing and overseeing employees so that they can create positive business change based on progressing in the organization a leader is somebody who looks at how an organization can be improved and they rally people together to make that Improvement so leaders move people through influence more than they do through micro management or through tactical Hands-On thing and then lastly is an owner that person is really like the chief resource allocator that person's job is to deploy resources whether it's time attention money they're the one ultimately responsible for the leaders the manners and the producers of the organization so first off we've got producer a producer typically holds the belief that in order to lead the way you must first go the way because in order to then leave you have to have first done now is that an absolute requirement for every organization not necessarily but for most organizations leaders are much better off if they've been in the dirt before they ascend to meeting and overseeing the people in the dirt so some of the common tree rates of producers that are the highest level producer they're industrious they're driven and they're autonomous industrious is that they drive results for the organization they're not sitting there just checking off lists and pressing buttons they're actually driving results and that's what they're measuring their success upon now driven means that they're self-motivated what people don't want is if you think about a managerial debt managerial debt is occurred when you have people in organization who they can't manage themselves and so a leader continues to acquire all this debt upon themselves because nobody else under them can actually manage themselves and then the last piece to that is autonomy which autonomy kind of goes with being driven and industrious because if someone has autonomy you don't have to motivate them and I think a lot of times people assume well Layla isn't part of the job motivating people and I would say I phrase it as if the job is to motivate people but it's really to make sure that you don't demotivate people you want to hire people who are motivated and then you want to make sure that you don't manage them to an extent that you're actually demotivating them so it's ideal if we bring people in or already autonomous and they already are self-starters and they're already doing things on their own and they just have Clarity provided by their bosses rather than their bosses pushing them to go do something now what are the top skills of somebody who's a producer is one that you can set your own goals one of the hardest things is when you are a manager and you have to try and set goals for the people on your team now what you want to provide is when we provide Clarity of the vision and you want to provide support and be someone they can obviously bounce things back and forth with but if you can actually set your own goals and see how those tie into the greater vision of the business you're going to crush it as a producer now the second one is technical expertise in order to be a high level producer in an organization you have to have some kind of technical expertise it might be like you're insanely good at I.T and cyber security it might be that you're a crazy good sales person you turn out sales over and over again it might be that you're great with customer success and you can always save fines and retain them and you prevent us from having a higher turn the difference between a producer a demand or a leader is that once you get into management or leader you can't necessarily be as much of a technical expert as somebody on the lower level and so that's why a lot of the times you actually get more information from people from the lower level because they're such experts at the thing they're doing and they're Hands-On and so they hold a lot of that knowledge for the organization now the last piece that goes with that is time management one of the primary things that you have to learn how to do if you want to be a producer that has the potential to move up is that you need to learn how to manage your own time so if your boss constantly has to be saying like where's this where's that why didn't you do this and you're just a liability you're not an asset to the company if you're a producer and you can identify with some of the skill sets the common question I get is like Leila how do I move up and become a manager or a leader so I could tell you how to move up but I'd rather tell you how people stay stuck the number one reason people cannot become a manager from a producer is that they don't know how to delay gratification when you're a producer you're in there you're solving the problems yourself it's very gratifying that every time you see a problem you can just go dive in and you can do it but in order to become a manager you have to solve problems through your team actually what happens is your team will not feel heard they won't feel important they won't feel like you trust them if you constantly dive in to solve the problem anytime one arrives and so it's actually being able to delegate problem solving and the reason I say delay gratification is because we get a sense of satisfaction and a relief from pain when we solve problems ourselves when you then have have to go through somebody else there's a delay to that and there's a feeling of loss of control and a lot of people can't get past that here's the thing it's completely normal to feel this way at first everybody just has to train themselves out of it so for me when I first was a producer and I was leveling up a commander I hated it it felt like crap because I couldn't go in I couldn't solve things myself but I had to learn that that just took time and patience it's completely normal it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be a manager it just means that you're learning and you've never done it before and things that we haven't done before are uncomfortable now the second reason that people wouldn't Ascend into a management positions is really lack of self-awareness there's a lot of people who are great producers but if you were to ask them you know should you be a manager they'd be like absolutely yes top sales guy is like I want to be sales manager I'm like do you really want to be sales manager because like if you love closing people you love making a ton of money and if you become a sales manager you're actually gonna make less money and you gotta manage all these a lot of times it's a completely different skill set and it's not anything like closing I can tell you because I was one of the top closers at one of my past jobs and then when I got asked to be Amanda for the first time before it was my own company I was like hell no I don't want to be a manager it's very hard to run a sales team if that top closer isn't aware of their own deficits and the things that they actually want and enjoy then they'll say hey I want to be manager and like I don't think you want to be manager let me tell you what it really looks like but if that person says Hey Layla I understand that I'm a little too selfish and I'm a little too money driven but I would like to change I would like to actually be more of a leader and I realize that I have to give up these things in order to do that can you help me get there then I'm like at least this person has an acknowledgment of their own deficits and so I can work with them on whatever those deficits are to get them to that management position then the last reason that people can't move up from producer to manager is they lack linguistic and people skills I'll tell you a story I had a woman who was a customer service rep and she was killer like she was the best customer service we had she was really great with the team the issue was that she was very bad at articulating things and so it's kind of like how some people are really bad at interviews you get on interview with them and you're like this person doesn't know what the hell they're talking about but their resume looks amazing well that's how she kind of was she did such great work but then every time she would verbalize her work to the team it just didn't sound right the best meanders and leaders are actually able to articulate very well the work that they do the work that their team does the impact they have in the organization a lot of times what you're doing as a man or a leader is you're selling yourself to the level above you you're selling them on this last week and what you did you're selling them on what your team is on you're selling them on the impact that you're having but a lot of people don't see it the way it's like they're almost too shy and they lack the articulate skills to actually give that to the leader above them and the leader above you has so much going on that yeah what you have to understand is that you're not pushing up information to them they're not getting all much of the information that they want so the second level is management the core belief of a really great manager is that management is service not controlled the worst reason to become a manager or try and get into management is because you want to control people you want to have a ton of influence and you want to do less somebody tells me they're like oh I love being a manager I'm like why like oh my gosh I have to work way less I'm like that's not the right reason to be a manager in fact if you are a manager you actually are probably working more if you're doing it correctly so if you're a producer right now and you want to get to manager if you can position management as service to the rest of the team rather than control over the team and you're probably actually going to be successful now there's really Three core traits that you need in order to be a good manager okay the first one is reliable when a boss brings a manager in they want attention back they want to bring you in and think I don't think about customer service anymore now you think about customer service but if you're late to meetings not showing up not answering your teammates and then things start to Spur up to your boss then your boss is like now not only do I have attention on customer service I have attention on the fact that you're not good at customer service and I might have to fire you your team wants to see a predictable boss they're going to feel safe with a predictable boss if you are not reliable you're not always there for them you don't always respond you're always kind of erratic with what you do and how you manage to the department they're not going to feel safe and ultimately they're not going to produce their bus work either second is that you have to be organized typically people are producers they can get by with like body organization but in order to level up into a management position you have to have some kind of formal management structure in place a lot of the times people come to me they're like Leila I'm really struggling with accountability and I say you're probably struggling with accountability because you're not organized you have to constantly be referring back to things that you've said in the past that you've talked about in the past or to hold people accountable and if you don't have those things stored in an organized manner then it's really hard to go back and actually bring those things to light that you're holding that person accountable for so that's why organization is such a core skill if your data is not organized then how are you going to present organized data to the leadership above you and then the last trait going with those is confidence I know this sounds crazy but I have seen it in so many organizations where somebody gets promoted to manager and they don't have that confidence they don't show up with that confidence in themselves and obviously when you're a first-time manager you're going to stumble at first but if you constantly are beating yourself up in your head and feeling insecure about yourself and your job that's going to show up in how you lead people and that's going to prevent you from getting to the next level let alone keeping the current job you have and so I think a lot of the times when I say that and I'm like you need to be confident people think oh my gosh how do I get confident if I've never done this before confidence is being okay with where you're at so if you do suck at some of the stuff you're doing when you're managing it's being okay with that and not letting that get to you and create even more insecurities around it it means not judging yourself with the fact that maybe this is something that's new for you so that you can at least still show up like you know your when you go to a management meeting if one person is not confident then they're going to just get completely pit bull by everybody else on the team the number one skill that people Miss as amander is Forward Thinking so a lot of times when you're a producer you're thinking more week to week as you get to a management level you need to be thinking month to month quarter to court and a lot of people aren't able to make that switch and so what happens is the boss above them is actually constantly pointing to the things that are coming up reminding that person rather than that person having a formal forward-thinking structure in place so I like to tell people lies like when you're a manager every week one time on Sunday you're looking what's happening in the next month two months quarter and am I on track to my quarterly goals now the second piece is accountability but a lot of people just honestly don't have the cojones to hold people accountable they become a manager and then they think to themselves like oh gosh I wish my team was doing better like your job to make sure they're doing better but you're not doing anything about it because you're uncomfortable telling people where their deficits are or where they could do better how you hold one person accountable is not going to be how you hold everyone accountable I can tell you the way I talk to a sales department is completely backwards from how I talk to finance department and how I hold those two departments accountable is going to be completely different because they hear things differently and they're different kinds of people and so it's also understand that you want to mold yourself into whatever your team needs in terms of how you communicate and how you hold them accountable and then the last piece is really communicating and motivating so a lot of people get into a management position they're like it like we can't do this we do that here's the rules and they put a lot of structure in place that's honestly not necessary because if you're really driving an organization by values and by culture you don't need 17 million Sops and rules in terms of how you dictate and how you run a department it's learning to hire the right people who are autonomous putting them in the right seats and then giving them the clarity so they can drive things forward and that you have minimal start turn place just enough so you make sure that you don't do anything illegal the place where most people get stuck they can't move from a man or two liter going from a producer to a manager requires more organization you know you have to speak up more you have to be more confident but I think that actually moving from a manager to a leader is probably the hardest shift behaviorally so one of the biggest reasons that people can't move from management to leadership is they stay super stuck in the details what I think the most like Savage managers or leaders are is like they have this ability to get their hands in the dirt and then also zoom out and see everything strategically from like a five-year timeline a lot of people get so anxious and stressed over the details of their Department that they can't zoom out and they can't see above what's happening and so because of that they just bog all of you leaders above them down in details and the leaders like gosh I just wish they could drive things forward but they're so busy looking at what's happening today and trying to micromanage it but they can't move anything forward and they certainly can't zoom out look at the five-year Vision the second reason is because they don't take time to solve problems for themselves so a lot of people that are in management levels position bring their problems to their superiors listen have you taken five to ten minutes to just sit in silence and actually think through how you can solve this problem yourself or did you just bring it to me immediately and if you want to be a leader in an organization you have to learn how to think I know it sounds crazy but a lot of what we do when we're producing and managing is a lot of tax a lot of Hands-On a lot of things that we can do without too much thought it's just shifting through a lot of work and a lot of times learning and acquiring new skills but we're not strategically thinking as much in order to get to that leadership level you have to develop that strategic thinking and that starts this is training yourself to think in general and now the last piece in terms of why people get stuck and they can't move up from manager to leader is that they treat their team like employees and not like loyal followers I really want that to sink in because the way that you treat someone that just hey they're here for a paycheck check in check out like I'm just here to manage you versus how do you treat someone that you're like I'm investing in your growth as a person and I am loyal to you and you are loyal to me and we're here to make each other better I think it's just a frame shift that a lot of people will never make you lead people through vision and through influence and you can't influence somebody if you don't take the time to understand them and you're just spending all your time judging them now the last level in terms of moving up an organization is becoming a leader okay the core fundamental belief of leaders is that if I grow my team my team grows the business typically when you're a producer you're completely external you're looking at other things outside the business and you're managing those functions when you're a manager you're kind of on a dual level which is you're managing a small team but you're also still always looking externally to me to make sure that team is managing the external Factor well and then when you become a leader you actually are just almost all internal which is you're only looking at like do I have the right people on the team do I have the right people in the right seats how am I encouraging them do they have Clarity have I given them positive feedback lately and so the thought that you have or the thought I wake up with every day is how do I grow my team so that the business grows I'm no longer solely responsible for growing a department or a company I'm responsible for putting the right people in the right place and growing those people investing in those people to then grow the business you're still servicing a customer you just have a different customer that customer is now your team I'm the boss or a leader in the company I now pour into my team and then my team pours into the customer so how you treat your team is how they're going to treat your customers if you can make that frame shift that's going to allow you to step into that leadership position and actually make a big change for an organization now there's really three traits that you have to acquire in order to get to a leadership position or at least to be a leader of impact in an organization the first one is humility I can tell you the top reason I've ever fired someone leadership position has been humility most common is that people are sharp they're smart they can manage people but they have an ego that is the most common reason I fire leaders and a lot of the times it's not that they are technically inept it's that culturally there now they're now in violation of the culture you're trying to build and they're now a detractor from the team rather than somebody that's adding to the team you know I had a specific person this is about three years ago on one of my teams and she was amazing I mean like producer wise manager-wise she was very tight ran a very tight ship but she was just terrible to work with and I tell you the moment that we took her out it was like a weight was lifted off the organization everybody else did better and we were even able to make more sales because people in sales weren't afraid to go to that department specifically do other people want to work with that person and having humility as a leader is such an important trait that's going to make all the other leaders want to work with that person the second piece to that is empathy so a lot of the times we are very empathetic in the beginning of our journey in a company and then over time that empathy kind of gets tipped away at and I can tell you this because I personally gone through it it's because so much stuff happens you know someone screws us a client you know does something really unethical someone on the team you know completely leaves you high and dry there's so many things that can happen and they accumulate and if you want to get to that leadership level what you have to do is you have to not let the past affect the present can't let those things that have occurred affect how you treat people now in order for people to feel heard and seen on a team you have to remain empathetic does that mean you feel bad for a person tell them we don't feel bad for people it's not going to help people make a change in their lives but we do understand people and show empathy towards them and we relate to them and if you're constantly you know mistrusting of others because you've been burned in the past then you never open up that doorway for people actually improve because you have empathy and then the last piece that goes with that to kind of finish it off is really poised Poise is what you get when you get to a leadership position so it's something that has to be earned it's a sense of unwavering confidence knowing that even when you don't feel confident you have Poise meaning you're not reacting to the fact that you don't feel confident now in terms of the top three skills of a leader okay first one is problem solving if you want to be a leader in an organization you have to solve problems when you go to your boss you have to go to them with not just the problem but the solution that you've put into place and then if anything ask them for feedback you never want to be going to your boss saying I've got a problem what I do about it leaders don't do that and that's the biggest difference between a manager and a leader now the second piece is influence I have someone on the team and he was a fantastic manager and he was like Layla how do I get to a leader and I was like you lack influence and I was trying to put my finger on why he couldn't Influence People organization how you act in the workplace is not the only way that you influence people but it's how people see you act outside of the workplace I know it's a controversial topic but social media nowadays allows people to see all other aspects of people's lives and so for that person specifically I was like your life outside of here is a complete mess and so if you're constantly like you know posting about your like weekend warrior and then like the fights you get into with your spouse and things like that and revealing too much of the negative personal life people aren't going to be looking up to you less so will they be able to be influenced by you and so that was the biggest difference and once you saw that he realized that the way that he carried himself in his personal life was actually going to affect his work life he started getting his together and then the last piece in terms of being a leader is decision making so a lot of people use their feelings to make decisions leaders study decision making and come up with methodologies around how they make decisions and so I can tell you that if I'm in a leadership meeting and we have a decision to make people will refer to different methodologies of decision making and they'll break down different scenarios based on Frameworks of how to make good decisions not based on emotions but once you get to a leadership position you have to really come to your boss come to the company come to the leadership team with like a framework around how to make decisions so that you can have influence on that organization that's based on facts not feelings the question really is how do you stay stuck so if you let's say that you have room in organization where you can go from a leader to maybe someone that's an owner maybe you can acquire Equity what does it take in order to go from a leader to more of an owner of an organization somebody who's really a stakeholder someone who has you know they can sign on behalf of the company they have equity in the company whatever that may mean for you there's three things that keep you stuck as a leader one is that you think about making products rather than seeing your team as the product when you become an owner you look at the value of the organization not just the value you provide to the marketplace it's a hardship to make but once you can get there and I would suggest like if you want to get there studying private Equity studying investment firms looking at what people's thesis are around buying businesses because if you study buying businesses then you can figure out how to Build a Better Business the second one is a short time Horizon so the biggest difference between a leader and an owner is the time Horizon they operate in an owner is okay with losing in the short term if that means they're going to achieve in the long term so I get an example which is like at acquisition.com we help people you know in five years triple their business and a lot of people might say well you know this other guy said that they could get me to 10 million in just 12 months and I'm like of course we could get you to 10 million in 12 months but the question is how easy is it going to be to get to 40 million after that's done and a lot of times the way that you get to 10 million is going to prevent you from getting to 40 million whereas somebody like me somebody that's like an owner level and your investor level is thinking how do I get them to 40 million the fastest not 10 million the fastest and sometimes that means it's slower to get to 10 then it's like a Skyrocket to get to 40. and then the third reason is that we put what's best for ourselves over what's best for the company an owner doesn't do this and owner's constantly going to sacrifice themselves and their personal preferences or what's best for the company and if you want to have that sense of ownership over a company that's what you're going to have to do when we sold gym launch the biggest change of behavior I noticed with our CEO and CEO was that they no longer put their own personal preferences before the business but they put the businesses preferences before their own if you want to be an owner of a company you have to be willing to sacrifice as much as the person who formed it because if you aren't willing to there's plenty of other people who will so what I would suggest that you do now is I want you to identify what level are you at are you a producer are you a manager are you a leader are you an owner and what would you have to do maybe the top one to two things that you need to do to level up to get to the next level and the easiest way that you can remind yourself of this is just get a sticky note put it on your computer I'm not even kidding with the top two things you need to work on and and then you see that every day and you should be constantly reminded of things that you need to do to get to the next level