02/25/2019

How to Lead a Staffer Who Doesn’t Want That Promotion

Staying put doesn’t necessarily mean a staffer is stagnating

If you’re a leader, you want to get the best out of the people you lead. And it seems fairly obvious about how to go about doing that: Give employees opportunities to stretch, give them meaningful performance reviews, and offer incentives such as raises, bonuses, and promotions.

But if you’re a leader, you’re probably also aware that employees can be complicated people, and that what seems to be an obvious incentive often isn’t. Consider promotions. It makes a certain sense that people ultimately want more autonomy and authority the longer they remain in an organization. But in many cases, employees have already found a perch that’s perfect for them—and staying put doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re stagnating.

“I’ve seen many people who had strong reservations about being promoted allow themselves to be put into a bigger job because it was what others wanted for them,” corporate consultant Patricia Thompson wrote recently in Harvard Business Review. “In a lot of cases it didn’t turn out well.” 

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.