Not Everyone Wants To Be Promoted

The Spaghetti Pathway Life

A year ago or so, I saw this post from Simon Sinek on LinkedIn:

Not everyone wants to be promoted.

That’s a strange revelation for us because we tend to think linearly. For our career trajectories especially, we have this sense that when we start out we should likely be moving in this northeasterly, diagonal direction.

But thriving in the future of work in an age of AI will require constant reskilling and upskilling for professional growth. Our career paths will not be linear or straightforward. I’m a GenX woman who has had more career changes than a millennial, and I know from experience that the path looks something more like this.

My colleague Michael Horn and I like to call them Spaghetti Pathways. They resemble something without an obvious destination. Sometimes, they’ll even break and include moments of downshifting, real stuckness, and something that feels like a detour in life. Other times, they’ll feel like sharp pivots that include deep and wide upskilling to stay ahead of the curve. There will even be times when you have to make it up as you go along (that might be my specialty).

Sinek’s video reminded me that I used to think there was something wrong with me. What was it about me that kept me from staying in one place? Why couldn’t I be a good worker and keep my head down even when the going got tough?

I think I had to strive in that upward-and-to-the-right direction for a reason. I had to touch the limits of what I was capable of doing in order to feel the pains of the tradeoffs I had to make as a person, a partner, and a mother.

At one point, I was in between roles trying to figure out if I had the courage to step into uncertainty and begin building my own consulting business. I was fielding calls with prospective clients and figuring out how to price these engagements when a friend of mine emailed me and sent me a job description for a fancy role and a large institution. It was the kind of role I had had in the past, and my gut immediately said, no.

And then my scarcity mindset kicked in. What if I couldn’t provide for my family? This job, even though I knew I didn’t want to do it, looked stable and had a lofty title to boot. Out of my fear, insecurity, and wavering, I forwarded my friend my resume that he could share with the search committee.

Within 30 minutes of pressing Send, the chief executive called me directly. Although I ended up spending most of the time critiquing the role and explaining why his expectations for this particular innovation officer would not pan out as he had expected, he nevertheless begged me to meet with a few different groups across the organization.

I bucked internally but then that scarcity mindset kicked in again, and I said, sure.

Many Zoom calls later, I knew I would get the job. But I also knew deep down that I would have to reject the offer.

Then they showed me the health benefits. I would be responsible for absolutely nothing. The benefits were that good! I could even get my kids braces for free. For a full-time working mother, I scanned the lists of expensive procedures and visits that were fully covered, and then I looked over at my notes for my burgeoning consulting business, and there was simply no comparison.

Even though I knew this wasn’t the job for me, I had somehow put myself in this position where it was going to get super awkward to say no. I didn’t answer my phone for a day when I saw the calls come in. I wrote up a list of all the reasons why I couldn’t say yes.

As I tried to explain myself, the CEO interrupted me and proceeded to share a list of everything he was going to change about the role. Not only that, he was going to elevate the role and increase the salary and give me a wider purview to establish an innovation agenda for the university.

Um. Not what I was expecting. It was as though he had seen my Google doc before the meeting and had itemized every shift he had to make to convince me. Oh, and did I mention that he offered up his own job to me as a potential next step for the future? He knew he was going to retire at some point in the next few years and was looking for someone like me to take his place.

Not gonna lie: I caved and jumped from my little dingy onto the docks of a large luxury liner that was going to get me closer to leading an organization one day.

It was, by far, the worst decision I have ever made in my life. Within a few months, I was running ragged — on Zoom calls 10 hours a day with the leadership team and a major consulting company supposedly trying to move us into the future. I was traveling more than ever and found myself shooing my kids out of my home office for yet another fire drill. I often ate dinner alone at my desk so that I could catch up on the hundreds of emails I had missed during all those Zoom calls.

Oh, and remember that awesome executive health plan? Well, I needed it! My body started to break down under the stress. I had to go to a chiropractor and physical therapist three times a week with frequent massages in between. Once, when my therapist went on paternity leave, I found a different therapist, and as soon as he put his hands under my neck and shoulders, he couldn’t believe how stiff my shoulders were. He asked me when I had had my last massage and was speechless when I told him it was just the week prior.

I knew the writing was on the wall. My body was crumbling. I couldn’t sleep. But I felt trapped because I had just made this switch to a new role. I had also recruited great teammates to come work with me on this project. What kind of leader would I be? How would it look if I switched yet again? People would surely think that there was something seriously wrong with me that I couldn’t even hold a job for a year. Every day, I found myself wandering this shame spiral.

One evening, my daughter quietly commented, “It doesn’t seem like you like your work, Mom.”

I stopped in my tracks. She was ten at the time. It was a brief, offhand remark. And it gutted me.

The last thing I wanted to model for my girl was that work and her future was something to dread. Welcome to the world, child! That was definitely not what I was aiming to model for her.

Whenever I reflect back on this challenging period, what I remember most vividly is feeling trapped. But now that I’m on the other side of this broken spaghetti noodle pathway, I am so strangely grateful that I got to experience this lowest of lows.

It was an important paradox for me to live through: I was getting paid more than I had ever been in my life. I had a fancy title that seemed to confer on me some great authority. I had peaked in a way in terms of what I could be doing in my career. At the same time, however, I was able to see and feel in striking detail how many tradeoffs and sacrifices I was making to move in that northerly direction.

The excess of remuneration, too, gave me the chance to interrogate: What is enough? Enough money, possessions, accomplishments, and recognition? I was making more and spending more, but I wasn’t happier. Somehow, I felt worse off.

In the thick of all that anxiety, I reflected on the parts of my work life when I really enjoyed my work. I recognized that even though I could lead large teams, it wasn’t a source of joy for me. I wanted to engage more as an independent contributor as opposed to a manager. Management and operations took me away from the strategy, research, and vision-setting work that I loved to do. All of the agonizing helped me establish a threshold in my mind of what truly was enough. I didn’t want to be promoted. More importantly, I wasn’t going to become the leader that I thought I would become.

Not all paths are intended to be followed through to their ends. Some journeys are stepping stones, leading us to where we truly need to be.

Our paths will not look linear. It’s not shameful. It isn't a sign of failure or sunk costs.

It’s a sign of growth.

Not everyone wants to be promoted.

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