The Blind Spots Holding You Back from that Promotion

Welcome to Lead Anyway. The team and title will follow.

This is a private podcast series for the ambitious professional who knows they’re meant for more, and they’re trying to figure out how to get there.

I’m Danielle, and I help high performing professionals break out of stuck cycles, see the real issue with clarity, and rise into their next level.

Today we’re talking about the real reason capable, hardworking professionals get overlooked, and it’s not because you’re doing anything wrong, it’s because of the blind spots you don’t see.

In the next 2 episodes, we’ll talk about some of those blind spots that keep you stuck, and trust me, I was guilty of a few of them myself. Let’s get started.

Blind spot number 1, working 100 hours a week instead of leading. You’re doing more work, but what actually gets recognized is more impact. If you catch yourself working long hours, constantly catching up, regularly staying late, this is the moment you need to pause and ask yourself, why am I doing all this extra work? What’s driving the overtime? Is it the task, the system, or my approach? Is there an easier, faster, or more efficient way to do this? Where is the bottleneck?

I’ve worked with professionals in the past who spent a lot of time talking to colleagues and coworkers, and then they would have to work late to catch up on the work they needed to get done. This wasn’t a process or a system issue. This was a time management issue. Leaders don’t get promoted for how many hours they work. They get promoted for how effectively they deliver the results. Working extra hours once in a while is normal, but working extra hours all the time is a signal that something’s broken. Overtime to get the job done isn’t always the approach your leader’s looking for. Your leader’s goal is to achieve results as efficiently as possible. Your goal is to understand the task and get it completed as accurately and efficiently as possible. But when it involves working overtime for every project, ask yourself where the problem is.

It could be a number of things. One of the smartest things you can do is start tracking your time on tasks. This will show you patterns and help you understand what tasks take the longest, where delays are happening, and what keeps pulling you into overtime, what interruptions or rework are costing you time. And if you determine it’s a system or a process issue, this allows you to have a real conversation with your leader using data, and taking this to your leader is extra points because they’ll see that you’re trying to make things better. Understanding where the time is going helps everyone, helps you, your leader, and your team. So when you notice you’re working more and more hours, don’t push through it.

Lead anyway and identify why and create a more sustainable way to get the work done. Give your leader a more accurate view of how long tasks take on your team. Understanding where time is spent helps everyone better understand what’s going on in the team.

Blind spot #2, fixing everything except the real issue. High achievers often are correct the most obvious thing, the thing right in front of them, the thing that they can fix the fastest, the symptom that affects their daily work, but not the actual issue, not the strategic thing that actually moves the needle.

This is where root cause thinking comes into play. Instead of asking, how can I fix this, ask why it’s happening in the first place. Using a problem solving framework like 5Y can help you get to the root cause of the issue, most of the time. It’s not the thing you can see, it’s the thing feeding it.

I can remember being trained on tasks and people showing me what to do. They would show me how I needed to fix reports that I pulled from the system. So they had this extra work. They fixed it each week when they ran the report, but they didn’t go in and fix the actual report, so the mistake didn’t happen again. They were training me to do the same. This is an example of fixing the obvious thing, but not actually fixing the root cause of the issue. Somewhere along the line, someone accepted this is just how it is, and the problem became part of the way of working.

But nothing strategic improves when we normalize dysfunction. Leaders don’t accept that’s just the way it is. Leaders get curious. They ask questions. Why isn’t it working? What’s actually causing this? Where did this problem originate? Is there a tool issue or a human issue? Can this be fixed? And what would the impact be if we solved it?

Because fixing surface level symptoms wastes effort, but fixing the real issue improves efficiency, accuracy, team performance, and your reputation as a strategic thinker. Anyone can slap a band-aid on something, but a leader finds the root cause and solves for that.

Blind Spot 3 waiting for permission. We talked about this one too. Leadership never comes from waiting. It doesn’t come from hoping or guessing or waiting for someone to notice you. It comes from action, the kind of behavior that shows you’re ready before anyone formally gives you the authority, the title, or the team. If we wait for permission to be a leader, we’re waiting for a manager to win the lottery and just not show up one day. And do we even know if our manager plays the lottery?

A better plan is to take your career into your own hands. Start leading now, not through overstepping, not through trying to be the boss, but through intentional initiative. Show you’re reliable, capable, and paying attention. This is the fun part of leadership. You’re able to do all the good things without the not so fun things. When you step in to support your leader and your team, you communicate that they can count on you. That you see what needs to be done. That’s leadership without the title. This doesn’t mean you start running the meeting or making decisions you’re not authorized to make. It means you look for ways to remove friction, reduce workload, and increase support for your team and your leader.

Ask yourself, what does my leader normally handle and how can I make that easier? Do they gather information from the team for a weekly report? Start collecting the data for them. Do they carry the mental load of keeping track of everything? Start owning the pieces of the process proactively. Let them know where you are without them having to ask. Just supporting your leader with these small steps, you’re sending a big message. You don’t have to ask me. I’m already thinking ahead. Proactive behavior is one of the clearest signs of leadership readiness. When you stop waiting for permission and start demonstrating leadership behaviors, people begin to naturally see you as a leader.

And one more very important thing, ask your leader directly, what can I do to grow my leadership skills? Most leaders are more than happy to give you opportunities, projects, and responsibilities to help you develop, but if you don’t tell them, they won’t know. I always supported my team if they wanted to grow. If I saw opportunities for them to take on tasks related to how they wanted to grow, I gave them those. But if they didn’t tell me, I had no idea.

Making your desire to grow visible is part of leading anyway.

Identifying your blind spots and showing you your brilliance is what I support new and upcoming leaders with. I bring calm to the chaos, clarity to the journey, and confidence to your leadership, whether or not you have a team or title. If you’re interested in learning more about my intentional leader program, use the link in the show notes to schedule some time with me. I see your brilliance when you don’t. Thank you for listening today. I hope you found this helpful, and remember, lead anyway. The title and the team will follow.