When There's Nowhere to Promote a Star Employee

"They're one of your best people-a director who's been instrumental to your success. They're seasoned, strategic, and ready for more. But there's nowhere for them to go. No opening at the executive table, no clear path up, and no lateral moves look promising either. How do you help someone find the next step when the obvious one doesn't exist? What conversations should you be having? And how do you keep them from checking out in the meantime?"

"Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston."

Identify the director's career aspirations and map current skills against future roles. Co-create options including expanded remit, stretch assignments, lateral moves, portfolio roles, or external transitions. Offer sponsorship, visibility, mentoring, and executive coaching to bridge capability gaps. Consider temporary rotations, cross-functional projects, or joint leadership of new initiatives to test readiness. Adjust compensation and recognition to reflect added responsibility when promotion is unavailable. Set transparent timelines, milestones, and succession plans to free capacity for advancement. Maintain frequent, candid check-ins and meaningful development opportunities to sustain engagement and reduce turnover risk. Encourage exploration of external opportunities when internal pathways cannot meet growth ambitions.

Read at Harvard Business Review