When a job promotion makes work worse, not better.

Apr 13

You earned a job promotion! You worked hard to get to the next level professionally and it’s finally paid off. Or has it? After a couple months into the new role, you notice you’re more stressed, easily annoyed, and looking forward to the weekend way more than you were before the promotion.

So - what do you do when a promotion makes work worse, not better?

Why did you want a job promotion in the first place?

If you grew up in the U.S., or in another western culture, you were likely taught from an early age that it’s a good thing to always be growing. You hear it from your favorite Peloton instructor, when you open your calendar, and when you scroll on Instagram. If you aren’t advancing yourself in some way, then you are “lazy” or “settling.” Your parents and early influencers likely downloaded this onto you, just like these messages were passed down to them. Or you had parents who in your mind “settled” and because they behaved counter-culturally (against the norm), you made an oath to yourself you’d work super hard and achieve what they never did. (👋This is me, btw.)

Suffice it to say, the words “enough” and “contentment” are not sexy in a capitalistic world that promotes ambition, materialism, and productivity at all costs. Why have “enough” when you could have “more”?

More time and flexibility to work on projects you care about, while making a higher salary. Yes please.
New challenges and new skills to learn. Yup.
More power to advocate and protect the colleagues you care about. Let’s sign you up!
More visibility, recognition, and influence over high-impact decisions and company direction. Mmhmm!
The ability to shape company culture, policies, and practices. And more professional enjoyment. Uh yeah.
Besides, this promotion will look great on your resume. That’s what I’m saying!

It’s these reasons that have driven you to work so hard. After putting in some much, why would you turn all this potential and possibility down?

What to do when a job promotion makes work worse, not better.

You’re two months into your new role when you realize you’re not happy. You find yourself missing your old job and besides a higher paycheck (hopefully), you haven’t seen any of the benefits of this promotion. Sure, you’ve attended leadership meetings, but you keep getting interrupted and talked over. Like you, your direct reports are already stretched to the max and you’re being asked to assign them even more work. You’re not taking a lunch break and feel guilty for setting a poor example of not having work boundaries. This is not the kind of culture you want to promote to your team. This magic trick of a promotion is not what you had in mind for your career.

Get clarity on your values and definition of success.

Inertia is a powerful career force. You may have taken this promotion because you thought you had to say “yes.” It felt like the most logical next step in your career. If you find that work has gotten worse since your promotion, I recommend you prioritize the time (in your already too-packed schedule) to reflect on the following questions:

- What do you value most in life? What is most important to you and why?

- If time and money weren’t a factor, how would you spend your time?

- If you only had one month left to live, how would you spend it?

- When you look back on your life someday, what will have given you the most meaning?

These questions will help you gain clarity about what you value and how you define success right now in this moment of your life. Career and life success are intertwined. They cannot be separated. How do you know you’re being successful in your career? Will the promotion make you happier? Will it give you more time to spend on the things you enjoy doing at work?

Once you have a better understanding of what you value and why, it’s time to talk to your supervisor about your new role.

Talk to your supervisor about your job promotion.

If your company has a positive work culture and hires good people, chances are your supervisor will have already noticed you’re “off.” However – people are not mind readers and great supervisors are hard to find. Still, find the courage to talk to them about how you’re feeling. Request a 30-minute initial conversation and prepare for it. As a cathartic practice, get your grievances out on paper (for your eyes only). Then synthesize it. Ultimately you want to share specifics on how your daily experiences are not matching how the promotion was presented to you

After you say your piece, be quiet. Give them an opportunity to respond. It could go a few different ways:

1) They say they’ll partner with you to create a plan and set up a series of meetings to help you successfully transition to the role as it was presented to you. Win win!

2) They say they’ll partner with you, with every intention of helping you transition, but they continually cancel on you because they’re also over-extended.

3) They say they’ll partner with you, asking you to come up with a plan, with no intention of helping you transition, but want you to get out of their office.

4) They gaslight you by making you feel like you misunderstood the new role. (This is common.)

You’ll notice I mentioned creating a plan. If the company has an intentional career advancement and retention strategy, they will provide you with a plan, support, and resources to successfully transition into these new expectations and metrics for success. This support may be in the form of informal mentoring from someone internal (maybe your supervisor), an external leadership coach, or a leadership program.

If you don’t get one of these plans, ask for one. If your company doesn’t help you, create one for yourself. It can look something like this:

Create a spreadsheet like the example above to audit your new role’s responsibilities and expectations. Identify how you will know you’ve been successful in each task. These are your success metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). From there, determine the knowledge, strengths, skills, relationships, and resources it will take for you to reach each success metric. Of that list, what do you currently have access to and what is missing?

This plan will serve as your guide to assess:

- whether the role you have been promoted to was accurately represented

- whether you have the support and resources to successfully lead in the role (or if you’ve been handed a “glass cliff” opportunity where you’re set up to fail)

It will also help you with creating talking points during your supervisor meetings.

Set a timeline to reassess how your new role is going.

Whenever you’re in a tough situation (like a promotion gone wrong), it’s crucial to set a timeline for “signs of positive change.” Without this timeline, you can easily become a “frog in boiling water,” where the toxic culture becomes so normal that you no longer notice how poorly you (and everyone else) is being treated. Don’t allow this to happen to you.

Use your plan (the one you either created with your supervisor – or – on your own) to assess whether your new role is heading in the right direction. Gut-checks to consider:

- How did I feel going to work this morning?

- Am I feeling supported right now?

- Is this role in alignment with my values? What is keeping me here?

- What am I continuing to tolerate?

- When was the last time I dreamed of quitting my job?

At the very least, check in with yourself bi-weekly by blocking 15-30 minutes and asking yourself these questions. You might free write in a journal or simply close your eyes and talk to yourself.

You didn’t fail if you decide you want your old job back.

There is absolutely no shame in talking with your supervisor about getting your old job back after getting promoted. Chances are the reason you were excelling at your old role is because you felt good performing it. It does not mean you failed. In fact, it means you know yourself, what you value, and what your strengths are. That should be celebrated!

What if your old job has already been filled once you were promoted?

If your old job was already filled, talk to your supervisor about other possibilities within your department. Don’t set your sights too low. Set up a time with HR to discuss other opportunities within your company.

“The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that on average it costs a company 6 to 9 months of an employee's salary to replace him or her. For an employee making $60,000 per year, that comes out to $30,000 - $45,000 in recruiting and training costs.” So if they’re smart, your company will work with you so they can retain you!

It is okay to quit when your job promotion is making you unhappy.

I started this article by talking about societal messages (like Promotions are the key to a successful career. You should want them and work hard for them.) that are downloaded onto us. Another message we are told is that “quitting is bad” and “no one likes a quitter.” I am here to tell you that is total bull$hit. Quitting is essential to learning who you are, what you like, and who you want to be.

In Glennon Doyle’s book “Untamed,” she writes:

“The “Not This” stage is not discussed enough. How will you ever figure out your path if you do not realize what you do not want? We are not all lucky enough to get on the right path instantly by chance.

When you find yourself on the wrong path, appreciate that you know what you don’t want – and move in a different direction.”

If you are thinking about quitting your job, you will likely hear voices in your head that tell you “You’ll look so stupid if you quit. Everyone saw you working so hard for this promotion.”

“I’ve spent so much time getting here. I can’t throw it all away.”

You don’t have to listen to your brain. In fact, I don’t want you to.

The feeling of throwing it all away is caused by sunk cost fallacy. According to Dictionary.com, sunk cost fallcy is “the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.”

One of my favorite authors and speakers, Lindsey Pollak, wrote a NYT-best selling book called “Recalculating: Navigate Your Career Through the Changing World of Work.” During an interview, Lindsey shared she got the idea for her book title from her GPS. When you’re driving and take a wrong turn, what does your maps app do? It doesn’t make you drive all the way home and start over. It reroutes you. And that’s exactly what happens when you quit a job that is making you miserable You reroute. You change course (sometimes several times), empowered by the knowledge of what you don’t want. Because you lived it and it didn’t make you happier.

Yes, having the ability to quit your job is a privilege. It may not be an option at this moment. That said, how you can start to make a quit timeline and plan for yourself? What are the steps to getting out of your situation and into something better, even if it’s a temporary move?

The best promotion is the promotion you give yourself.

My wish for you is live a satisfying and meaningful life, filled with whatever makes your heart happy. Your career is just one aspect of your life. While earning job promotions can absolutely open up other career, wealth, and influence building opportunities, I’ve also seen it lead to burn out and deep resentment.

The word “promotion” means to support and encourage the furtherance of something or someone.

What is that something for you?

Now that is a promotion worth fighting for.

Lindsey Lathrop