The secret to getting promoted | Bjorg

Promotions work like jury verdicts. The decision happens emotionally first, then people use evidence to justify what they already feel. The emotion you need to win is trust. You can follow every line item in your company's career ladder perfectly, but if the people making decisions don't trust you, you won't get promoted. The article cuts through contradictory advice about getting promoted - stay visible versus stay in your lane, play politics versus avoid them - by showing these are just different paths to the same goal: building trust. If you've done great work but nobody knows who you are, you need visibility. If people think you slow things down or create problems, you need to prove you're collaborative. The author shares a concrete example of rebuilding trust with a product team. After getting labeled as "not a team player" for raising objections during planning, he volunteered for gruntwork like making spreadsheets. This got him involved earlier when feedback was easier to incorporate, and showed he wanted to help see things through rather than just block progress. The trust came back, and with it the ability to actually influence decisions. Most companies expect you to work at the next level for some period before officially promoting you. This creates a chicken-and-egg problem - how do you get access to bigger projects to prove yourself? The answer is still trust. When managers trust you, they give you those opportunities. When they don't, you stay stuck regardless of your skills. The piece acknowledges exceptions - sometimes people get promoted because the CEO likes them, or they happened to be nearby when a gap appeared. Sometimes organizations reward loyalty over competence, or people fail upward. These promotions usually prove to be mistakes. But for the vast majority of cases, trust is what unlocks advancement, and following the official rubric just provides the rational justification for a decision that's already been made.