"Klingon Promotions"
Be the obvious replacement
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I coined this term for moving up when the person above you is removed or fired.
In Star Trek, the violent Klingon people take over command of the ship by killing their commanding officer. I never needed to remove anyone above me, but sometimes they were moved aside, creating a vacuum.
Early in my career, I had a couple of Klingon Promotions in fast-growing startups.
I understand if you consider the name I created all those years ago to be too vivid or suggestive of violence, but that is not my intent.
The real question is: When someone above you is moved aside, how can you make yourself the obvious choice to replace them?
Nothing in this requires that you either hope for or celebrate their downfall. The Straight Truth is, that sometimes leaders are ineffective for a variety of reasons and a change is made.
You have to make yourself the obvious choice for replacing a struggling leader before a change is made. In simple terms, you do this by stepping in, as much as you can, to the gaps left by their weaknesses.
A leader is changed out because those above them feel that something critical is not being done. If you have seen what is not being done and shown leadership in trying to address it, you become the obvious person to take over.
Again, nothing in this is political or malicious.
In the cases I was involved in, the leader above me knew perfectly well what was being asked of him; he simply was not able to do it. It was a mismatch of his personality and talents. He was moved to another role and I stepped in.
Seeing what is needed and doing it is a great performance tactic in all situations.
It does two critical things:
Ensures something important gets done.
Shows that you have the insight, judgment, and commitment to recognize and act on what is needed.
Doing what needs to be done will position you for all kinds of growth in a company.
But when a leader is removed, someone will get that job.
Why shouldn't it be you?
I hope this advice helps you plan ahead for your career. If you’re looking for help growing in your organization and leveling up your career, consider my course, Stuck at Senior Manager - How to Break Through to Executive (next cohort is September).
If you’re already in executive roles (e.g. Director, Sr. Director, VP) and want to optimize performance or move up further, consider my course, Cracking the C-suite 'How to Get and Master Key Executive Roles' (next cohort is October) which I co-teach with Sue Bethanis (Executive Coach & CEO/Founder of Mariposa Leadership) who has coached 400+ tech executives and was my best coach when I was an Amazon VP.
Audience Insights
Additional ideas worth considering from my LinkedIn audience:
Dave Anderson, author of the newsletter Scarlet Ink, makes an excellent point:
“I think some people make the mistake of "letting" their manager fail. They sit there proud of themselves that they could have done a better job (or helped out) but instead they sat back. Imagine (for example) a big customer issue and you could deal with it better. It's a much better career move (and human move) to step up and get stuff done right. You'll get recognized for it in the long run.”
The key point is being prepared. Be seen as the person who often fills in for your manager, making you the obvious candidate for any reason the role becomes available (e.g. manager transfers teams, leads a new project, leaves the company, etc). If you are the “go to person” it is a sign you are on track for promotion.
If you want more, I share one of my personal “Klingon Promotion” stories in this post/video recording How to get scope in a flat or downsizing environment.
Share this post with someone who will benefit from this advice.
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Level Up is your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans.
I'm more Star Wars than Star Trek but I get it Evan. Good one btw.
I experienced this at least twice in my career. The first time, when my boss was let go, I was deemed too young..."I can't give this position to a 26-yr old" said the CFO, whom my boss reported to. I left a year later and things worked out great for me.
The second time, many years later, we had been acquired and my boss (original owner) was let go (he still wanted to act like an owner instead of understanding he now was employed).
This time I got it.
His responsibilities were split into two and I was made Director of Operations.
Through working with a lot of the new parent company teams, from engineering to finance, I was already doing and fulfilling that job.
The director of finance said to the new owner one time "if you want to know how things work in that group ask Ramon".
I didn't know it at the time but I had been doing what you recommend in this article.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Help your boss, and if they can't help themselves, do the job yourself.
Consider it an investment in your future.