4 Steps to Get Promoted When You're Misunderstood and Misrepresented at Work
As the only woman in her engineering team, my client Amy went from feeling misunderstood and misrepresented by her manager to fast-tracking her promotion and 40% pay raise.
Once on track to become a family therapist, Amy had pivoted her career by enrolling in a coding bootcamp, which led to an internship that led to her current job.
But she didn't have a computer science degree, like many on her team did. Unlike many on her team who had spouses taking care of things at home, she was a single mom of two, struggling with her confidence at work and at home.
She says,
I was underpaid and feeling an immense amount of imposter syndrome, and also feeling somewhat stuck and probably not even realizing that I felt stuck because of my imposter syndrome.
Self-advocacy is a skill you can learn
In 2020, I gave a self-advocacy and negotiation training for the women at her company, and that's when Amy got introduced to the ideas that standing up for yourself doesn't have to be extremely uncomfortable and that you don't have to be mean to do so.
Two of my key principles are:
Self-advocacy is an act of service. When you speak up for you so you can be and do better, you give your counterpart an opportunity to be and do better, too.
Get curious, not furious. If you encounter pushback, don't assume anything. Instead, ask open and curious questions that invite them to provide useful information.
Test These Principles in Your Own Life
After the workshop, Amy applied these principles to a sticky situation in her personal life. She had been experiencing financial hardship, because someone had owed her a significant amount of money.
Instead of getting angry, she approached the negotiation as an opportunity for mutual benefit, and for the other side to follow through on their commitment with self-respect.
She was immediately paid back in full.
This positive experience piqued her interest in coaching with me, so she booked a free 1:1 consultation, and decided to move forward. She decided to invest in herself.
In coaching, Amy set out to achieve her goals of getting promoted and securing a pay raise, so she can provide better opportunities for her children, and to feel less anxious and more confident in her career as a single mom.
Here's how she did it.
1. Call Out the Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee
I taught Amy about the Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee, which is what I call the unhelpful voice we all hear in our heads offering zero-value thoughts like, "You're not good enough," or "You don't deserve the job you have."
The Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee exists, not because they offer truth, but because our brains absorbed the voices of our parents, culture, and a patriarchal society that for millennia have kept women and minorities doubting ourselves.
Through coaching, Amy learned to observe rather than get carried away by the Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee.
She learned the skill to at first nudge, then loosen, and free herself from the grips of imposter syndrome.
She says,
I went from feeling stuck and like an impostor as an engineer to feeling competent and confident in my abilities to solve problems at work and at home as a mother.
2. Have a Conversation with Your Manager
Boosted in her self-confidence, Amy asked her manager about getting promoted at the upcoming promotion cycle.
Her manager said, "I don't think you're ready yet. Your soft skills are great, but your technical skills are a bit behind."
Amy remembered to get curious not furious, so she asked, "Could you give me some specific examples where my tech skills didn't shine?"
When the manager brought up the example of a coding challenge and asked her for more documentation to support her promotion case, her initial reaction was, "He's right. I have more to learn."
But Amy was no longer in the grips of her imposter syndrome. The Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee couldn't convince her that she wasn't good enough.
3. When Misunderstood and Misrepresented, Speak Truth to Power
Here's Amy in her own words again:
[After that conversation] I was so consumed by this feeling of being misunderstood and misrepresented.
So I sat down and wrote a letter, which I didn't plan to send, and never did send to my manager, outlining how I thought he was wrong, how I thought there was some bias at play, just kind of everything that I felt was inaccurate about his perception of me.
And what that did for me was it gave me a lot of clarity on what was really the issue.
The real issue wasn't her technical skills, which were on par with her teammates', but how confirmation bias had colored her manager's assessment of her skills.
4. Engage in Empathic Confrontation
At the next 1:1 with her manager, Amy engaged in empathic confrontation, which is empathy (imagining yourself in the other's shoes) plus confrontation (addressing the real issue).
This looked like, "I understand you didn't mean to biased against me (empathy), but given the specific context of that coding challenge, I think there was some unconscious bias at play when you assessed my technical skills. It seems like this process is not going fairly for me (confrontation)."
The manager responded, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I didn't even realize I had this blindspot."
Within a few months, the manager surprised Amy by saying, "You're being promoted ahead of schedule because you've shown me that you have both the technical and soft skills needed to be at the next level."
The Ripple Effect of Your Self-Advocacy
On the podcast interview with Amy I asked her how learning to advocate for herself has impacted her life outside of work.
Here's a snippet of her answer:
I'm much more comfortable being home and present with my children when I am home.
I make a lot of money now.I renovated my entire kitchen, because I feel confident I will continue to have money flowing to me...
When I started to advocate for myself at work, I learned to advocate for myself in personal relationships and ended up in a wonderful, supportive, equal partnership that is bringing me so much joy.
Amy's results can be your results, too.
If you feel misunderstood and misrepresented at work,
Learn to strengthen the voice of self-trust, rather than the Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee.
In career conversations, practice getting curious, not furious.
Speak truth to power by using empathic confrontation.
If you want to dive deeper and get 1:1 support so you can astonish yourself with how far and how fast you can achieve career results that make your heart sing with joy, no matter who’s misunderstanding you right now, you’re invited to book your free 1:1 consultation with me today.
