How to get promoted

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

We often associate job promotions with bold confidence and huge deliverables. But when promotions happen, the story is rarely so dramatic.

Careers are upgraded quietly, long before title changes are announced on LinkedIn.

How are we going to manifest career advancement in 2026? By committing to routine, often undesirable, frequently boring behaviors that improve the lives of customers, managers, and teammates, consistently and reliably.

“The biggest career jumps I’ve seen never started with bold moves. They started with quiet consistency,” said Beni Avni, founder of New York Gates, a Brooklyn-based garage door and gates supplier.

“Before changing a job title, managers look at behavior to see who can complete routine work without complaining,” Avni said. “Trust is rapidly developed via consistent attendance, completing all tasks, and identifying little problems before they become major ones. Innovation is not as valuable as trust. Being dependable can be a wise professional choice in difficult circumstances. Finish everything that others might hasten. Regardless of who is observing, uphold high standards. This sets you apart without stating it.”

Three key ideas lead to promotions, said Richard Govada Joshua, a project manager at TEKsystems, a global staffing and consulting firm. Those are:

• 1. Leadership decisions on promotions are done behind closed doors. Only when leaders see a consistent history of reliable performance do they consider changing an employee’s job.

• 2. Small but consistent performance builds trust faster than a one-time or large accomplishment. Reliability is a much stronger indicator of potential than a single major success.

• 3. Mastering basic operational processes will create opportunities for advancement. The time to gain experience in the basics of the business is before gaining strategic opportunities.

“Leaders will decide months before a promotion announcement who they can trust to operate in ambiguous situations, who closes the loop without needing to be reminded or chased, and who can keep a project running even when things become chaotic,” Joshua said. “The people in this position are usually not the ones making the most public statements; rather, they are the most dependable.”

People grow their careers by learning and demonstrating operational basics, Joshua said.

“It is these ‘unexciting’ actions (i.e., documenting decisions, adequately preparing meetings, establishing dependencies, disclosing potential risks ahead of time, and consistently meeting small commitments) that build credibility with leadership,” he said. “Therefore, instead of asking, ‘Who wants it?’ when a role becomes available or there is a need to expand the scope of work, leaders typically ask, ‘Who is already working at this level without the title?’"