Getting that Director Promotion

I got my first Director role in 1997, when I was… oh, the ripe old age of 26 or so. I was by no means ready, and in fact left the job to go back ‘down’ to an individual contributor (IC) role only a bit over a year later. And I stayed there. Well, I mean, sort of—I went independent in 2001, so I was kind of a CEO (Chief Everything Officer), until 2014 when I again took on a Director role.

If it’s a direction you’re considering… here are some things to consider.

First, a warning. If you’re “going Director” because the money is good… think again. Even if you’re already a manager or people leader, Director is, in most companies, a big step up. It’s a change in your career. Your old job is gone, and with it most need for most of the skills you’ve developed to that point. In its place is a new job, with a need for new skills. Don’t take this step unless you’ve really thought about it, maybe spoken with someone who’s been “in that seat” a while, and are pretty sure it’s good for you. Once you make this step, it’s hard to go back—your old job skills will atrophy quicker than you think.

Second, let’s talk about what the job is. And this is pretty much all you need to know to get the job—if you can do the job, and you’ve been demonstrating that already, then getting it is a matter of waiting for the opportunity (or making one) and driving to it.

• Directors are pre-VPs. It is not unusual or wrong to spend ~5 years as a Director in some organizations. And even then, VP slots in most organizations are few and far between—it’s quite possible that, after putting your time in-grade, you’ll have to change orgs to get promoted again. Consider that.
• Learn to manage up. The point of being a Director is to both manage down, and to learn to manage up. You’ll manage whatever VP you work for as practice—because VPs spend a lot of time managing up into the executive suite. In many organizations, a Director is consider a Junior Executive. So what is “managing up?” A VP perspective: Bring me solutions, not problems. Bring me options. Stop me from doing something stupid.
• You work for the business. This is truly all that matters. Yes, having a healthy team is important—but that’s because it’s important for the business to succeed. You’re not there to make friends, to be friends, or to be an en abstentia parent. If you are friendly, great, but it’s not the job.
• You work for the business. Again. negotiations between teams must be done based on facts, and based on what drives best toward the business’ goals, which are hopefully clear to you. If that means your team takes cuts so another team gets more, you have to support and drive that, if it’s the best chance of the business winning.
• Rethink compensation. Aside from market-based salary changes, expect less in cash raises over time. Again, being a Director is a five-year game. If you get the job on the bottom end of the pay band, expect five years to rise near the top. Top-paid Directors are essentially “spare VPs,” and you’ll need to operate at that level to expect that compensation.
• You work for the business. Again. You may have ICs who work for you and make more than you; that’s fine. They probably bring more business value than you, and that’s fine as well.
• Recognition gets thinner. Your team wins as a team. You have no personal wins. However, when your team loses, you lose, not the team. Ain’t fun. But it’s part of the job, and you not only need to embrace it, you need to model it. Celebrate your team’s wins as if you had nothing to do with it; be accountable for your team’s losses even if you had nothing to do with it. You’re not going to be recognized with awards, spot bonuses, pay raises, etcetera.
• You no longer own your success. Your team does. You have no power to make yourself successful, and your team will share in any successes you do help drive. This can be a hard adjustment.
• The bar is raised. “Amazing” performance from an IC or lower-level manager translates to “Fine” performance for a Director. On a performance scale of 1–5, with 5 being “Give This Person A Tropical Vacation,” expect a 3. All the time. That’s the deal.
• Bring Data. VPs rarely have time to dig into the details—it’s your job to go get them, validate them, and bring them to the fore—along with a recommendation. Bring Good/Better/Best options, along with succinct lists of tradeoffs.
• Get Collaborative. Ideally, Directors are the ones who figure out the tactics that execute a company’s strategy, and they work out issues and conflicts amongst themselves. If something escalates to the VP layer, you’re more likely to get a less-informed decision. If something escalates to the C-suite, you’re likely to get a deeply-underinformed decision. It’s the nature of things. VPs may still have to horse-trade on budget or other things, but hopefully you’ve equipped them with data and Good/Better/Best options to do the best job they can at helping you.
• Focus. The company can’t afford to do everything, and it can’t afford to do everything right. Embrace that, support it, and lead to it. This can be frustrating to ICs who don’t have visibility into the bigger picture; work hard to help them see it and understand it.
• Be a Parent. Despite what I wrote above, you are a Business Parent to your team. They deserve your respect (they’re the ones doing the work), and they deserve your guidance. Your help. Your direction. Your experience. The benefit of your past mistakes, and what you learned from those. Help them figure out who they want to be in their career, and then give them honest guidance on how to get there—even if it means leaving you.
• Lead. Get a stranglehold on the vision you’re leading to, and lead to it. Managers just make sure things get done: deadlines hit, quotas made, and so on. Directors help everyone understand the vision and what it means to them personally. Directors aren’t supervisors, and they aren’t managers; they’re leaders. Often, the best way to lead is to show your team how to follow. In many organizations, Directors are the First Followers—the most important kind of leading.

I recognize that not every company uses Directors in this way; this is a kind of archetype that isn’t true everywhere. But… strive to be the kind of Director I’ve described here. If it’s not a fit for your current org, consider an org where it is. Because done right, Director-ing can be incredibly rewarding. You can achieve amazing outcomes, and you can do an awful lot to help the human beings who work for you.

It’s also easy to “get stuck” at Director. Really, here’s the big difference between Director and VP (again, in an archetype kind of way):

• A VP’s “First Team” is usually other VPs; a Director’s is their team.
• VPs set strategy and figure out whole-org issues like resourcing; Directors execute that strategy.
• VPs are often the ones really “running” the company; the C-suite is usually looking too far ahead to be in the “now,” or they’re too busy being “super-salespeople” for the company. So Directors really are the one marshalling the resources and keeping things on track.

Third: Get the job. Assuming you’re ready, and assuming you want it.

How?

Gather evidence. Be preapred to articular in numbers why you’re ready. Deadlines you’ve hit—or beat. Examples of how you’ve managed tradeoffs (with numbers, please). Specific and concrete examples of how you’ve collaborated to a better outcome. Some questions to consider:

1. Give me an example of a success you helped create.
   This wants specific and concrete numbers associated with it. Even if you weren’t wholly responsible, be prepared to describe your exact role in that success—did you make decisions that helped get there? What were they? If you haven’t… then you might not be Director-ready. This is where managers earn their stripes and a shot at moving up.
2. Considering that success, what would you have done, in retrospect, differently to make it 10% better?
   This shows locus of control, meaning a situation where you have the ability to make things better. This also demonstrates accountability, and the ability to learn. Terrible answers involve pointing to someone else, a lack of resources, and so on. If you’re not used to being in control, then you’re not ready to Direct.
3. Talk about a time when you led your team through a failure.
   This has nothing to do about why the failure happened, it’s how you led. If you’ve never failed, then you’re probably not ready to be a Director.
4. Why are you looking to be a Director now, at this time?
   This is a big deal. Bad answers focus on compensation or a desire for control—those are huge warning flags.

Hopefully some food for thought :).