Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Mentoring Up
Transcript
- Lucas: We talk a lot on this show about getting visibility with senior leaders. But there's one version of that strategy that people rarely discuss openly, even though it's incredibly effective: mentoring your own manager. Luna: Mentoring up. It sounds almost risky. Like you're implying your boss doesn't know what they're doing. Lucas: Exactly. That's the fear. But when it's done well, it's not about correcting your manager. It's about being the person who makes them more effective. And that person becomes pretty hard to lose. Luna: So is this something you've actually seen work in a real promotion case? Lucas: Yeah. A listener named Sarah wrote in with her story. She was a senior analyst at a mid-size logistics firm — about 800 employees. She'd been there five years. Knew the operations inside out. Then the company hired a new VP of operations from outside. External hire, no logistics background. Smart guy, but completely lost in their systems. Luna: That's a tough spot. New VP needs to prove himself fast, but he doesn't know which levers to pull. Lucas: Right. And Sarah watched her peers do the typical thing — they complained. They rolled their eyes in side conversations. They said 'this guy's going to mess everything up.' Sarah took a different approach. She decided she was going to help him succeed, not because she was nice, but because his success would create her next promotion. Luna: She saw the win-win. If he looks good, she looks good. And she has the leverage of being indispensable. Lucas: Exactly. But the key is how she did it. She didn't walk into his office on day one and say 'let me explain how things really work here.' She waited. She built trust first. She found natural moments — like when he asked a question in a team meeting about a data pipeline — and she answered it cleanly, without making him feel dumb. Luna: That's the subtle part. The framing matters more than the content. You're not 'mentoring' — you're 'collaborating.' Lucas: Right. Sarah told me she used a specific phrase early on. She'd say 'One thing that helped me when I first got here was...' That frames it as peer to peer knowledge sharing, not top-down teaching. And the VP started coming to her directly with questions. Luna: So how did this turn into a promotion? At some point she has to convert that informal relationship into formal recognition. Lucas: That's the step most people miss. They become the go-to person, but they never translate that into career currency. Sarah did something smart. She started sending the VP a weekly one-page memo — not her normal work update, but a brief note on industry trends and internal operational risks she saw coming. She titled it 'Forward Look.' Luna: That's a classic visibility move. But it's also mentoring. She's giving him strategic context he didn't have. Lucas: Yes. And the VP started sharing that memo with his peers. Sarah became known as the person who 'really understands the business.' Six months in, the VP got her assigned to a high-visibility process improvement project. She led it, delivered real savings — around four hundred thousand dollars in logistics costs — and the VP made sure everyone knew she was the reason. Luna: So he became her sponsor. Because she helped him first. Lucas: Exactly. At the next promotion cycle, the VP put her forward for director. She wasn't just a good analyst — she was the person who'd helped him navigate the company. The promotion went through. She got a 22 percent raise and a team of six. Luna: That's a great outcome. But I can imagine some listeners thinking 'this only works if your manager is new or weak.' What if you have a competent, experienced boss? Lucas: Fair question. The mentoring-up playbook still applies — you just shift the focus. Instead of teaching them the business, you might mentor them on a specific domain they don't have. Maybe they're great at strategy but weak on data. Or they're strong on people but haven't kept up with AI tools. Everyone has blind spots. Luna: So you find the gap where you can add value without making it feel like a gap. Lucas: Right. And you offer help in a way that preserves their dignity. The phrase I like is 'I've been experimenting with something that might save you some time — want me to send it over?' That's not mentoring. That's being helpful. Luna: Let's talk about the risks. Because I think a lot of people worry about stepping on toes. Or being seen as political. Lucas: There are two real risks. One: if your manager is insecure, your help might feel like a threat. In that case, you pull way back. You don't offer unsolicited advice. You only answer direct questions. And you make sure any credit flows entirely to them. Luna: And the second risk? Lucas: You become so indispensable that your manager doesn't want to promote you. They'd rather keep you where you are. That's a real thing. Sarah avoided that by making sure her VP saw her as a future leader, not just a utility player. The 'Forward Look' memo was part of that — it showed strategic thinking, not just operational competence. Luna: So you have to signal ambition while being indispensable. That's a tightrope. Lucas: It is. But the best way to do it is to mentor your boss on things that build your own reputation. Like, if you help them prepare for a board presentation, you're not just helping them — you're learning how the board thinks. You're getting exposure you wouldn't otherwise have. Luna: That reminds me of something I read recently. A study from Harvard Business Review found that employees who engaged in 'upward coaching' were 30 percent more likely to be promoted within two years, compared to peers who just focused on their own tasks. Lucas: That's a compelling number. And I think the reason is simple: when you make your boss more effective, you become associated with their success. Their wins become your wins. Luna: But you have to be careful about optics. If other people see you as the VP's 'pet,' that can create resentment. Lucas: Right. Sarah handled that by being generous with credit. When her VP shared her work, she always looped in her team members. She'd say 'Maria helped me pull that data together' or 'That insight came from a conversation with Jamal.' That made her a leader people wanted to work with, not someone who hogged the spotlight. Luna: So mentoring up isn't just about the vertical relationship. It's also about how you manage the horizontal ones. Lucas: Exactly. Your peers need to see that your access to the boss benefits them too. Otherwise you become a bottleneck. And being a bottleneck is not a promotion strategy. Luna: Let's get practical. For someone listening who wants to try this starting Monday, what's the first step? Lucas: Identify one thing your manager genuinely struggles with or doesn't enjoy doing. Not a criticism — just an observation. Maybe they hate preparing the monthly metrics deck. Maybe they're always asking for help with data analysis. That's your entry point. Luna: Then what? Do you offer to just do it for them? Lucas: No. That makes you a doer, not a mentor. Instead, offer to show them a faster way. Say 'I've been using a template that cuts this down to about twenty minutes — want me to walk you through it?' That's an offer of skill transfer. It positions you as someone with valuable knowledge they're willing to share. Luna: And if they say no? Lucas: Then you back off completely. You can't force mentoring up. If they're not open, find another way to add value. Maybe mentor a peer who's struggling. That builds your reputation laterally, and sometimes that lateral visibility reaches the boss anyway. Luna: One thing I want to circle back to: Sarah's story worked because the VP was new. But what if your manager has been there for years and is set in their ways? Does mentoring up still work? Lucas: It's harder, but it's still possible. The angle there is usually around external trends. Your manager might be set in their ways about internal processes, but they may be genuinely curious about what's happening in the industry. You can become their source for market intel, competitor moves, emerging tech. Frame it as 'I thought you'd find this interesting given our strategy conversation last week.' Luna: That's lower risk. It's not correcting them. It's adding context. Lucas: Exactly. And over time, that context becomes something they rely on. You become their thought partner, not just their subordinate. That's a much more powerful position when promotion time comes. Luna: Speaking of thought partners — if listeners are looking for more frameworks on building that kind of relationship, we should point them to a resource. Actually, this show is entirely listener-supported, which means no ads, no sponsors. If you've found value in episodes like this one, you can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Even a small contribution helps us keep producing episodes like this one. Lucas: Yeah, and honestly, the fact that we don't have advertisers means we can dig into stories like Sarah's without worrying about pleasing a sponsor. It's a trade-off we love. So if you've gotten something useful from the show, that link is there. Luna: Alright, back to the strategy. Lucas, you mentioned the 'Forward Look' memo. Can you break down the structure? Because I think that's a tangible takeaway. Lucas: Sure. It was simple. Three sections. One: a single trend or data point she thought was relevant. Two: one internal observation — something like 'our warehouse in Atlanta is running at 95 percent capacity, which is unusual for this time of year.' Three: a question or suggestion, like 'should we explore a temporary overflow facility?' Short enough to read in two minutes. Luna: That's elegant. It shows you're thinking ahead, but it's not a huge time commitment. And it gives the VP something he can act on or discuss with his own boss. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the goal. When your manager uses your ideas in their meetings, you've effectively got a seat at the table without having to ask for one. Luna: So to wrap up: mentoring up is about finding the gap, filling it with grace, and converting that into visibility that leads to promotion. But the key word is 'grace.' It cannot feel like correction. Lucas: Right. And if you do it right, your manager becomes your biggest advocate. Not because you asked them to be, but because you made them better. And that's a pretty solid promotion strategy.