Being indispensable is why you're still doing the same job in five years
Everyone tells you to make yourself indispensable. It is exactly backwards, and it is why so many good QSs plateau at the level where they became essential.
Thoughts · Getting promoted
What actually gets you promoted.
The habits that move a career on, including the ones nobody spells out for you.
You don't get promoted for starting things. You get promoted for finishing them.
The QSs who get the tap on the shoulder are rarely the ones who launch the most initiatives. They're the ones who chase the retention nobody else will chase, and actually close it out.
The fastest route to promotion is a problem nobody assigned you
Ask most QSs what gets someone promoted and they'll describe doing their own job brilliantly. That's rarely the reason someone gets the tap on the shoulder.
Keep a decision log. It's the most underrated habit for getting promoted.
Nobody is in the room when you make the good calls. If you don't write them down, the story of your year defaults to whoever is easiest to remember, and that's rarely you.
Staying five years too long is the real red flag on your CV
Hiring panels worry about job hoppers, but the CVs that actually trouble me show someone who stopped growing years before they left. Here is how to spot it in yourself before someone else does.
Mentors won't get you promoted. Sponsors will.
A mentor tells you what to do. A sponsor tells other people you're already doing it. Most QSs invest in the wrong one.