What to do when you get a “battlefield promotion”
You’re never ready for a battlefield promotion. Here’s how to act as if you are.
👋Hi, it’s Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on how to make high-stakes professional and personal decisions in your 30s.
Very early in my career in tech sales, I got a battlefield promotion to manage a cross-functional team that was building a prototype for a prospect under a very tight deadline.
I was not ready for the job. That was obvious to me, and when I turned up onsite, I realized it was obvious to everyone else too. I could feel this team of engineers looking at me, like, “Typical – the morons at head office sent a sales guy to help.”
I did the only thing I was qualified to do: I worked really, really hard. I bought power cords, moved the folding table desks and delivered lunch. I arrived before they did (and added value where I could) and left when the last engineer left. By the time we hit the deadline, I had a team that trusted me – and had bought enough time to make a real plan.
If you get a battlefield promotion, you are almost certainly not ready. That’s okay.
But you need to take action as if you are – because these promotions are higher-risk than you think. If you meet expectations, it can accelerate your career 5x. But if you flounder in the new role, you can quickly become a middling, or even low, performer.
Here’s the guidebook I wish I’d had.
– Greg
What a battlefield promotion looks like
Your boss gets promoted, leaves, gets fired, or goes on extended leave, and your boss’ boss says, “We’re going to give you the job (or at least make you the interim lead).”
This can happen at any level and any stage in your career. Taylor got a battlefield promotion at 24 and another one at 30 (to COO at Section). It’s especially common if you work for people who are constantly being promoted, or leaving jobs. Growing and downsizing companies both create these kinds of opportunities.
When you get a battlefield promotion, two things are almost certainly true:
You’re a pretty good choice for the replacement. You’re likely the second-in-command or the top performing IC on the team. You have some familiarity with the role, and you’re a high performer (you wouldn’t get it if you weren’t).
You are going to be bad at it at first. Battlefield promotions happen to high performers, so you’re used to being great at your job. But you won’t be great at your boss’ job immediately – and you can’t just keep doing your old job and expect to succeed.
The hardest part of a battlefield promotion is that you have to learn the job while doing the job. There’s no real grace period. If you fail, saying, “I wasn’t ready” or “I didn’t have enough time to transition” won’t get you much sympathy. You’ll be a non-performer, and it will impact your career at the company.
But that’s not a reason not to take it (careers move fast with successful battlefield promotions). Here’s what to do instead.
10 tips to make the most of your battlefield promotion
All of these tips come from our personal experience getting battlefield promotions – either things we did that worked, or things we didn’t do that we should have done in retrospect. Have your own? Comment or tell us on social.
1. Find 1-2 things your boss wants done, and do them immediately.
This is all about proving your value quickly. Build a strong foundation with your boss by doing a few things they’ve been asking for, but not getting, from your former boss. Look for quick wins.
2. Relatedly: Don’t drop anything in the first two weeks.
Figure out what the immediate deliverables are (e.g., product launch, marketing events, customer meeting) and deliver on them. Nothing loses trust faster than dropping the ball on something you should be able to execute.
3. Figure out who thinks you should be in the job (and who doesn’t).
You have a set of new stakeholders – peers and (sometimes) direct reports. Some of them will think you got your role through luck, favoritism, or sucking up. That’s fine. You don’t need to pander to them, but you do need to know who they are and how you can add value to them. Figure out what they want out of the person in your role, and then start to make progress here (again, look for quick wins with those who are more skeptical).
4. Give away your old job within 90 days.
You cannot do your new job well if you’re still doing the old one. Find someone on the team to take over your previous responsibilities, and aggressively delegate until you’re no longer doing it. Our tip: Color-code your calendar according to “old job” responsibilities and “new job” responsibilities, and aim for 90% new job within 90 days.
5. Develop a point of view, but don’t do it too fast.
At some point, your boss will expect you to come with your own point of view – but take a beat to listen first. Steamrolling the team with your new-and-improved ways of working will just make you look stupid when you inevitably turn out to be wrong about some of it. The sweet spot of making changes is usually after 60-90 days in the role.
6. Don’t hide from your team as you plan.
Don’t hide away until you’ve developed the “perfect plan” to unveil to your team. Schedule a lot of 1:1s, ask a lot of questions, and build the plan iteratively along with your team. Don’t make promises on what will change, but use them as thought partners as you build. They’ll be more invested in the direction, and you’ll learn a lot along the way.
7. Look for pebbles, not boulders.
New leaders want to prove that they can make a huge impact right away, so they tackle the “boulders” – the acquisition strategy, the product roadmap, etc. Buy some time and respect by tackling the pebbles first – fix broken reporting, get access to new data, get HR to follow through on an old commitment.
8. Talk to your old boss.
If at all possible, book time with your old boss to learn more about the inside of the job. They know it better than anyone else, and they can help you avoid stupid mistakes (pissing off the CEO, proposing something that’s already been tried, etc.).
9. See something your former boss didn’t.
You don’t have to come in with all the answers (see above), but don’t blindly follow your old boss’ plan either. Once you’ve laid the groundwork with the team, your job is to provide new value within 90 days. Take a hard look at the key assumptions in the revenue plan. Do a customer analysis by profitability. Complete a review of the product roadmap based on engineer feedback.
10. Work really, really hard.
You’re in a new role, with a new set of responsibilities that you haven’t had before, which means it will take you double the time it took your boss to do lots of this work. There is incredible upside here – but also expect to be working late, taking limited vacations, and skipping weeknight plans in the first 90 days.
Our advice
Battlefield promotions are like rocket fuel for careers – powerful but risky. But they’re worth the risk – so if you are offered one, take it. They’ve accelerated both of our careers (Taylor’s in the middle of one right now).
People often make the mistake of assuming that getting the battlefield promotion is what accelerates careers. But it’s not just getting the promotion – it’s getting it and performing well in the role.
So steal some or all of our steps above and make your plan. Work really hard. Absorb the stress and try to appreciate the challenge.
By the way – if it turns out you can’t do the job and you end up leaving, that’s okay too. Learn from it and move on. Greg was fired from Apple, and his career turned out okay.
To the next 10 years,
Greg and Taylor