Your guide to getting promoted
or, an interview with Career Mama CEO Shivani Berry
When Shivani Berry reached out, it felt like a natural fit. Shivani is the CEO and Founder of Career Mama, where she’s helped more than 5,000 women at Fortune 500 companies earn promotions and gain meaningful recognition from leadership. A former product leader in tech with an MBA from Harvard Business School, she brings both practical tools and lived experience to the question so many ambitious women are quietly asking: What does it actually take to get promoted?
Shivani has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Lenny’s Newsletter—but what stood out most to me was her pragmatic approach to visibility, sponsorship, and promotion readiness, especially for working mothers navigating complex systems while carrying a lot already. In this conversation, we unpack the signals, the unspoken rules, and the strategic moves that can help you move forward with more clarity and confidence.
JW: Let’s start with the big picture. What internal and external signals tell someone they’re ready to go for a promotion?
SB: Internally, promotion readiness often shows up as pattern recognition. You’re no longer asking, “How do I do this?” but thinking ahead: “Why are we doing this, and what’s the next problem coming?” You start proposing solutions instead of only bringing problems. For example, if you know your manager has a leadership meeting coming up, you might come with an outline of the deck she’ll likely need. It doesn’t have to be perfect—the point is that you’re thinking ahead.
Externally, the clearest signal is trust. Leaders pull you into conversations earlier, ask for your perspective before decisions are made, or hand you problems without prescribing exactly how to solve them.
Promotion readiness isn’t about feeling 100% confident. It’s about operating at the next level for some time and being recognized for it. Imposter syndrome often tells us, “I’m not ready,” even when we are. To support that, I have a promotion readiness calculator, a quick two-minute quiz that helps you pinpoint what’s blocking your promotion, whether that’s visibility, skills, sponsorship, communication, or something else. You get personalized results and specific strategies you can apply right away.
JW: What are the unspoken rules about getting promoted that are often missed?
SB: First, I’d say visibility matters more than talent. Too often we think, “Good work will speak for itself. If I put my head down, if I take on the extra project, they’ll notice it”. That’s just not true. You have to be able to talk about your work. People have to recognize the value.
I learned this the hard way. When I was at Intercom, I was leading a year-long pricing project that was moving forward but hadn’t hit a major milestone yet. When leadership asked how it was going, I’d just say, “Good.” I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time, and I felt like I didn’t have anything significant to report. A few weeks later, I started hearing that people were concerned the project was off track.
Things escalated quickly. My manager jumped in, started micromanaging, and pieces of the project were taken away from me. I realized the issue wasn’t the work—it was the silence. I started sending regular updates, connecting the dots on what we were doing, what we were learning, and what was coming next, even when there wasn’t a big win to share. That transparency rebuilt trust. A few months later, the CEO asked me to lead a company-wide project he was personally excited about.
The lesson stuck: silence kills trust. In the absence of information, people assume the worst. Even if you’re doing great work, if people aren’t clear on how it connects to company goals or drives impact, they start to discount it. Leaders are busy—you have to connect the dots for them. Visibility matters, not because talent isn’t important, but because impact needs to be seen.
The other big unspoken rule is sponsorship. You need someone who will champion you in rooms you’re not in, because promotion decisions happen there. A sponsor with influence can reinforce your story and make the business case for why you should be promoted. And people can only advocate for impact they can clearly see, which again ties back to visibility.
I have a recognition toolkit that gives you plug-and-play scripts to strategically share wins in 1:1s, flag risks early, and build your reputation across the organization.
JW: I think some people will read this and feel frustrated. They’re working hard, doing high-quality work, and watching someone else—often louder and more self-promoting—get more recognition despite not having the same depth of skill. It can start to feel unfair, or like the message is that you have to constantly talk yourself up to get ahead. For people who are uncomfortable with that, what advice do you have for making visibility feel more authentic and palatable, without becoming someone you’re not?
SB: I hear this a lot. People think, “I don’t want to seem political. I’m introverted. This doesn’t feel natural to me. I hate self-promotion. My work should speak for itself. I’m already over-delivering—why do I now have to put in extra effort to sell it internally?”
What I’d offer as a reframe is this: visibility isn’t bragging or self-promotion. It’s consistent, thoughtful narration that makes your leadership and impact legible. People are busy, and leadership simply doesn’t have visibility into everything you’re doing—especially in remote or hybrid environments, but even in an office. Your manager is in other meetings. Leaders several levels up are focused on entirely different priorities.
They may see the final result or hear that a project is delayed, but they don’t see the complexity, the tradeoffs, or the gnarly problems you spent a week solving to get there. Without context, your work gets underestimated. Sharing regular updates about progress, decisions, and learnings helps others connect your work to what actually matters for the business. It’s not about selling yourself—it’s about helping people understand the value you’re creating.
JW: If someone has already been passed over for a promotion, what should their next strategic move be?
SB: The most important move after not getting a promotion is to get specific and push for clarity about why. Often, we sit in our emotions—we feel embarrassed, rejected, or like a failure. We make assumptions: “This company doesn’t value me,” or “I’m never going to ask again,” or “I should just leave.” But those narratives are usually untested. Instead, it’s important to ask directly: “Thank you for the feedback. Can you share more about the concerns and what I should be working on?”
Also, I would reiterate what we’ve already discussed. You have to talk about your work. When you ask what happened, you may learn it was about performance, budget, timing, limited slots, or a lack of sponsorship or visibility. That clarity helps you focus on the right things so you can set yourself up more intentionally for the next cycle.
JW: If someone reading this suspects they’re under-leveled, what next steps should they take?
SB: The first step is to align explicitly with your manager on role expectations, what’s required at the next level, and how the promotion process actually works. You may feel under-leveled, but your manager might see it differently—so instead of making assumptions, have a direct conversation.
Ideally, there’s a competency profile for your role and the next one. If there isn’t, do some of the work yourself before the conversation. Write down your understanding of what’s expected in your current role and what changes at the next level, and ask, “Is this accurate?” It’s much easier for someone to react to something concrete than to create it from scratch.
If your manager agrees you’re under-leveled, then clarify the path forward: what gaps you need to close, what blind spots exist, and what the promotion process looks like behind the scenes. Sometimes the issue isn’t performance—it’s timing, budget, or the need for your manager to advocate up several levels. Understanding that process helps set realistic expectations.
Finally, document these conversations and establish a clear follow-up plan. Summarize what you discussed, share it with your manager, and agree on when you’ll check back in. That way, follow-ups don’t feel awkward or pushy—you’re simply revisiting a plan you both agreed to and holding the process accountable.
Lighting Round
One sentence every woman should practice before a promotion conversation… “Can you please share more about your concerns why I’m not ready to get promoted this cycle? This will help me identify what I should work on.”
We often go into these conversations braced for a clear “yes”, and I hope you get that yes! But more often, the answer is murkier: “Let me think about it,” or something noncommittal. That’s usually the moment we shut down. When I feel even a hint of rejection, I tend to go blank, sometimes on the verge of tears, and staying silent feels safer than falling apart in the room. Having a simple, grounding question ready gives me something to say in the moment—so I can gather information, step away, and come back to it later.
Title change first or compensation change first? I’d almost always encourage asking for both—and first being honest with yourself about whether you truly have to choose. Sometimes we assume a tradeoff when there isn’t one. When I was promoted to people manager, I didn’t ask for a raise, and that was about my own insecurity; I should have asked for both. If you genuinely do have to pick, I’d usually lean toward the title change. It signals trajectory publicly, often increases internal influence, and can make it easier to come back later for the compensation adjustment. That said, it really depends on your personal needs, company dynamics, and what best serves your goals.
Best book you've read lately… Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. She's someone who really helped me realize my vulnerability can be a strength when I've grown up thinking it's a weakness I should hide.
Best piece of advice for working moms… Presence over perfection. As high performers, we’re trained to nail everything—but when you add motherhood, we’re often trying to do two or three full jobs in the span of a normal human day, and that comes at a real cost. Research consistently shows that even ten minutes of fully present, phone-free time with our kids has more impact than hours of distracted multitasking. The same is true at work: it’s often less about perfecting the deliverable and more about being fully present in the meeting that actually matters, rather than replaying what you didn’t say or didn’t include in the deck.
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How RTO plans that accommodate working parents can help retain staff (Inc.)
