What’s the most common reason someone on your team doesn’t get promoted?

Our reader poll today asks: What’s the most common reason someone on your team doesn’t get promoted?

• There are no openings for them to fill – 58% 
• Someone else gets the role – 11%
• They lack the skills to perform the role – 18%
• They have the skills but lack experience in similar roles – 3%
• They interview poorly – 3%
• Something else – 8%

Nowhere to go. Clearly promotion opportunities are being limited by the number of spaces available for your team members to be promoted into. While you can’t manufacture roles out of thin air, you can create opportunities and also ensure your people are ready for roles when openings do appear. As far as creating opportunities, look for roles that they might not traditionally consider. Someone in Marketing might not actively pursue an operations role but in doing so, they will learn a lot that can be relevant to future roles they might pursue. Expand the field of vision for what kinds of roles you encourage your team members to look at. It can build their skills and experience while also creating near-term growth opportunities. For those of you who say your team members lack the skills for the role, right now is exactly the time to be building those skills with them Give them stretch assignments and projects. Send them to training. Find them a mentor. Build those next-level skills while they’re in their current role so when a promotion opportunity arises, they’re ready to take on that role.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.