Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
Q: How do I know if I should turn down a promotion?
A: Knowing if you should turn down a promotion is simpler than it may seem. But actually doing it can be more complicated. If you’re asking yourself whether you want a promotion or not, there’s clearly something happening that’s making you hesitate.
It might be that you feel like you should want a promotion. There’s a lot of messaging in our culture about climbing a ladder at work, and many of us are raised to believe that you should always strive for the next thing. But if you are questioning if a bigger title and more responsibility is really what you want, that instinct is telling. It can feel like a betrayal to your ambition, or like you’re not being a “good” employee if you don’t want to take on more than your current role. But not everyone wants the same things from life—and that’s a good thing.
So if you aren’t sure if you want a promotion, ask yourself why. Is it that you fear that you’ll lose some work-life balance? Is it because you are happy with your current role and you don’t want your responsibilities to change? Those are totally valid reasons. If it’s because you feel like you aren’t “good enough,” that might be impostor syndrome talking, in which case you should question your beliefs about yourself before making a decision.
If you truly feel like a promotion isn’t right for you at this time, it doesn’t have to be the nail in the coffin of your career. There are plenty of ways to grow in your current role (and even get a raise) without getting a promotion. This might include taking on new projects, working across departments and with new colleagues, mentoring a new employee or an intern or a student, taking continuing education courses, getting a certification, and/or attending conferences.
All of these things can be ways to keep the same role feeling fresh (while demonstrating your willingness to grow) and they can serve as training wheels for a promotion down the line if you change your mind. Because even if you decide that you don’t want a promotion right now, it doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Sometimes the answer is “yes,” sometimes it’s “no,” and sometimes it’s just “not right now.”
If you have come to the place where you know that you don’t want to accept a promotion, Alison Green, author of the “Ask a manager” column, has this advice for how to tell your boss:
“I really appreciate your confidence in me and your push for me to move up, but I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’m really happy with what I’m doing currently. I don’t want to move into management; I have huge respect for people who do, but it’s just not me. I love my current work and want to focus on getting better and better at it. Is that something that you can see working well here?”