Advancing from Manager to Director: Practical Steps to Change Your Career Trajectory

The gap between manager and director can seem daunting.

To get recognized as having the potential to become a manager is one thing. To secure the promotion to director something else entirely. But, not all hope is lost!

Below, we've highlighted three core areas you can purposefully focus on as you're looking to advance from manager to director.

Doing the Work

As a manager, you don't have ultimate control over a project. Your center of influence isn't as large as a director's.

BUT, you have the ability to push out your center of influence by the way in which you work a project. The key aspect is to think, how can you begin to do the work like a director?

How the Project Starts

On the onset of a project, there's a difference between a manager and a director. Usually, managers are handed projects to oversee, whereas directors see the problem and create and handoff a project to solve it.

To act as a director, it's imperative to get a clear view of the landscape by picking your head up over your cubicle wall, both figuratively and metaphorically, and looking at what's happening around you.

Find a problem and initiate that project to solve it. Go and attain resources, stakeholders, and buy-in for those resources.

Once the project begins, it's important to continue keeping an eye on the landscape. Ask yourself important questions. Who needs status updates? Who is this project ultimately going to affect? Who needs to know the metrics being tracked?

During and After the Project

After the project is completed, the first part of communicating effectively is presenting how this project affected and empowered the organization.

But, when you're thinking like a director, your next step is to ask, who else do I need to get in front of with this? Who else in the company could benefit from this?

Directors are always looking at the larger landscape and not just the team in front of them.

Manage Visibility

Managing visibility is the second core area you can focus on as you put yourself on track to advance from manager to director.

Increasing your visibility is making your brand known to higher ups by creating contact points, so that when an opportunity becomes available, they'll think of you first. But, how do you do that?

Analyze Who Holds the P&L

P&L stands for profit and loss statement.

Think about the people in the company who hold the budget and own the business. These are the people who have the power to create roles within the organization.

If you were to be promoted from your manager position into a director role, who would hold the power?

You have to be purposeful about addressing your brand with each of those individuals by name.

Assess Brand with Them and Create Visibility Points

Think about past points of contact, whether they were one-on-ones or part of a group setting. And then create new, additional visibility points.

Think of the individual(s) who might have line of sight on you and how you can show up strategically in front of them. Find ways to put yourself in front of them and show that you are capable in your job.

The goal is for them to know you and think of you.

Be Selective

The third core area you need to focus on as you move from manager to director is being selective. You need to be selective in three key areas to help yourself on advancing.

Learn to Say "No"

One of the pieces of advice you probably heard when you started your career was to just say yes to every opportunity.

When we say yes to every opportunity, projects become more of a burden than they become sustainable.

When you're looking at projects, evaluate whether or not they play to your strengths, whether or not they fuel and engage you.

When work isn't a burden, you will put yourself into our work, and you will shine.

Learn to say "no" to the wrong things and "yes" to the right things.

Analyze Projects

In order to analyze projects thoughtfully and purposefully, ask questions to get to the heart of the project:

• Who is the project going to affect?
• Does it affect a team or the core of the organization?
• Does it increase line of sight with someone I'm trying to make points of visibility with?
• Is it going to play to my strengths or become an energy sink for me?
• How is this going to contribute to my brand?

When you analyze the project and ask the big, overarching questions, you'll begin to see a clearer picture of what that project entails. Once you see this trajectory, you'll be better equipped to definitively say yes or no to the project before it's even begun.

Get on the Right Stages

One of the things that helps leaders catapult their careers is their ability to present in front of an audience.

Someone who can't get on a stage and present effectively is going to become capped at a certain point in their career, because they won't be able to affect cultural growth.

When it comes to choosing your stages, make sure to choose stages that play to your strengths, put you in a line of sight of people you've identified, or where the topic is one where you have expertise with.

If you don't have the skillset to get on a stage, begin to invest in it; it's a career-changing tool.

Taking your career from manager to director is not just about doing more—it's about being purposeful.

By embracing the mindset of a director, increasing your visibility, and being selective with your opportunities, you can steer your career toward that next big leap.

The path may not always be straightforward, but with intentional effort in these three core areas, you're setting the stage for success.

Now is the time to start implementing these strategies, so you can confidently navigate your journey from manager to director and beyond. Your next career milestone is within reach—go after it!

Click here to watch Ryan dive into this topic further on our Youtube channel!