To move yourself up the ladder of success, begin by working hard and asking yourself the right questions.

Don’t expect to land the promotion of your dreams next week if you haven’t already done months—if not years—of advance preparation.

To position yourself to be up- wardly mobile, you’ll need to ask yourself these five important questions, according to business consultant Michael Singer Dobson, coauthor of Managing Up: 59 Ways to Build a Career-Advancing Relationship With Your Boss.

How well are you doing at your current job? Begin with a realistic self-assessment.

“It’s not just about what you think of your own performance, but more importantly, what your supervisor, colleagues, and coworkers think about you,” says Dobson.

Ask someone to sum up your performance and its value to the company and to your boss. Listen openly, then try to address any deficiencies.

“The deficiencies that really cost people promotions aren’t necessarily lack of competency, but rather, lack of fit,” Dobson notes. “For example, we all know people whose work is competent but who aren’t likeable.”

Traits that contribute to a good fit include:

• Demonstrating loyalty and respecting the chain of command.
• Doing a good job of giving and receiving negative feedback.
• Keeping your word.
• Being supportive, not competitive or threatening.
• Listening well.

Do you have a good sense of what your current job should be? You may be doing quality work based on your own definition of the job. But if you’re downplaying aspects of the work critical to your boss or colleagues, you may not get that promotion.

To ensure you’re in alignment:

• Get to know your boss’s likes and dislikes.
• Know the goals of your boss and organization, and keep your priorities in tune with them.
• Identify, go after, and excel at strategic job assignments.

Do you have the skills for the job you’re seeking? To position yourself for promotion, you must show you have the needed skills. This may require developing an entirely new skill set. For example, if you’re a technician and you want to supervise a department, you’ll need supervisory skills.

You might need to:

• Take courses, read books, talk to people who have the kind of job you’re seeking.
• Develop your writing and other communication skills.
• Build your management skills and knowledge.
• Build mentoring and networking relationships.

Have you announced you want the promotion?

“You can’t just sit back, wave a magic wand, and expect to be validated for all the great stuff you’ve done,” Dobson insists. “You need to tell people you want the promotion. After all, desire is a job qualification— people need to believe you’ve got the passion. Many people who want a job advancement don’t get it because they don’t actually ask for it.”

Do you really want the promotion?

“Knowing your personal answer to that question is a matter of huge importance,” Dobson says. Some people seek a promotion only because they think they ought to. Others do it for the money, even though they know the job will make them unhappy.

But if you really want that job, start planning now.

“This doesn’t mean you should be impatient about moving on—you need to embrace your current job,” he counsels. “But knowing the direction you inevitably want to go, and how to get there, is crucial.”

Polly Turner spoke with Michael Singer Dobson, coauthor of Managing Up: 59 Ways to Build a Career-Advancing Relationship with Your Boss, Amacom, 2000, $17.95.

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