Getting a promotion requires consistently exceeding performance expectations while showing potential for the next career step — and a manager who advocates for you.
Alex Border, an enterprise implementation manager at AlertMedia, was lucky to have all three, and so it was no surprise when her manager encouraged her to take part in the company’s leadership training program: Aspire.
“Aspire focused on core leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, trust-building, candid feedback and influential communication,” Border said.
When the time arose for Border’s promotion, she felt well-prepared for the transition from individual contributor to people leader — and Border leans on that preparation as a manager who now prioritizes frequent feedback for building a high-performing and engaged team.
Hear more from Border and two other employees from Grocery TV and Arrive Logistics about how their employers set them up for career success through clear career paths, learning and sponsorship.
AlertMedia helps companies keep their people safe, informed, and connected during emergencies and other critical events.
What makes promotion criteria feel fair and clear — and what evidence supports it?
AlertMedia’s people team has partnered with our leadership team to develop leveling guides which outline career pathing and skills required to be promoted. Having the opportunity to see the required skills in writing was helpful as it made me realize I was already naturally doing a lot of what was outlined in the guide, one of those things being mentorship.
My manager did a great job recognizing my skill set and noticed I was someone other team members went to for support. They encouraged me to take a more formal mentor role with a new team member to further build my skills; I soon realized that I enjoyed taking on responsibilities that managers commonly focus on, furthering my interest in pursuing that as my next career move.
I also had recurring quarterly career conversations with my manager in which I discussed my career goals and specific steps I could take to continue building the skills outlined in the leveling guides. Between these two, I was able to convey my readiness for people leadership and focus on the skills needed to succeed. When the opportunity arose, I had the clarity, confidence and support needed to move forward with the interview process for a manager role.
Which program most improved your capability in your role — and what changed after?
I was able to participate in the first ever cohort of AlertMedia’s Aspire program. Aspire is an emerging leaders development program for individual contributors at AlertMedia who have an interest in growing into future people leadership roles while expanding their influence.
Aspire focused on core leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, trust-building, candid feedback and influential communication. The emotional intelligence focus gave me a clear framework for how leaders show up, make decisions and influence others. It helped me articulate my readiness for people leadership by grounding my approach in how I build trust, communicate and support others, not just in what I personally deliver. I left the program with a clearer picture of how I wanted to lead and concrete ways to apply those skills in a management role.
When I stepped into my new role, Aspire accelerated my transition from an individual contributor mindset to a people leader mindset. Instead of focusing primarily on execution, I became more intentional about how my behavior, communication and emotional responses impact my team.
What manager or mentor behavior consistently accelerates growth?
Early in my career, having a manager who maintained a consistent feedback cadence accelerated my growth and helped me build confidence. Now as a manager, I lean into that same strong feedback cadence as a way to help my team grow. Regular, timely feedback gives people clarity on what’s working and what to adjust, shortening learning cycles and building confidence. Feedback is most effective when it is normalized and ongoing.
Feedback is helpful for many different stages of a career. As a new hire, regular feedback helps create clarity around expectations, builds confidence and allows for course correction early on. For consistent performers, ongoing feedback reinforces strengths, maintains alignment and highlights stretch opportunities to prevent stagnation. For high performers, frequent feedback sharpens impact, sustains momentum and supports readiness for the next level.
Grocery TV is an in-store retail media platform.
What makes promotion criteria feel fair and clear — and what evidence supports it?
The most important thing for me as a manager is that my reports and I remain on the same page in terms of both their performance and where they are in their professional development.
For me, getting promoted always starts with developing an understanding with an individual on where they are at their current level. Leveling guides can never eliminate all ambiguity so I like to start with making sure my interpretation of each facet of a given level is the same as the individual.
Once that mutual understanding is established, the path becomes clear on what gaps need to be addressed for that individual to reach the next level.
Together, I’ll work with them to set goals that contribute to both their development and the goals of the company. Aligning individual goals with the greater goals of the team and company is critical, because it eliminates any risk of an employee feeling like they can’t progress themselves due to the needs of the business. Promotion and progression then become fair and clear, the individual knows what they need to accomplish and the company benefits from their progression.
Which program most improved your capability in your role — and what changed after?
At Grocery TV, we have a learning and development program. This program provides funds to employees to pursue educational opportunities that will assist in their professional development. Since its introduction in 2024, members of my team have utilized it in a variety of ways: courses around cloud architecture, a conference to learn how to be a better staff engineer and a seminar at The University of Texas at Austin on public speaking.
For me personally, I attended a course around leadership in January of 2025. Throughout the week we covered everything from how to deliver actionable feedback to creating psychological safety. Since returning from the course, my ability to help my team grow in their careers and operate better as an engineering organization has greatly improved. Feedback is now delivered as close to real time as possible and our metrics around having a unified direction that’s understood by everyone have improved twice as much .
What manager or mentor behavior consistently accelerates growth?
Growth comes the fastest when someone is working on things that excite them and bring them energy. You’re never going to become a great writer if the mere thought of sitting down to write bores you to death. With that in mind, I try my best to listen to my team’s interests and desires so that I can put them on projects that excite them.
Our larger project planning happens on a quarterly basis, so as our existing projects wrap up I make sure to touch base with each individual on my team in regards to their interests. The two things we’ll talk about is how their work from the past quarter has engaged them and what they’re interested in working on or learning next. This has proven to work best with junior engineers, who are still exploring various technologies for the first time and trying to identify where they want their expertise to lie.
Since our engineering department is organized into pods, we can be flexible to who works on what problems. This makes the process simple — listen to what individuals want, identify what the business needs, then shuffle the pods to have the best individual to business alignment.
Arrive Logistics is a freight brokerage tech company.
What makes promotion criteria feel fair and clear — and what evidence supports it?
To make a promotion feel fair and clear, there should be consistency on criteria to get promoted for the entire team as well as consistency on achieving high performance in the employee’s current role before being considered for the next level. These can be specific goals or metrics that need to be met and clear achievement of all aspects of their current role. Ideally, we would like managers to provide real-time feedback and guidance to employees on what they need to accomplish to get to the next level or they could also have a set rubric for each level in an organization. In situations where there are multiple employees that could be a good fit for the role, it is fair to open the position for internal candidates to apply. This then provides a fair opportunity for anyone interested to apply and be considered on a fair playing field based on how they interview and the skill sets they bring to the table.
Which program most improved your capability in your role — and what changed after?
There wasn’t a specific program for my specific role, but having a manager that pushes you to the next level and encourages you to take on new challenges always provides the opportunity to gain new skill sets and build confidence in your work. However, at Arrive, I believe our training and mentorship programs really provide our representatives the opportunity to get hands-on support and coaching to be successful in their roles starting on day one.
What manager or mentor behavior consistently accelerates growth?
Managers that let their employees have stretch opportunities accelerate growth. Even if you feel that the employee might not achieve the level of work you are expecting, having them try it on their own and helping them along the way really instills confidence and new skill sets in employees. Additionally, providing more of the overall picture and not staying confined to a specific area helps the employee have a more strategic approach and better problem-solving for the company as a whole. Lastly, I think real-time feedback that is honest is critical to help someone grow. This can be related to areas of growth or feedback highlighting what they did well so they can replicate those same behaviors.
