141 | Why High-Performing Women Get Stuck Doing Non-Promotable Work featuring Nicole Johnston
episode
Career Growth for Working Women | Career Advancement, Visibility, Promotion, Raises
20 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why do high‑performing women get stuck doing non‑promotable work?
What if the very things that make you valuable at work are the same things keeping you from getting promoted? In this episode, I sit down with leadership strategist and author Nicole Johnson to discuss why so many women become trapped doing non-promotable work inside organizations. Nicole shares powerful insights for more than 30 years in corporate leadership and explains why promotions are based on leadership potential, not simply task completion. Are you ready? Let's dive in.
Welcome to Career Growth for Working Women. This show is for women who are done waiting to be noticed and ready to be compensated for the value they already bring. I'm Shannon, a promotion and compensation coach, and I help women position themselves for real advancement, not by working harder, but by showing their value more strategically using what I call the 5% method. If you're ready for clarity, confidence, and career growth that actually pays off, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the show. My guest today is Nicole Johnson, and I think this conversation is going to resonate with a lot of women listening. Nicole spent more than 30 years in a global sales and marketing leadership role with companies like Procter & Gamble, Hershey, and Kimberly-Clark.
Throughout her career, she saw a pattern that many women know all too well. The women who keep things moving, the women who smooth conflict, take on extra responsibility, mentor others, and quietly carry work that isn't reflected anywhere on their job description. And yet, despite being incredibly valuable, many of those same women find themselves wondering why the next promotion never seems to come. Today, Nicole works with women navigating leadership growth, visibility, and advancement. Her work focuses on helping women understand the difference between being seen as indispensable and being seen as promotable. She is also the author of Taboo Topics, Things Women Should Talk About But Don't, which explores many of the conversations women are rarely encouraged to have about work, money, power, and career growth.
Nicole, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much, Shannon. I'm happy to be here. Okay, so you've spent decades inside large organizations, but when did you first start noticing that strong performance wasn't always translated into advancement for women?
So for the first... Nine years of my career, I worked remotely. And so it was a very different work experience. And it was harder to understand where you were at compared to your peers and everything else, just because you weren't around them all the time. And then when I went into the office for my first role, the first shocking thing was realizing I had to take a shower and do my hair every day.
What exactly is “non‑promotable work” and how does it differ from leadership tasks?
That was harsh. And after I got over that barrier... I started seeing that there were some people around me who were just flat out phenomenal at their job, but had been in their role for 10 years and weren't going anywhere else. And they were viewed as a pro in place and maybe not by their choice. And so then I started paying attention to how there would be the work that needed to get done, whether it was planning the meetings or ordering the lunches or knowing who was allergic to what. I mean, all necessary work, don't get me wrong. But I started seeing how the people who did that work weren't the ones talked about for leadership, weren't the ones talked about for the challenging projects, weren't the ones talked about for getting promoted.
And I started building the parallel in my mind of the Again, necessary but non-promotable work. And I paid attention to how a disproportionate amount of that work fell on women.
Yes, that's true. And that's something I like to talk about on this show is that we feel like sometimes as women that us being needed for those tasks, whether they're big or important, makes us so valuable. But what it really does is it holds us back. It doesn't allow us to grow in our careers, as you were saying. It doesn't show leadership that we're competent enough to take on bigger roles when in reality we really are.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do high‑performing women get stuck doing non‑promotable work?
0:01–3:04
2
What exactly is “non‑promotable work” and how does it differ from leadership tasks?
3:04–5:37
3
How much extra mental and emotional load do women carry at work compared to men?
5:37–7:20
4
Why does doing essential tasks not lead to promotions for women?
7:20–9:23
5
How can women set boundaries without harming relationships or team dynamics?
9:23–11:24
6
What is the “At‑a‑Girl folder” and how does it protect career advancement?
11:24–13:36
7
How can women make their leadership potential visible and get credit for their work?
13:36–15:35
8
What single action can listeners take this week to start building promotion‑ready evidence?
15:35–20:10
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Career Growth for Working Women | Career Advancement, Visibility, Promotion, Raises
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144 | Becoming Impossible to Overlook
143 | Why High-Performing Women Become the Default Problem Solver featuring Eric Dingler