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Answer extracted from the Ordinary To Badass podcast — listen to the full episode below.

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What should you do when someone else controls a critical career decision?

September 15, 2026 Ordinary To Badass

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When you cannot control whether your boss promotes you, you absolutely control whether you develop yourself. You may not control how one person perceives your potential, but you can control whether that person is the only one who knows your work. The strategy is to build something that gives you more options—so no single person can destroy your entire plan.

The real problem most professionals face is invisible: they're betting their entire career on one relationship, one manager, or one company's judgment. That's a fragile position. If that one person leaves, gets demoted, holds a grudge, or simply doesn't believe in you, your trajectory stalls—unless you've built alternatives.

Marie Sonneman explores this dynamic in the second part of her leadership lessons episode, examining how women navigate situations where gatekeepers hold institutional power. The lesson applies equally to anyone whose advancement depends on someone else's decision.

Three levers you actually control

First, skill development is entirely in your hands. Your boss can choose not to promote you, but they cannot stop you from learning. Take courses, build expertise, master domains that matter in your industry. This makes you valuable to other managers, other companies, and future opportunities—not just your current employer.

Second, visibility beyond your immediate boss matters more than most people realize. Make your work known to peers, senior leaders, and people outside your direct reporting line. Present at meetings, contribute to cross-functional projects, build relationships at industry events. When multiple people know your capabilities, one person's skepticism loses power.

Third, optionality protects you. Build skills and a network that create genuine career choices. If you're so specialized or so dependent on your current role that you have nowhere else to go, you're stuck. But if you're developing portability—if other organizations would want you, if you could transition to adjacent roles—then you're not trapped by a single person's judgment.

Why this matters when the stakes are high

The dynamic becomes urgent when decisions feel truly blocked. Promotion denial, being passed over for a key assignment, or being told your work isn't good enough—these moments create fear. The instinct is often to work harder for the same person hoping they'll finally see your value. But the podcast conversation on navigating career blockades reveals a different logic: if one person's approval is your only path forward, you need to create other paths.

This doesn't mean quitting or becoming disloyal. It means recognizing that your professional worth exists independent of any single person's perception. You can be a good employee to your current employer while simultaneously building leverage, skills, and relationships that give you real options.

"Leadership isn't a personality type. It's a strategy. It's understanding people, understanding the room, knowing what you can control, building relationships, creating evidence, communicating your impact, preparing before the moment comes, asking for what you want, and then moving when it's time to move."

If you want to see how this principle played out for historical figures facing institutional gatekeeping—from women in physics to artists reclaiming their own work—the full episode dives into concrete examples across different industries and eras.

See also