Are You Exploring, Establishing, or Advancing? Why Most Executives Are in the Wrong Stage Without Knowing It
- Amii Barnard-Bahn
- May 21
- 6 min read
Updated: May 22
Five years ago, I was sitting at my dining room table, surrounded by my laptop, sticky notes, cold cups of tea and copies of The PI Guidebook: How the Promotability Index® Can Help You Get Ahead in Your Career. I was prepping for my virtual book launch party which was about as much fun as you could have in a pandemic! This book was my attempt to answer one question: “How do I give leaders the kind of candid, behind-the-curtain insight I wish I’d had on my way to the C‑suite?”
After two decades in Fortune Global 50 roles—hiring, firing, building teams, and deciding who was ready for bigger jobs—I’d watched smart, hardworking people stall out because they didn’t understand what stage of their career they were really in, or what was expected of them to move up.
So I created the Promotability Index® and The PI Guidebook: a simple, practical career development framework that helps leaders see themselves the way senior management does.
Five years and thousands of assessments later, three things are still true:
The same five elements—Self-Awareness, External Awareness, Strategic Thinking, Executive Presence, and Thought Leadership—separate good leaders from exceptional ones.
Executives continue to get very little direct feedback on how they’re perceived.
And many leaders are operating as if they’re in one career stage, while their organizations see them in another.
That misalignment is one of the biggest hidden threats to promotability, so today I’m going to help you identify whether you’re in the Exploring, Establishing, or Advancing stage of your career, why so many executives misdiagnose their stage, and how the Promotability Index® and The PI Guidebook can give you a roadmap for executive career development.
The Three Career Stages That Shape Your Promotability
In The PI Guidebook, I describe three broad career stages. Knowing whether you’re Exploring, Establishing, or Advancing is critical to focusing your development and increasing your chances of promotion.
1. Exploring: Building Your Foundation
Exploring is typically early career, after formal education and a few different roles or organizations. You’re:
Building technical proficiency in your field.
Testing environments to find your niche.
Beginning to build a professional network.
You may still be asking: “Is this the right path for me?” That’s normal in Exploring. The risk is staying here too long, or signaling that you’re still Exploring when your organization expects you to be Establishing.
From a promotability lens, Exploring is about gathering data on yourself and steadily building credibility.
2. Establishing: Proving You Can Lead and Deliver
The Establishing stage comes once you’ve been working for several years with gradually increasing responsibility. You’re often:
Managing people or projects for the first time.
Delivering consistent results in your domain.
Learning to influence across functions, not just within your own team.
At this stage, organizations are quietly asking:
“Can we trust this person with a bigger scope?”
“Do they show signs of executive potential and strategic thinking?”
Many leaders spend years in Establishing. They’re strong performers, but they’re not yet seen as enterprise-wide leaders. This is where career advancement often stalls because the leader hasn’t shifted from “great functional expert” to “future enterprise leader.”
In fact, a lot of people never make it out of this stage because they lack the ability to overcome a real or perceived gap, or there are fewer roles at the top — every organization only has a handful.
3. Advancing: Operating as an Enterprise Leader
Advancing is where you’re in the executive ranks or clearly on your way. You are:
Well known inside and outside your organization.
Seen as a strategic thinker and trusted advisor.
Demonstrating strong Executive Presence and Thought Leadership beyond your immediate role.
Thought Leadership is so critical at this stage in your career. Leading in your industry association, writing, speaking, having a point of view and sharing it internally or externally can make all the difference.
At this level, promotion is less about whether you can do the job, and more about whether key stakeholders believe you’re the right person to bet on. The Promotability Index®’s five elements—and unfiltered feedback, such as a 360 review—are non‑negotiable if you want to move into C‑suite roles, board seats, or advisory work.
Why So Many Executives Misdiagnose Their Career Stage
If you have a senior title—director, VP, SVP—it’s easy to assume you’re firmly in the Advancing stage of your executive career.
That’s not necessarily how your leadership team sees it.
Across my coaching and advisory work, three patterns show up repeatedly:
Leaders who think they’re Advancing but are actually Establishing
They’re excellent functional leaders, but not yet seen as “enterprise thinkers.” Their network is narrow. Their strategic contributions are solid, but not distinctive. They’re surprised when they’re passed over for cross-functional or C‑suite roles.
Leaders who are Establishing but behaving like they’re still Exploring They change jobs frequently, avoid visible projects, or haven’t committed to building depth in a specific area. The organization is looking for consistency and breadth; they’re still signaling “I’m figuring myself out.” From a promotability perspective, that sends mixed signals.
Leaders who are Advancing but not managing perception External awareness is critical here - being accurate and aware of how their leadership behaviors impact others. Their results are strong, but they assume that’s enough. They underestimate how much Executive Presence, External Awareness, and Thought Leadership matter at the top. The organization sees them as reliable executors, not as future C‑suite material.
In each case, the issue isn’t talent, it’s clarity. No one has given them a structured way to understand how they’re perceived and what their current career stage actually requires.
That’s why I created the Promotability Index®.
A Quick Self-Check: Exploring, Establishing, or Advancing?
Here’s a simplified way to start self-diagnosing your current career stage.
You’re likely in Exploring if:
You’re still deciding what type of work energizes you most.
You’ve had multiple roles in different functions or industries in a relatively short time.
Your primary focus is learning skills and figuring out where you fit.
You’re likely in Establishing if:
You manage people or projects and are known as “the go‑to” in your area.
You receive strong performance reviews but aren’t yet tapped for enterprise-wide initiatives.
Most of your time is spent executing strategy rather than helping to shape it.
You’re likely in Advancing if:
You’re asked to advise on company-wide decisions, not just your function.
You’re known beyond your immediate organization (industry events, articles, boards, cross-company networks).
Stakeholders look to you for judgment and perspective, not just delivery.
If you’re unsure where you fall—or suspect your self-view doesn’t match how others see you—you’re not alone. That gap is exactly what the Promotability Index® is designed to surface.
How the Promotability Index® Powers Executive Career Development
The Promotability Index® is a free self-assessment I developed to help leaders understand how they’re perceived in five key areas that drive promotion decisions:
Self-Awareness
External Awareness
Strategic Thinking
Executive Presence
Thought Leadership
These elements show up differently in each career stage and are exactly what organizations weigh when deciding who to invest in.
The PI gives you:
A clear snapshot of your current strengths and gaps.
Insight into which stage you’re operating in—versus where you want to be.
A common language to discuss your leadership development with your manager, mentor, or coach.
Forbes called the Promotability Index® “a SWOT analysis for your career” and highlighted how it helps professionals see themselves from management’s perspective (Forbes, 2021). Thinkers360 later named The PI Guidebook one of the top 50 books to read in 2022 for leadership and executive development.
The PI Guidebook is the companion roadmap. Once you have your PI results, it helps you:
Interpret what your scores mean in the context of your career stage.
Choose one or two priority elements to focus on.
Work through over thirty exercises to build the specific behaviors that increase your promotability.
Create a self-development action plan you can revisit annually, using the PI as your progress scorecard.
Five Years of The PI Guidebook & Your Next Step
As I look back on the five years since The PI Guidebook was published, what I’m most proud of are the notes from professionals who say things like “Now I finally understand why I kept getting ‘meets expectations’” and “This gave me the language to ask for the right kind of feedback.”
The biggest lesson that’s held up is this: You cannot delegate your career advancement to your organization. You need your own framework, your own data, and your own plan. Five years ago, I wrote this framework to share the “insider rules” I wish I’d known earlier. Today, you don’t have to guess. You can know exactly where you are, what your organization values next, and how to take deliberate steps toward the career you want. P.S. When you use the code 5TH, you get 21% off the digital interactive pdf version of the The Promotability Index Guidebook in honor of it coming out in 2021! Click here to grab yours.
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