How Can I Move Forward When My Company Won’t Promote Me?
Coaching Real Leaders
Harvard Business Review / Muriel Wilkins
4.8 • 759 Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
She’s been at her current organization for decades, and loves the leadership role she’s in. But she’s always aspired to make it to the C-suite. As that opportunity seems less and less likely to attain where she is now, executive coach, Muriel Wilkins, helps her work through what trade-offs she’s willing to make to achieve her professional goals.
For further reading:
3 Ways to Make Tough Career Choices with Confidence: https://melodywilding.com/3-ways-to-make-tough-career-choices-with-confidence/
Career Crossroads: https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/07/career-crossroads
How to Navigate Change at Any Career Stage: https://hbr.org/podcast/2024/05/how-to-navigate-change-at-any-career-stage
Connect with Muriel:
Website: murielwilkins.com
LinkedIn: @Muriel Maignan Wilkins
Instagram: @CoachMurielWIlkins
Join the Coaching Real Leaders Community: coachingrealleaderscommunity.com
Read Muriel’s book: LeadershipUnblocked.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm executive coach Muriel Wilkins and this is coaching real leaders. |
| 0:12.0 | I've spent over 20 years working with highly successful leaders who've hit a bump in the road. |
| 0:17.6 | My job is to help them get over that bump so they can lead with a little more ease. |
| 0:22.7 | I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show, we have a |
| 0:27.8 | one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing. |
| 0:35.6 | Today I'm coaching someone will call Erica to protect her confidentiality. |
| 0:40.3 | She's worked in health care for decades and almost her entire career at one organization, |
| 0:46.2 | steadily moving up the ranks. |
| 0:48.2 | For several years, she's been chasing a dream. |
| 0:51.5 | It's driven a lot of my purposeful moves in leadership, but I haven't quite gotten there yet, |
| 0:59.0 | and it's where I've gotten stuck trying to get that last little push to get to that C-suite |
| 1:04.0 | role that I haven't been able to achieve. |
| 1:06.0 | Erica is very interested in her work and her desire to make it to the pinnacle of her organization and career. |
| 1:13.6 | That's really where my passion is. I love it. I love the scope that it gives me. |
| 1:18.6 | You know, it's not just me taking care of one person. It's me taking care of the people that take care of the people. |
| 1:23.6 | And then it's more people and more people and my scope keeps getting broader. |
| 1:27.9 | That's what kind of fuels my passion for, I guess, wanting that C-suite type role. |
| 1:34.3 | To begin the coaching session, I wanted to get a better sense of what helped her move up in her career in previous years, |
| 1:40.3 | before we dug deeper into her current state. |
| 1:43.3 | So I asked, what has been the key to her leadership success so far? |
| 1:49.7 | Well, I don't know. |
| 1:52.7 | I mean, historically, the promotions, they've always been easy. |
... |
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