Comment by Brajeshwar

This is one of the best pieces of career advice one can give, and I’ve had my fair share of experience that this works very well.

Most people wait to be promoted to the title/designation to do the work of that role. However, if you want to avoid friction when asked, “Why should I promote you to this role?”, you should already be doing the job and proving you can do it.

I once saw a QA tester tinkering with the front-end code, fixing the bugs himself, then went to the engineer and pointed out where to fix. When asked if he wanted to become a front-end engineer, I realized he was waiting for an opportunity to be promoted. So, I repeated my usual advice: if you want to be promoted, be already doing that role. He started learning, and work on front-end work besides his QA work. When he asked to be promoted, it was just a title change and a pay raise. He went on to lead the Product Design Team at a major oil company (at a branch in Bangalore, India). A Good photographer, and always has an eye for design.

Similar story of an engineer waiting to be promoted to a Lead Architect. Advised him to start doing it way before talking about his promotion. I don't remember his promotion in the team I was working but heard back that he was easily gotten to that position and a big salary jump at a new company (a new city). I once saw him working in the plane we were flying together, while I was sleeping. I think he deployed when we landed.

In touch with both, and lot others. None that I had advised on doing the role above them have regretted.