I prematurely announced my work promotion on LinkedIn before my boss had informed the rest of the company and my boss was really upset. How could I have handled the situation better?

Jobs

Elaine Varelas provides guidance and tips on risks related to premature promotion announcements.

Q.  I was recently promoted at work. I was so excited about the promotion that I posted it on LinkedIn before my boss had the opportunity to share it with my firm. She was mad and said that she should have been the one to first share the news of my promotion internally. How can I make things work?

A.  So, congratulations on your promotion. Welcome to the world of mistakes and learning from them. It’s unfortunate that your boss didn’t tell you that this was not public news yet. Anyone who’s been promoted should always ask the question, when will this news be shared publicly? All you can do at this point is apologize and learn from the situation.

Let her know that in your enthusiasm for the new role, you overstepped and that you will never make that kind of mistake again. Apologize to her – a few times. She should get over it and recognize that she should have let you know that this was not public news yet. Knowing what is confidential, or someone else’s news is an important work and life lesson.

It’s very hard for people to keep information confidential. Managers really need to reinforce the need for confidentiality and to help people understand the downside of “leaking” or “sharing” news. Sharing confidential information in companies is often a sign of power. Being “in the know” is a power position and people often want to build followers by sharing information. What is tragic is that betraying these confidences can hurt people. Perhaps the person who didn’t get the promotion needed to be told. Often a manager will share something confidential and say something like, “Don’t tell this person who is your best friend at work.”  Even if you need help with the assignment you need to wait. There’s a lot of sensitive information involved, especially regarding internal promotions or separation.

There is a lot of human resource activity involved when there is a change in roles and there should be protocols in place when it comes to communications on internal promotions. Any change in employment status involves plenty of internal people. HR and Accounting must be informed.

Your best bet is to wait for company-wide announcements regarding any promotions before widely sharing the news. Your company might decide to make any announcements related to promotions or leadership changes at either in-person or virtual meetings, on communication channels such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, a company email, or even a public platform such as LinkedIn. In the future, be sure to always double-check whether you can go public before sharing the news about your promotion. It’s critical to handle internal promotions with professionalism and sensitivity as this can impact working relationships with colleagues who may have applied for the same promotion.