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Farah had exceeded every sales target for three consecutive years at a multinational bank in Dhaka. Her quarterly reviews were flawless. When the regional manager position opened, she assumed it was hers. It went to Kamal, who had missed targets twice but happened to play golf with the division head. "They told me I was 'too valuable' in my current role," Farah recalls. "Apparently, being excellent at my job was precisely why I couldn't be promoted."
Welcome to the promotion paradox-a reality that contradicts everything we're told about meritocracy in the workplace.
THE MERITOCRACY MYTH: We've built our careers on a simple promise: work hard, deliver results, and success will follow. Bangladesh's corporate sector particularly emphasises this narrative, with companies proudly declaring themselves "equal opportunity employers" where "performance speaks louder than connections".
Research from Harvard Business School found that organisations championing merit-based systems actually exhibited greater bias, particularly favouring men over equally qualified women in promotion decisions. When managers believe their workplace is meritocratic, they scrutinise their decisions less carefully, allowing unconscious prejudices to flourish.
A 2023 survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies revealed that 67 per cent of mid-level professionals felt their career progression depended more on "who you know" than "what you deliver". It's a documented barrier to genuine meritocracy.
WHY EXCELLENCE ISN'T ENOUGH: Here's what business schools don't teach you: brilliant work that nobody sees might as well not exist.
Rezwan, a software engineer at a leading tech firm in Gulshan, discovered this the hard way. "I spent six months building a system with another colleague that saved the company around Tk 10 million annually," he explains. "My manager presented it to leadership. Guess whose name was on the slide? Not ours."
Research from MIT Sloan Management Review identifies three critical factors beyond performance: access to high-visibility projects, executive sponsorship, and cross-functional influence. Notice what's missing? The actual quality of your work.
THE BANGLADESH-SPECIFIC COMPLICATIONS: Our corporate culture adds unique layers to this paradox. In conglomerates with founding family involvement, there's often an invisible ceiling for non-family executives. Unlike Western firms that occasionally promote based on potential, Bangladeshi organisations often conflate age with wisdom-a 28-year-old with innovative ideas loses to a 45-year-old with mediocre performance because "leadership requires maturity."
Women face an additional calculation. Ayesha, a assistant brand manager at an FMCG company, was told during her performance review: "You're doing excellent work, but you're 27 now. We need to know if you're planning to get a baby soon before we invest in your development." Her male colleague, also 27, faced no such interrogation.
WHAT ACTUALLY GETS REWARDED: Here's the uncomfortable truth: organisations aren't lying when they say they promote based on merit. They're just using a different definition than you are.
Corporate leadership isn't looking for the best analyst or most technically proficient engineer. They're looking for people who can manage perceptions, influence decisions across departments, navigate political dynamics, and communicate value more effectively than they create it.
This isn't necessarily malicious. Leadership roles genuinely require different skills than execution roles. The problem is that nobody explicitly states this transformation. You're evaluated on spreadsheet accuracy for five years, then suddenly judged on your "executive presence"-a nebulous quality that often correlates more with confidence and cultural fit than actual leadership capability.
PRACTICAL STRATEGIES THAT WORK: Righteous anger about unfair systems won't advance your career. Here's what might:
Audit your visibility: List your last five projects. Now list who in senior leadership knows about them. If those lists don't overlap, you have a visibility problem, not a performance problem.
Schedule strategic facetime: Book monthly conversations with leaders two levels above you. Come prepared with questions about company direction.
Your goal should be to become a familiar face who asks intelligent questions.
Document everything: Maintain a "brag file" with quantified achievements and problem-solving examples. When promotion discussions happen, you need specific ammunition, not vague claims of "working hard".
Build cross-functional relationships: Networking events are useless. Collaborative projects with colleagues in other departments create advocates who speak up for you in rooms you can't enter.
Find your sponsor: Mentors give advice. Sponsors open doors. Identify a senior leader whose career path you admire, make yourself useful to their priorities, and explicitly ask them to advocate for you.
Know your exit number: Job-hopping often delivers promotions that internal loyalty never will. In Bangladesh's current market, external moves average 30-40 per cent salary increases versus internal promotions' 10-15 per cent.
WHEN TO WALK AWAY: Sometimes the system isn't navigable-it's simply broken. Warning signs include: multiple cycles where less qualified candidates advance, leadership explicitly referencing personal connections as factors, no visible path for someone with your background, or your manager actively blocking your visibility.
If you recognise three or more patterns, you're not facing a promotion paradox-you're facing an impenetrable ceiling. Polish your CV.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: This isn't just about individual frustration. When merit becomes divorced from advancement, we lose our most capable professionals to either burnout or migration. The brain drain isn't primarily about salary-it's about systems. Talented Bangladeshis aren't just chasing higher pay abroad; they're fleeing environments where a decade of excellence matters less than whose nephew you are.
The promotion paradox exists because we've built organisations that require one set of skills to perform well and a completely different set to advance. Until we either align those requirements or become honest about the mismatch, young professionals will continue discovering that being good at their jobs is necessary but insufficient for career growth.
The question isn't whether this is fair. It demonstrably isn't. The question is: what are you going to do about it?
maishazaahir@yahoo.com