It must be promotion season because in the last week on LinkedIn, I've seen a number of people I once worked with celebrate their new job titles.
While I'm happy for all of them, I'm shocked to see a few of them, and I know I'm not alone.
Yes, this is me saying, "Who in their right mind decided to promote this person and why the hell did they do that?"
And it's not just one person, it's like a handful of people that have me scratching my head.
I realize I sound bitter, but honestly, this article has nothing to do with being bitter or being jealous, and it has everything to do with ensuring that we are all on the same page that decision-making inside of organizations is not always sound, and to not believe in or buy into the hype when you see it.
Don't get jealous, bitter, frustrated, or feel like you're behind just because you see something on social media is what I'm getting at.
Just because someone posted they hit a goal, you don't fully know the backstory. Just because someone claims to have been promoted, you don't know what decision led to it. Just because you see someone got a new job doing what looks to be amazing, you don't know the real story tied to it.
Don't start doing that thing where you feel like you're behind and compare yourself when you don't have the full story or picture.
What social media rarely shows you is the context, the politics, the timing, the desperation hire, the internal reshuffle, the leader who needed to fill a seat quickly, or the quiet exodus that created an opening.
You see the announcement graphic and the polished caption about being "humbled and honored," but you do not see the messy decision tree that led to it. Organizations are run by humans, and humans are inconsistent, biased, rushed, strategic, reactive, and occasionally flat-out wrong.
This is not a knock on the people being promoted. Sometimes they absolutely deserve it. Sometimes they are stepping into something bigger than you imagined for them. But sometimes they simply fit the moment, the narrative, or the politics of the room better than you did. That does not make them superior, and it does not make you behind. It just means you are not inside the same set of variables that produced that outcome.
The danger is not their promotion, it is your interpretation of it. The story you start telling yourself is the problem.
You begin to question your trajectory, your value, your timing, as if someone else's announcement is a scoreboard update for your life. It is not. Their chapter does not define your pace, and their title does not erase the work you are doing that has not yet had its public moment.
So before you spiral into comparison, zoom out. Promotions are data points, not destiny. You have no idea what trade-offs were made, what compromises were accepted, or what ceiling might already exist around that shiny new role. Stay focused on your lane, your development, your leverage. The real win is not chasing every public milestone you see; it is building something that actually aligns with who you are and where you are headed, even if it takes longer and comes without a LinkedIn banner announcement.