Nobody Tells You The Chair Is Gone

Career · Promotion

By Feras Asakrieh · 5 min read · Issue #44

A few years back we had approval to hire three directors.

Interviews were done. Finalists picked. The offers were written and sitting there, ready to go out that week.

Then one email came from the CEO. All hiring on hold.

That was the whole message. No reason, no date. We called the finalists and told them we would be in touch.

A few months went by. Then the story changed. It was not really about a hiring pause anymore. It was that we were not adding people. We were going to do it with what we already had.

Two years later that entire level was gone from the org chart.

Nobody asked about it. Not once.

I Have Watched This Happen Everywhere Since

Different companies, same exercise. Flatter. Leaner. Fewer layers between the work and the decision.

And I agree with most of it. Plenty of orgs really did have too many layers, and cutting them made the place faster.

But there is a side effect nobody says out loud at the all hands.

Fewer layers means fewer places to go.

Roles Are Funded. They Are Not Awarded

Everything you were taught about promotions assumes a chair is sitting empty somewhere and the best person eventually gets it. Do great work. Be patient. Your turn comes.

That only works if the chair exists.

And a lot of them do not anymore. Workday found promotions fell in 10 of 11 industries through 2025, with the overall promotion rate down 25% from where it peaked in May 2022. Mercer expected companies to promote only about 8% of employees in 2024, down from 10.3% the year before.

A promotion is a line in a budget before it is a reward for anything.

Nobody Announces A Deleted Level

That is the part that does the damage.

There is no email. No meeting. Just a reorg, an org chart that got a little quieter, and a strong performer who keeps hearing some version of "keep doing what you're doing."

So you read a budget decision as a verdict on you. You assume you are not ready yet. And then you wait.

I watched good people do this for years while I already knew the seat was not coming back.

Here Is What To Do Instead

1. Find out if the rung still exists.

Before you give it another year, find out if there is anything to climb to. Look at who moved into that level at your company in the last 24 months. Not who was hired from outside. Who got promoted into it. If the answer is nobody, you are not behind. You are waiting on something that was removed. Then ask your manager straight: when was the last time we filled this role, and is it funded for next year. Their face will tell you as much as their answer.

2. Look sideways before you look up.

Flat is never flat everywhere. A level can be dead in your function and alive two doors down. Look at whichever part of the business is growing, or the one carrying a problem leadership brings up every single quarter. That group still has room and usually still has headcount. A lateral move into it is not a step back. It is stepping onto a ladder that still has rungs.

3. Take the work of the missing layer, not the title.

When a level gets removed, the work does not vanish. It gets scattered across whoever is standing nearby. Go find the piece that touches the most people and the most money, and take it. You may not get the title where you are, and that is fine. You are building the story that gets you hired at the level somewhere else. Two years of running the thing beats two years of being ready for it.

4. Go where the rung exists.

Not everyone flattened. Smaller companies still have layers. Growing ones are adding them. If your level is gone and steps two and three are not moving you, then the honest answer is that your next title lives at a different company. That is a real option. It is not quitting on yourself.

5. Stay and wait, but only on purpose.

This one is last for a reason. Waiting is fine when it is an actual decision with a date and a reason attached. It stops being fine when it is a default you quietly renew every quarter without noticing you did.

Final Thoughts

That level did not get taken away from anybody. It just stopped being funded, and then everyone got used to it being gone.

That is what makes it so expensive. There is no bad news to react to. Nothing to be angry about. Just a chair that quietly left the room while people kept working hard in front of it.

Nobody is going to tell you it is gone.

Go find out yourself.

If the chair above you is gone, the worst move is standing there waiting for it to come back. I wrote Get to Director: The Small Shifts for exactly this spot. It is the small changes that move you from running a team well to being someone leadership pictures at the next level, whether that level is here or somewhere else.

Nobody Tells You The Chair Is Gone

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