"Ready" is a feeling in your boss's head. Here's how to put it there.

Conventional wisdom says to get ready before you ask for more. Build the abilities your next role will demand, enroll in whatever training fills the gap, patch the holes in your résumé, and only when you can honestly claim you are equipped, raise your hand. Earn it, then ask. Plenty of us in Central Indiana were taught exactly this, and it has the merit of being straightforward, hard work.

Yet "ready" is not a fact sitting inside you. That picture lives in your manager's head, and the promotion usually goes to whoever already fits it, regardless of who is truly the strongest candidate.

Single. Readiness is judged by resemblance, not by a checklist

When a leadership team in Indianapolis talks about who could step up, few of them pull out a competency grid. Decision-makers imagine who would be sitting in that chair. Can they see her leading the town hall, taking the call from the frustrated client, or presenting to the board? If so, she counts as ready. If not, she needs "a bit more seasoning," which describes the leaders' imagination rather than her track record. The 2025 Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn showed that women in leadership are twice as often assumed to hold a junior post. When people take you for a junior employee, they find it hard to picture you in a senior one.

Double. Identical credentials can look different depending on who is reviewing them.

Tara Mohr's survey, featured in Harvard Business Review, found that women often pass on roles they feel underqualified for largely because they treat the posted requirements as firm rules. Men tend to read the identical list as a set of hopes. So the woman waits until she meets every line, while the man who meets six of ten applies, gets imagined in the role, and wins it. At the very moment she concluded she was not ready, she was actually the more qualified candidate.

Triple. The ambition gap is not what it seems

Also in the McKinsey and LeanIn research, 80% of women said they aspire to advance, against 86% of men, and once support is evenly distributed the difference disappears. Women are not less driven. What women typically lack is chances to be observed performing the next level's work before the title arrives, and that observation is what forms the mental image.

Across Greenwood, Westfield and Zionsville, some of the classic career guidance still earns its keep.

Skills still matter. Accepting a leadership role for which you are not yet prepared is a glass cliff dressed up in a more flattering announcement. According to Russell Reynolds, female chief executives typically serve 5.2 years in post, while their male counterparts serve 8.1. It is a small sample, but a telling one, and part of the explanation is that women are often set up to struggle. Prepare thoroughly. Just do not hold off on being seen until you feel finished preparing.

Try this approach instead

Step into the picture before the role opens. Lead the meeting your manager usually runs when she is out. Once a quarter, present something that matters to her own boss. Next, state the goal plainly so no one has to guess: "I'm aiming for the VP position once it becomes available." Ask, "What evidence would convince you I'm ready before then?" Their reply forms your true roadmap, which is typically more concise than the list you would have written alone. Each month, finish one of those visible milestones where the people who will weigh in on the decision can see it happen.

When Indianapolis leaders talk about the next VP, is your name a picture or a maybe?