A 10-question test to take before you volunteer for anything else

Being handed more to do can feel like a vote of confidence, and sometimes it is. Other times it signals that you have become the go-to person for whatever needs doing, which is a very different thing from being the person someone is investing in.

That gap carries real weight. Per McKinsey and LeanIn's 2025 Women in the Workplace report, entry-level women are less likely to hold a sponsor (31%) than men (45%), and the promotion gap follows the same pattern: 93 women move into manager roles for every 100 men, a sequence that Sacramento-area employers can measure in their own pipelines. Piling on work without a sponsor or a defined next role doesn't build a runway. It just leaves you parked somewhere pleasant but going nowhere.

Go through the ten statements below and record a yes or no beside each one. Answer honestly, because your answers are yours alone to review. It takes about four minutes. The conversation it prepares you for takes around ten, and it's the one many women in Sacramento's workforce keep postponing for a year.

Self-check questionnaire

Item A Has a senior leader ever stated out loud the specific role they're preparing you to take on?

Item B Did your latest assignment bring a concrete asset with it, such as a title, a budget, real decision rights, or a team to lead?

Item C Do you bring your own results in front of executives above your manager at least once every three months?

Item D When someone says "next step," does a date, however approximate, come along with it?

Item E Has your manager ever introduced you to a peer as the person slated to run a function?

Item F Whenever you picked up fresh responsibilities, did anything get lifted off your workload in exchange?

Item G The work I've been given appears in promotion discussions at my company: revenue, a P&L, a launch, a turnaround.

Item H Does a written development plan exist for you that someone other than you has signed off on?

Item I When I ask what's standing between me and promotion, I get concrete answers rather than "keep doing what you're doing."

Item J Do you know if your name is discussed during talent reviews, and do you know what people say about you there?

Score sheet

Scoring 8 to 10 yeses lands you in the Runway category. Someone is building your career on purpose, and you should treat that as the working assumption. Your responsibility is to make it simple for them to advocate for you by recording your accomplishments and keeping the timeline in plain view.

Between 4 and 7 yeses, you're in the Fog zone. Some of this is genuine development and some is drift, and your manager may not be sure which is which. Bring one question to your next one-on-one: "Which role is this work preparing me for, and when should we revisit it?" Note the answer and the date. Should a follow-up get a vague answer twice in a row, read that as a refusal that no one was willing to state directly.

A tally of 0 to 3 yeses puts you in the Parking lot group. You're dependable, which is exactly why the work keeps arriving, and under-recognized, which is why the promotion doesn't. Until a feature from questions 2, 5, or 7 is part of it, hold off on taking additional work this month. Then go find a sponsor. Start by asking a senior colleague for guidance on one concrete question, then circle back with them after you've acted on it.

Below, the suggested action for each result range is laid out in turn.

Pick the three "no" answers you could realistically change to "yes" inside 90 days. Questions 3 and 9 frequently appear on that list, and you can start working on both this week without anyone else's permission.

Which zone are you in? Pass this along to the colleague on your team who is quietly covering everyone else's work, and ask her what hers was.