find my level
what applies to me.
Two quick picks. No login, no personal information.
1. Pick your job ladder
2. Pick your grade level (GL)
Choose a ladder first.
compare levels.
What do I need to work on to grow? Pick any two levels and scan the difference.
Awareness
Scope: Yourself. · Lead time: As it happens.
You read yourself and the situation honestly and say what you see in plain words. You hold your expertise with confidence and your conclusions loosely. When something goes wrong, you name your own part before anyone asks, the same day. You ask people what you are missing, and you act on what they tell you.
Upside: Telling it straight, so people can trust what you tell them.
Trap: Treating your own confidence as evidence that you are right.
Not yet: You see your own work clearly; you do not yet track how it lands downstream.
Scope: The partners your work touches. · Lead time: Before the choice is made.
You see how your decisions land on the people downstream and surface the trade-off before the choice is made, not after. You read people as closely as you read data: who is stretched, what a room is not saying, where the stated reason is not the whole reason. When something slips, you name your part first and bring one option with it.
Upside: Catching it early and owning your part before it costs anyone else time.
Trap: Surfacing the trade-off and treating that as having resolved it.
Not yet: You read impact along your own chain; not functions you have no contact with.
Teamwork & Leadership
Scope: Yourself. · Mechanism: By example, and you are visibly more capable than six months ago.
You close the loop on what you agreed to: you confirm what was asked, deliver it, and name a delay before anyone chases you. You come prepared, listen before you answer, and say where a teammate’s work shaped yours. People can predict what they will get from you, which is the first thing that makes you worth following.
Upside: Being someone whose word needs no follow-up.
Trap: Being reliable inside your own lane and treating that as the whole job.
Not yet: People rely on you; you are not yet changing how anyone else works.
Scope: Your peers. · Mechanism: By honest persuasion; they can make the case themselves next time.
You change what a peer does by making the case openly and showing your reasoning, not by pulling rank or working around them. You flex your own scope to teach rather than take over. You name a peer’s good work in rooms they are not in, give and take feedback in the moment, and when you disagree you say so in the room rather than after it.
Upside: Changing what someone does by showing them why, not by telling them to.
Trap: Winning the argument and calling it alignment.
Not yet: You move individuals; you are not yet responsible for how a group works together.
Solution Maker
Scope: Yourself. · Problem: Handed to you already named.
You take the problem as given and find out what is causing it before you reach for a fix. You ask why more than once. When you do not know whose job something is, you find out rather than defaulting to not mine. Once the cause is clear you propose a solution rather than waiting to be told what to do about it.
Upside: Understanding the cause before you act on the symptom.
Trap: Reaching for the fix before you understand what you are fixing.
Not yet: You solve the problem you were handed; you do not yet notice the pattern behind it.
Scope: Your work and your partners’. · Problem: Recurring, but nobody has named it.
You notice the thing that keeps going wrong and name it as a problem rather than absorbing it. You look outside your own team for how others have solved it, then pilot, measure and keep what works. When an approach fails you say so plainly, share what you learned, and start the next one. You pull in adjacent partners before scope becomes a surprise.
Upside: Naming the problem everyone had learned to work around.
Trap: Settling on the first workable idea without looking wider.
Not yet: You solve what recurs in front of you, not what is contested across functions.
Execution
Scope: Your own work. · Commitment: This task, under known conditions.
You confirm what is being asked by when, and to what standard before you start. You work with accurate urgency and meet what you committed to. When a commitment is at risk you raise it early with a specific proposed adjustment, not a warning. Your work needs little rework because you check it before you send it.
Upside: Becoming someone the team can plan around.
Trap: Letting a deadline slide quietly rather than renegotiating it out loud.
Not yet: You deliver what you were given; you do not yet manage competing claims on your time.
Scope: Your work among others’. · Commitment: This quarter, through normal disruption.
You manage competing priorities by naming the trade-off and asking the right person to decide, rather than quietly dropping one. Your updates lead with what is at risk, not what is comfortable. You ask for help before the work is stuck. You turn steady output into predictable throughput, so partners can make their own commitments off the back of yours.
Upside: Making your output predictable enough for others to build on.
Trap: Reporting to protect yourself rather than to inform the decision.
Not yet: You make your own output predictable; you do not yet sequence other people’s.
Continuous Improvement
Scope: Your own work. · Scaffolding: It works while you drive it.
You ask for feedback and apply it quickly enough that the change shows in your next piece of work. When you find a better way of doing something, you use it and you pass it on rather than keeping it. After a project closes you ask what you would do differently, and you say the answer out loud to someone who can use it.
Upside: Applying feedback in days, not quarters.
Trap: Treating learning as something that happens after the work, not during it.
Not yet: You improve your own work; the improvement does not yet outlast your attention.
Scope: Your team’s way of working. · Scaffolding: It holds on the team without you pushing.
You notice a friction the team has learned to live with and make the better way the normal way — not a one-off fix that fades. You teach the method so it survives without you, and you check back weeks later to see whether it stuck. When an improvement does not hold, you find out why rather than blaming the people who stopped using it.
Upside: Making the better way the normal way.
Trap: Improving it once and calling it fixed.
Not yet: You make one change stick; the next one does not yet start from a higher floor.