PwC Executive Says Responsiveness Can Help Employees Earn Promotions

Responsiveness can build trust

At a firm where Dallas Dolen oversees 7,500 employees, responsiveness can help distinguish people ready for more responsibility. The PwC leader, who’s taken part in performance reviews and promotion discussions for more than 20 years, says answering urgent requests and stepping in when needed can signal commitment and reliability. In large organizations, managers can’t watch every task unfold, so how someone handles moments of pressure may become part of the evidence they use to judge that person’s judgment and dependability.

Dolen, based in San Jose, California, told Business Insider that his own career progress at PwC has partly reflected a willingness to show up when problems arise. He described the expectation in stark terms: “You have to be willing to, at midnight, jump on the plane.” That’s an example of a demanding situation, not a universal measure of commitment. The larger point is that urgent work sometimes requires people to respond when a colleague or client needs help, and managers may remember who took responsibility when the pressure was on.

That example captures the intensity of some work situations, but Dolen draws a line between being dependable and staying constantly available. Employees don’t need to answer every message at every hour to demonstrate commitment. His point is that managers notice when people respond to urgent needs and help colleagues move work forward. There’s a difference between being reachable for a real problem and letting every request become an emergency; that distinction matters for employees trying to show initiative without making round-the-clock availability their standard.

The distinction matters as teams adopt AI tools that can streamline routine tasks. Dolen suggested that someone who remains perpetually overwhelmed may prompt questions about how effectively they’re handling their workload. That doesn’t mean every delay reflects poor performance: workloads, staffing and the nature of a task all shape what a reasonable response looks like. His comments put responsiveness alongside genuine interest in the job, while leaving room for employees to maintain boundaries. The numbers here are underwhelming as a promotion formula: availability alone says little about the quality or value of someone’s work.

Promotion cases need evidence

Responsiveness may help build trust, but it won’t make a promotion case on its own. Career coach and Entrepreneur contributor Kyle Elliott has argued that strong performance “is rarely enough,” particularly in competitive technology companies and fast-growing startups. A promotion decision asks managers to judge not only what an employee has done, but whether the work supports a case for greater scope and responsibility. Reliability can open the conversation; it can’t supply the whole argument.

One risk is assuming that completed work will automatically reach decision-makers. Managers responsible for large teams may not see every employee’s contributions, Elliott said. That’s a practical visibility problem, especially when work is distributed across teams or focused on tasks that aren’t obvious outside a project group. Employees can make their case clearer by describing results in terms of business impact, such as revenue generated or costs reduced, rather than offering a list of tasks. The explanation should connect the work to an outcome the organization cares about, without overstating what the employee personally contributed.

That kind of reporting gives managers concrete material to use when advocating for a promotion. It also connects an employee’s work to the priorities the organization is measuring. Being responsive can show how someone handles immediate demands; explaining outcomes shows what that work delivered. Here's the thing: a busy calendar and a long task list can make effort visible, but they don’t necessarily make impact clear.

Visibility and next-level performance

Elliott also points to working relationships as part of the promotion process. Employees don’t need to play office politics, he said, but they do need authentic connections with colleagues and leaders who can assess their work. A network of internal advocates can help ensure that contributions are understood when promotion decisions are made. This is more significant than it looks: promotion discussions depend on people being able to describe an employee’s performance, not just recall that the employee was helpful.

There’s another career trap: becoming so effective in a current role that managers see the employee as indispensable there. Elliott’s advice is to demonstrate the capabilities required at the next level before expecting a new title. Mastering current responsibilities matters, but decision-makers also want evidence that someone can take on broader or more complex work. And yet, that evidence may be hard to show if an employee’s time is consumed entirely by keeping current operations running (and this is the part most people overlook). The challenge is to make room for work that demonstrates growth while continuing to deliver in the role already held.

“In most organizations, promotions are less about how well you execute your current responsibilities and more about how consistently you will operate at the next level,” Elliott wrote.

What the advice means in practice

For employees seeking advancement, the practical case combines reliable responses with visible results, trusted working relationships and examples of next-level performance. Dolen’s experience puts responsiveness near the start of that case; Elliott’s advice shows why the promotion still depends on making the value of that work clear. If you’re working in this space, the useful question isn’t simply whether you replied quickly, but whether your response helped resolve a meaningful problem and whether the result is understood by people involved in promotion decisions.

None of these signals guarantees advancement. Organizations differ in how they define readiness, and a manager’s view is only one part of the process. The most persuasive case is a pattern: people can count on you, your work produces outcomes others can identify, and you’ve shown you can handle responsibilities beyond your current remit. Helpful in a pinch. Valuable over time.