[dasil003]

This is a strange comment. Everyone in a corporate structure is a servant. How you advance is by demonstrating that you are helping solve the problems deemed important by your chain of command. Theoretically this should be aligned from top to bottom; in practice competing priorities, communication overhead, and incompetence in the wrong places can greatly distort things. This reality leads a lot of folks into learned helplessness, and social climbers gaming the chaos to gain power they are not equipped to handle.

The mentality "what's in it for me" is toxic and shows one is not ready for higher level management in a large org where cooperation is necessary to do anything interesting. Better questions are "is my team working on the right thing?", "does my team have the right skills to deliver on that thing?", "what relationships do we need to succeed?", and last but definitely not least "is my manager competent enough to provide the support I need for my team to be successful?". The last question is the key one: you won't grow if you are reporting to a muppet.

[fifilura]

Your answer is reasonable but I don't agree that it is a "strange comment" as you say.

Is it not possible to see yourself as having thought too much about maximizing your companys success without thinking about your own needs?

I wouldnt qualify this as toxic. And they can go alongside if you make it clear for yourself and your manager.

[dasil003]

Thanks for your measured response. You're right that it's not inherently toxic to think of yourself. The reason I reacted that way is because that mentality (whether explicit or not) is what leads to operating in a very transactional way or empire-building fashion that works against good outcomes in the long-term.

I honestly don't think being too selfless is an adequate explanation for career stagnation though. Selfless behavior will generally help you get ahead in life and in your career, because good relationships matter a lot. However you won't get promoted just because you help everyone. What if you are just servicing the squeaky wheels rather than solving the biggest problem on your plate? A good manager will only look to promote you because you have demonstrated you are capable of solving larger problems. There are other things too: like the business actually has the need for a higher level role. If that's the case, then your behavior is irrelevant—you just need to leave to someplace that does have the growth opportunity.

Overall the reason I said your comment was strange is because it clearly comes from some personal experience you had, but it lacks enough context to be actionable to anyone who reads it. I can think of a dozen different ways I've seen a "servant leader" mentality succeed or fail, but it all depends very much on context. Ultimately if you want to succeed you need to understand what game is being played and not fallback to abstract platitudes.

[fifilura]

Yeah maybe management path was not for me, but after a while I couldn't shake the feeling of having "santas little helper" on my business card. When the people I managed were the people that were valued in the organization, and having all the job opportunities. (I am out of that now after cleaning my CV with a few years of IC and managing a smaller team)

But of course YMMV and all that. I am not saying don't, I am saying do - think about it first.