German organisations name a stellvertretender Leiter for most positions of responsibility, with the substitution written into the job description. Advancement runs through a stated apprenticeship to the role, in public, before the role is held.
Service-age
Dienstalter. Seniority as a quantity with a name, and it governs progression through pay steps in the public sector and much of the private sector automatically. Time in the role advances you whether or not anybody decides to advance you.
The job description
The German Stellenbeschreibung is a formal document with defined content: the tasks, the authority, the reporting lines, the substitution arrangements. It is referenced in disputes. What the role contains is a matter of record.
Graded by the task
German collective agreements set Entgeltgruppen — pay bands graded by the task rather than by the person. The description of the role determines the band. Promotion means being assigned different work, and the money follows the work rather than the individual.
The second doctorate
Die Habilitation — traditionally required in Germany before appointment to a professorial chair, a further substantial body of original work after the PhD. Advancement at the top of the academic system is gated by more research, not by management experience.
The vocabulary of rising
Karriere machen — to make a career. Faintly suspect in German, used of someone whose advancement is the point rather than the consequence.
Ellenbogenmensch — elbow-person. Someone who advances by pushing others aside, and the word is a judgment.
Der Aufsteiger — the climber. Used of social as well as professional ascent, and rarely without a slight reserve.
Seilschaft — a rope team, from mountaineering. Used of a group who pull each other up through an organisation, and always as an accusation.
Ascent and conveyance
Aufstieg, ascent — the same word used for climbing a mountain. Beförderung, promotion, from befördern, to convey or transport. Neither word contains any suggestion of arriving somewhere better. One is effort, the other is being moved. What makes the move worth having has to come from elsewhere.
The title
German business cards carry Dr., Dipl.-Ing., Prof. — and so, still, do doorbells and letterboxes. The title travels with the person outside the workplace entirely. It is not a job. It is something they became.
The civil service tracks
Die Beamtenlaufbahn. The German civil service is divided into four career tracks — simple, middle, elevated and higher service — and the entry track is determined by qualification held. Movement between tracks is possible but formally regulated. Where you start is a function of what you studied.
Signing authority
Der Prokurist. A German commercial role defined in the Commercial Code, carrying wide legal authority to act for the company and entered in the commercial register. The holder signs ppa. before their name. It is an advancement expressed as legal capacity rather than as a place on an organisation chart.