How to increase your visibility at work while being authentic
By: Sampada Raje
Tags: Career Advice, Self Improvement, Professional Development, Women In Tech, Work

Yes, your work won’t speak for itself.

Visibility at work can make all the difference in propelling your career forward. To grow in your career, you need opportunities that set you apart from your colleagues. And to land coveted opportunities, you need to be visible to your boss who makes those decisions.

Remember, out-of-sight, is out-of-mind ! And it is YOUR responsibility to make sure you are getting the right visibility and are in your boss’s radar!

If you find yourself doing the same kind of work for months and years, if you are not considered for promotion or high-impact projects, then that means your hard work is not being recognized and its needs some work.

But most of us shy away from spotlight due to various reasons. Lets look at some of the reasons why some of us feel better off without being seen.

5 Reasons why we shy away from visibility at work

1. You assume your boss knows everything you do

One of the common mistakes people make is assuming their boss knows everything they are doing and do not feel the need to do anything extra to advocate for themselves. They believe their work will speak for itself.

It’s unreasonable to expect that your boss will give you opportunities since they can see what’s going on. The truth is, your manager has a lot of other things that need his attention and keeping tabs on how you are creating impact is least of his concerns, unless it is really outstanding.

Another way to look at it is, even though you get work through your boss, what kind of challenges and difficulties you had to face and solve is not always obvious. The kind of different thinking you had to do, what ropes you had to pull, what trade-offs you had to make, how many nights you had to work extra— all this is not obvious. It’s unreasonable to expect that your boss will understand and be able to see everything that happens behind the scenes.

It is your responsibility to reflect on this and share with your manager at opportune times. And no, don’t wait until the annual review to have this conversation!

2. You avoid conflict by not expressing differing opinions

You are basically a neutral person and want to gel with everyone. Challenging opinions and processes are not really your thing and you are more than happy to follow along and do what is asked of you.

You value status-quo at workplace more than anything else. Conflicts are just not worth your energy. So you don’t question, challenge or express a different opinion.

3. Uncomfortable with the spotlight due to low confidence

You are afraid of being wrong or failing to live up to expectations, so being low-key is your mantra. Visibility makes you uncomfortable and you are better off being that individual contributor, who works in silo and minds his/her own business.

4. Avoiding more responsibility in order to balance other needs

You don’t want to volunteer/ask for high-profile work or take up projects that have high visibility and impact for fear of disrupting your work-life balance. You are not in a position to trade your family time and needs for meeting the demands of your work.

5. You feel it is not authentic and not in line with your personality

You feel that “marketing” yourself is not in-line with your personality and don’t feel your authentic self if you had to showcase your work and ask for strategic opportunities.

Creating visibility doesn’t have to be a chore or overwhelming. It can be improved by employing some simple tips that are based on genuineness and authenticity.

The first step to making any progress is identifying the real reasons why we hold ourselves back. If you can identify with any of the reasons listed above, then hurrah! You have tackled the first hurdle.

Read on to see what you can do to improve your visibility at your workplace and be in the thoughts of your boss! But also keep in mind that this is not an overnight game-changer. It requires you to build a certain credibility and rapport with your boss to start things working for you.

Here are 4 things you can start doing to get better visibility at work

1. Genuinely care about your team, your company, your clients and generally about the work you do.

And how to do exactly that ?

You can start by understanding how the work you do fits the larger picture and how it impacts your company’s and client’s business. By speaking up in meetings and asking questions, especially in broader forums. By asking WHY we do certain things, HOW to do certain things and WHAT is important for us, you demonstrate that you are invested in the company’s goals and care about achieving them. Voice your opinions, ideas, challenge norms, and always seek to identify and solve problems Simply by being more than just an individual contributor who does what he/she is told

Here is an example from a friend who struggled to speak in meetings but finally found her voice by taking baby steps.

“ I always struggled to speak in meetings because I feared my question was not good enough, and that I would look foolish. But over a period of time, I realized that it was not really about impressing anybody with my question, but genuinely trying to understand what it was all about and how it impacts us and how we could, in turn, create an impact. The day I realized this, I made extra efforts to find the courage to speak up and, it changed my presence in the team drastically. I felt comfortable bringing attention to some problems we were having, question some practices and voicing my thoughts in larger forums. It did wonders to my growth.”

2. Build meaningful relationship with your boss

Having a good working relationship with your boss makes a world of difference in terms of making progress at work. For people outside this relationship, it may look like politics and favoritism but the reality is building a genuine relationship and trust takes time and work, and in the end, is the ultimate way to get into the inner circle of leadership.

Proximity to your boss gives you insight into larger problems that your team or company might be facing and gives you a chance to play a critical role. It also gives you an opportunity to share the bottom-up view, share your own team’s problems and get his help to solve them.

So how can you build this meaningful relationship ?

First of all, you have to genuinely like that person who is your boss! 🙂 If you have differences, find some common ground that you can work with, and keep your focus on that while working to build a relationship. When its a new relationship, it takes time to understand his/her personality, values and working style. One way to forge a good relationship is to schedule regular 1–1 meetings, monthly or quarterly and talk through various things. Sometimes it can have an agenda, sometimes it could just be plain casual chat. Talk about what excites you about the work you do, bring problems to light, and offer solutions. Don’t just be the person who brings problems. Be the person who offers solutions too. Ask about your boss’s pain points. And how you can help him. Lend a listening ear. Help your boss be a better boss. Share some challenges you faced, how you overcame them, your wins, your accomplishments and talk about how it helped you grow as person. Talk about what kind of work you would like to do. Ask if you can lead that strategic project. Volunteer to do a presentation before the leadership the next time. Ask if you can help with the hiring of new team members and be part of the interview panel. Set expectations, ask for feedback and lay the path forward together, that benefits both you as an individual as well as the company. In the end, it’s all about business impact.

It might surprise you how many opportunities you can land just by asking. Stretch your professional boundaries and help your boss help you !

An example for you:

“ I was leading a new team and struggled with team engagement. We had a daily team call, but only a few would show up. Nobody would raise hands to take up work and always said they were busy. I brought this up with my boss in one of my conversations with him and brainstormed on what we could do differently to get the team on board. I tried a few things later and the situation began to improve gradually. In one of my 1–1 meetings with my boss, I brought this topic up and explained what steps I took and how the team engaged better with me. He was appreciative of what I did and gave some good feedback that boosted my confidence! “

3. Communicate openly, freely and passionately

Most of the times when communicating the outcome of an effort, we skip the details and jump directly to the conclusion. “Over-communicate” — is a common advice that I hear frequently.

What that doesn’t mean is talking just for the sake of talking.

What it means is, sharing the little interesting details. Sharing your thought process that made you arrive at a decision. Why you thought this was the right way to go and not the other way. Sharing details that gives others an insight into what kind of work went into delivering that favorable outcome.

Doing this helps others understand how you think, and then trust your thinking and judgement.

Here is an example.

“ The xxx application is migrated to cloud and deployment was successful tonight. “ Now the above statement is an understatement. It neglects to bring to light the challenges faced and judgement calls taken under pressure. A better way to communicate this would be - “ The xxx application is migrated to cloud and deployment was successful tonight. However there were a few challenges along the way. We realized that one of the firewalls was not opened, that resulted in connectivity issues. We had to reach out to security team in the early morning to have this fixed. For awareness, this firewall request is easy to miss as the new cloud architecture is a little different from what has been designed so far. So other project teams, please take note of this and make sure you have this covered to avoid surprises during your releases.” Now this detailed communication gives insight into what really happened that night and how the team handled it. It’s the little details that give comfort that the right steps were taken and the right thought process was employed, in turn earning trust.

4. Volunteer

Volunteer to take up projects that create impact at high levels and help solve business problems. Remember, be strategic about this.

Volunteer to do presentations, be it your project work, or something you learnt recently, in front a broader audience.

Volunteer to do things outside of your comfort zone. Take risks that help you broaden your horizons, expand your skill set and help in more ways than one.

“ The process was creating false alerts and those emails went high up the management chain. Our Business leadership would scramble to understand what happened , and every time, it would turn out to be a non-issue and everybody heaved a sigh of relief. I realized this was happening way too often, wasting everybody’s energy and time. Something needed to be done. I quickly proposed a way to fix that false positive alerts. Although we had a solution, my team didn’t have the time to take this additional work. I volunteered to do it. I sat that weekend to learn powershell scripting, took my husband’s help and fixed that damned script in 3 days and nights. It brought me recognition at the high levels, and made people see me differently — this girl can pick up new skills and deliver. It gained me access to new teams, new kind of work that was interesting and impactful.”

Summary

It takes more than hard work to get ahead and get good opportunities in this competitive world. Your work needs to be seen by the right people and it is your responsibility to make it happen.

Remember, out of sight is out of mind.

To summarize, here are the steps you can take to boost your visibility.

Genuinely care about the work you do Speak up in meetings, share your ideas, express your opinions Build meaningful relationship with your boss Ask to be part of strategic projects Volunteer to take up projects outside of your comfort zone and expand your skill set.

PS : The examples quoted here are from conversations with my friends and family on how they maximized their visibility.

Other resources :

You can also checkout the latest episode of CandidSpeak on Instagram . The conversation is about visibility at work, imposter syndrome and basically a manager’s perspective on an individual’s growth.