Episode 17 - Do the Right People Know the Level You’re Operating At?
Here's the thing - you can be doing extremely well in a senior role and still be overlooked for what comes next.
You may be trusted by important clients, leading a strong team, involved in significant projects and already carrying responsibility beyond your formal remit.
And still hear:
“You’re very good, but you’re just not visible enough.”
That can be incredibly frustrating, particularly if you’ve spent years believing that strong results should speak for themselves.
The problem is that the people who see your contribution most clearly are not always the people making decisions about what happens next.
- Your clients may know how good you are.
- Your team probably does.
- Your peers may see the level you’re operating at every day.
But if the people influencing promotion, succession, board exposure or a bigger remit don’t have the same picture, being excellent at your job may not be enough.
In this episode, I talk about:
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Why strong performance doesn’t automatically translate into visibility
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What happens when peers and clients understand your value, but decision-makers don’t
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Why waiting until a role opens is often too late to start raising your profile
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How to make visibility part of how you operate, rather than something you switch on when you need it
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Why you may occasionally need to blow your own trumpet, even if it makes your skin crawl
A useful question to ask yourself is:
Do the people who influence what happens next, understand the level I’m already operating at?
And if the answer is “I assume they do”, it may be worth looking more closely.
Who needs to understand the outcomes you’re delivering?
What evidence are they actually seeing?
And are you relying on somebody else to tell them?
Because if progression matters to you, visibility needs a place in your calendar, not just in your head.
If this is something you’re working through in your own leadership profile, you can find out more about my advisory work here:
And if you want to stay connected, you’ll find me on LinkedIn here:
This now matches Episode 16 much more closely in structure and depth.
