How to be More Visible to Your Bosses – Get Promoted Faster & Progress Further
The more visible to your bosses you are, and the more you make your work visible, the faster you will be promoted and the further your career will progress. By being more visible you are demonstrating critical communication skills which are vital to getting promoted regularly.
I was told through school and university – work hard and you will be successful, you will get promoted etc. You have probably been told the same over and over. Then you get into the world of work, and you can easily feel invisible. You can work your guts out and get nowhere fast. You watch others who are not as good as you, who don’t work as hard get promoted ahead of you. What have they done to get ahead? Visibility. They are more visible than you.
How to be more visible to your bosses – six key tactics to increase your visibility at work:
- Find your authentic voice
- Diplomatically stop others taking credit for your work
- Help your colleagues be successful – I know this sounds counter intuitive but its super important
- Regularly celebrate your team’s success
- Be your boss’s most valuable supporter
- Build your visibility network
Those regularly getting promoted understand that working hard is not enough. Being good at what you do is not enough. The workplace is so competitive. You must combine being good with being very visible. The higher you go on the career ladder, the more important it becomes to stay visible for all the right reasons, to be promoted further.
To get ahead, your bosses need to understand the value your work and efforts create in progressing them towards their goals. Telling them once is not enough. Constantly remind them to make your work visible and to keep it visible. If you don’t stay visible, then your competition will become more visible than you and get promoted instead.
These 6 tactics will be incredibly valuable to you. You will be happier, build a better reputation, be thought of more highly, have a higher professional status and progress your career that much faster. I know – this is what I gained from 13 promotions, many in top companies.
I have seen way too many people at work not put these actions into practice, stay relatively invisible and get left behind. I have sat in many meetings discussing who to promote, in many different companies. Managers know the people not being promoted work hard and do a good job, but they don’t take critical actions to ensure they get promoted. Please don’t let that be you.
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Podcast
It takes courage and confidence to increase your visibility at work. I started my career as a shy person without a lot of confidence and was happy to be out of the limelight. I quickly learnt that my career was doomed if I continued with this approach. It took small steps. Those steps become bigger steps. I kept on taking steps and ended up being promoted 13 times to board director of a large company. Take your first step today, even if it is a small one.
find your authentic voice – The first tactic for how to be more visible to your bosses
To increase your visibility, you must share your ideas, views, and solutions. Having the courage to put your head above the parapet, to be brave enough to share what you think and invite the possibility of rejection of your idea, view or solution is a tough first step to take.
If you work hard and are good at your job, you will have lots to share that is really valuable to your boss, your team and your business, no matter your position. A great place to start creating visibility: Think about everything you encounter that is a problem. Ask yourself – What makes it a problem? What is the impact on you, the team and business of that problem? What could be done to help remove that problem. It doesn’t have to be a ground-breaking idea or solution. Start small and build.
Putting in a little effort to have a view and a potential solution to problems you encounter is a must to start increasing your visibility.
If the problem, impact and potential solution remain in your head, they are probably worthless. You won’t change anything. You create a lot of value by communicating the problem, impact and a potential solution. You create a lot more value by persuading others to take action with you to implement a solution to the problem that brings a benefit to the team and business.
Finding problems, creating solutions, and getting those solutions implemented creates an amazing platform from which you can increase your visibility at work.
Don’t expect hard work to get you noticed
Don’t expect to be noticed at work by colleagues and bosses or for them to understand the benefits your actions bring. They are busy and are focused on themselves, not you. Be more visible at work by constantly communicating the value you bring to the team and business.
Those that are good at increasing their visibility to bosses and maintaining workplace visibility are constantly and proactively reporting progress. This is a great way to shout about what you are doing and why it is valuable without showing off. Always frame your progress in terms of how it helps your boss, your team and the business achieve goals and objectives. Linking your work directly to key business goals will focus you on the higher value areas plus demonstrate your ability to understand and work on what is valuable to the team and business. A great way to get noticed at work.
Proactively update stakeholders on your progress
Update your progress in one-on-one meetings with your boss and colleagues, in team meetings, in email updates to stakeholders, in reports … wherever you feel comfortable talking about your progress.
Make sure you are clear on the value you personally creating through your actions as well as talking about how you work within a team to deliver against team goals and objectives.
In meetings, contribute by asking intelligent questions, asking to undertake initiatives and projects, and then reporting on progress. To become more visible at work actively look for opportunities to help and support colleagues, to take responsibility and to add to solutions being discussed. When you are doing a good job, you will have tons to add.
Getting promotion at work is directly linked to how you increase your workplace visibility. Find your authentic voice and communicate your ideas, views and solutions regularly.
2. diplomatically stop others taking credit for your work
Either innocently or deliberately, colleagues will try to claim credit for your work. We all experience this. When they do this, they are stealing your visibility. It is really important that you know how to diplomatically stop others taking credit for what you have done.
A common example. In a team meeting, a colleague provides a progress update on a project you have been working on with them, without mentioning how you have contributed. They might say “ the project is ahead of schedule, and I have …” and go on to describe what they have done. This tactic implies all the progress is down to their work.
Immediately after they finish speaking, you must speak up. You might say “Jane has given you a good update on our progress. Jane has covered her contribution, and my contribution is …” and go on to describe it. Don’t be negative towards your colleague. Adding your contribution is a great way of increasing your visibility while preventing them taking your credit. This response actually puts them in a negative light in a very diplomatic way which will deter them trying to take all the credit again.
When others try to take credit for your work, afterwards in private, speak to the individual and explain what they have done and why it is not fair. Ask them to be inclusive next time.
Just as important is to make sure you realistically share other team members contribution to joint projects when you are giving updates. This will deter them from excluding you in their future updates and will demonstrate your confidence and team approach.
Do not let others steal your visibility by allowing others to take credit for your work.
help your colleagues be successful – The third tactic for how to increase your visibility at work
Helping colleagues be successful is an essential part of being a great manager. By helping colleagues, you are demonstrating your teamwork and a key skill for being a good manager. If you are already a manager, helping your peers is just as important.
Helping is just the start. To increase your visibility, you need to make sure your bosses, peers and other stakeholders are aware of the actions and help you have provided.
In your one-on-ones with your manager, tell them how you have helped your colleagues and explain what the impact is.
Communicate how you help and its impact
When chatting to peers or team members, let slip how what activities you have done to help x, y and z. I think communicating how you are being a team player and the impact of your help is really important for several reasons:
- You are increasing the visibility of your contribution to the outcome and the value created
- Demonstrating you are team player which encourages others to also work harder at being a team player.
- The people you help are going to feel obliged to help you when you ask. This is very important. You can’t be successful in a vacuum. You need others help, to do great work yourself. Make yourself a go to person by doing favours to others, which in turn significantly increases your influence.
- Finally, bosses and the leadership team will understand the additional value you create through helping where you can, compared to those that don’t offer as much help.
These are all really useful benefits to help you and for getting promoted at work. The key is communicating to make your work visible and highlighting your impact on the team and business. I often start with “just to let you know, I have done x, y, z because this created …a b c benefit for the team”
Always tie in what you are communicating to how the business is better off because of what you did. View it as educating your colleagues, boss, and stakeholders, rather than showing off.
4. regularly celebrate your team’s success
For any manager, regularly and publicly celebrating your team’ success helps you personally in several ways:
- Celebrating successes increases the visibility of your team’s work and contribution to business goals
- Team members will feel a lot more valued and appreciated if you regularly shout from the rooftops about what they have achieved
- You elevate your team in the eyes of all observers, which increases the professional standing and status of all team members.
All of these actions increase your visibility, professional standing, and status as a manager. Your team’s success is your personal success.
Spend time looking for, capturing and collating data, insights and team progress to demonstrate to team members, peers, bosses and stakeholders how your team is helping the business achieve the company goals.
You boss through to the leadership team want and need to know this information. They will be grateful that you are proactively keeping them informed about your team’s progress.
Celebrate your team’s successes to increase your visibility at work.
be your boss’s most valuable supporter – The fifth tactic for how to be more visible to your bosses
Make sure you understand exactly what your boss is working on and what challenges they face. Ask them directly. Or ask them what they are working on or what they want you working on.
Plan out how you and your team are going to help them achieve their goals quicker and with less stress and effort on their part.
Anticipate the problems they might run into and proactively implement preventative solutions. Go the extra step to support your boss reduce their workload, their list of problems, the solutions they need to create, the people they need to organise etc. There are so many ways you can help your boss with a little thought and effort. Make the time and put in the effort.
To increase your visibility, you then need to tell them about what you are doing to help them. Again, there are so many ways to do this.
3 examples
- “Just to let you know, I have organised x to prevent ABC happening, which should make getting to goal z quicker and easier for you.”
- “I have through of a solution to the problem you mentioned to me yesterday. Can I quickly run it past you to get your input and then I can get my team to implement it over the next 3 days.”
- “David told me about the project you asked him to complete. I spent this morning working on ABC to help him finish the project a day early. I hope this takes a bit of the pressure off.”
Proactively communicate to your boss all the good things you are working on to directly or indirectly help your boss with their challenges and workload. This is a great way to increase your visibility and really stand out at work.
Always spell out how your work helps your boss and helps the business reach key goals. Position telling them as part of keeping them up to date, so you don’t come across as self-promoting.
build your visibility network – The sixth tactic for how to increase your visibility at work
Bosses and those more senior to you will have more influence and visibility than you. They are involved in the key decision making, in more important meetings and spend more time with other decision makers and key influencers within the business.
It is common to feel nervous around these visibly influential people and worry about what to say and do. After all, you want to make a good impression and demonstrate your value, professionalism, and competence.
The more time you spend around them, the more relaxed you will become. You will worry less about making a mistake or saying the wrong thing. The more visible you are, the more you communicate your achievements, your value and worth to them; the more they will be interested in building a relationship with you too.
Work with positive people
Who you surround yourself with at work really matters. There is a lot you can learn from observing top performers in action, in working alongside them. Their higher energy and work-rate will help you build and maintain your own energy and work-rate. You will potentially get more support from them, and they will be able to pass on skills that other colleagues and managers simply don’t have.
Identify individuals that are visible and influential in your business and work out how you can help them to start the relationship. Start small and build up. Find out about their interests and hobbies outside of work and starting building relationships with them on a personal level too.
Network with visible influential colleagues, managers, and leaders. Take small steps to start with. Keep taking steps to get to know them and help them, and then make those steps bigger. Be proactive and systematic about your relationship building actions.
In Summary
How to increase your visibility at work is a challenge everyone must tackle in today’s workplace. I have shared a lot of tips to make you more visible at work and now it is over to you to put them into action. Start small and work on making your actions bigger as you gain confidence and skills.
Take a look at the resources and videos in the description below to learn more secrets to increase your visibility at work.
As a recap we have been through:
- Find your authentic voice
- Diplomatically stop others taking credit for your work
- Help your colleagues be successful
- Regularly celebrate your team’s success
- Be your boss’s most valuable supporter
- Build your visibility network
If you have any questions on “How to be More Visible to Your Bosses – Get Promoted Faster & Progress Further”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
I think being more visible to your bosses is almost more important than working hard. A lot of people work hard at work. Not that many people get good at marketing their work to bosses and colleagues in a professional way that is not too self-promoting.
Those that are good at increasing their visibility at work always get promoted faster. Only a few of those that work hard get promoted quickly. Learn to market yourself and your work to your manager and then more widely at work!
