How to Be More Visible to Your Higher Ups - Advance Your Career

Do you recognize the importance of being more visible in front of your higher ups, but the achievement of that visibility comes in direct conflict with your comfort level to self-promotion? Well, if that's you, this is the video I'm gonna share with you today. Six strategies on how you can be more visible in front of your higher ups without triggering that discomfort with self-promotion.

Right? Let's first of all talk about what is visibility? What are the benefits to visibility?

You might actually understand that on a cognitive level, but let's break down the benefits of being visible in your company and especially to your higher ups. When you are visible in front of them these are the individuals that have decision making authority over projects, over the budget and the strategic direction of the whole organization. As an executive, your visibility in front of these higher ups solidifies your leader, your effectiveness as a leader on your team, as a leader in your in your industry.

And as well, your visibility helps you to establish meaningful and equitable relationships at work, especially across all levels, higher and beneath you in management as well. That is what visibility does, but that's not the only consequence. When you become more visible in front of your higher ups, you are able to be valued, more valued for your contribution and your team as well.

Cuz a lot of you are managing teams in your, in your industry. So your teams also receive the benefits from the recognition of their contributions and as a result of that, you can experience deeper levels and greater levels of fulfillment and satisfaction in your contribution as well. So let's go.

Let's talk about the six strategies on how to become more visible. And the way that I'm gonna share with you, share these with you is in ABCs. So every strategy is gonna be starting with the letters of the alphabet A all the way to E.

So there are six strategies, let's go. Strategy number one is A. A stands for acknowledge the contribution of others.

And this is where it's really important to be specific, exactly how those members of your team, exactly how your peers, exactly how the people that you've been observing, how did they make a contribution to the mandate and the mission? How did they contribute to that? Exactly what was their contribution?

What did they contribute? Why was that important? Be specific on acknowledging their contribution, not just the fact that they contributed, not just the fact that they were awesome, but be more specific.

The reason why this is a strategy so that you can become more visible is because true leaders put their team ahead of them. True leaders have that security and that certainty that I am building an unstoppable team, I am building an inspired team, I am building a high functioning team. So when you acknowledge the contribution of others, it positions you as a leader in that industry, in that space.

And that is how you can practice your skill set in terms of acknowledging others, building and coaching others to be successful as well because their success does not take away yours. So one of the key behaviors of a leader is to be able to specifically understand how other people contribute to the mandate and mission and therefore how your contribution helps them to succeed as well. Strategy number two is B and B stands for build meaningful connections with visible people.

When it comes to the people who are visible in your organization, these are the people in the executive positions, these are the people that make decisions under strategy. These are the ones that lead teams and coach the next generation of leaders. So in other, in other words, be around them, be more visible around them, build connections with them because most people in executive positions and even in managerial positions, most people spend their time and their energy being nervous around visible people, feeling intimidated around visible people and feeling anxiety and not knowing what to say around visible people and around these visible individuals, most people feel like they don't know how to act, don't know how to behave, don't know what to say because there's so much pressure to make a good first impression.

There's so much pressure in order to get noticed and to be able to earn respect. Instead of being nervous and intimidated by them, take the steps to overcome the nervousness and the anxiety. Go through that process so that you can be around them so that you can build equitable relationships, not just meaningful but equitable relationships with visible people.

Because when it comes to your own career growth and your own visibility in your industry, one of the most important things is who you surround yourself with. Who do you surround yourself with? Because the individuals that you surround yourself with, they inspire you, you're able to observe and learn from them.

You're able to have them and have them as sponsors as well. They're able to advocate for your achievements, they're able to advocate for your energy and for the things that valuable contributions you've made. So that's why it is important to build these connections with visible people so that you can learn to be like them so you can make observations and to learn from them.

And at the same time that you can definitely, when building relationships, most importantly, to show how you can add value to them and what's important to them and their mission and their mandate. Strategy number three is C, the letter C stands for conduct your role from the highest level of value. So what's the highest level of value?

When you look at the value ladder that you can contribute in your industry, it doesn't matter what industry you're in. The highest level of value is communication. It's communication.

Which is why when you look at your executives, when you look at the leadership team, when you look at the C-suite, they spend their days in communication. When it comes to climbing up that corporate ladder, taking on bigger challenges, having leadership opportunities when it comes to that visibility, you're gonna notice that in order to be able to step into those roles and to be able to be competitive for those opportunities, one of the most important things is that to realize that as you go into it, as you become capable of achieving those, those goals for yourself, those career growth goals for yourself, it the technical skills matter less and less. It's less about what you know, it's less about how good you are, what you do, it's less about those technical skills.

And instead, what matters more and more is your ability to communicate what matters more is your ability to back there, back on the step number two, to build those meaningful and equitable connections with the higher ups as well. So it's all about communication. Communication is the highest level of value in the marketplace.

The marketplace values communication, which is why as long as you can talk well, you have diplomacy, you are able to communicate and articulate your value. As long as you can do that, you are eligible to be able to step up into leadership. It's less about your technical skills.

So if you're somebody who's nodding as you are listening to this and you are nodding because you recognize and you've seen this happen, especially in your industry, in your organization, you've seen individuals advance to that next level, to those leadership levels. And you realize that these individuals who are advancing, they're not necessarily skilled on the technical side of it, they don't necessarily know a lot of the technical aspects of it. They talk well, they're confident in their communications, they're effective in their communications.

That's what it takes. And if you wanna be somebody who is effective in their communications, then I invite you to look at the link below, below this video, the description below this video, there's a link to apply for my executive coaching. And this is where every week I'm going to be training you, mentoring you, guide you on all the aspects on how you build your communications skills, confident communications, how you can conduct yourself from the highest level of value.

And in so doing that you can build meaningful and equitable relationships with higher up and every way that you go on all layers of manager. So if that's you and you're serious about your own career growth, if you're serious about conducting yourself at this highest level of value, then click the link below and I look forward to seeing you on the inside. Strategy number four, to become more visible in front of your higher up starts with the letter D and D stands for demonstrate your commitment to learning, your commitment to learning.

So what are you learning? Because by now you are an expert in your domain and you have a lot of technical knowledge. I'm not talking about learning more technical expertise, I'm not talking about going back to college.

I'm not talking about getting a certification. That's what, that's not what I mean by commitment to learning. I'm referring to commitment to learning on how to better yourself on how to develop your mind, how to develop the skill sets that you were not able to attain in college.

Skill sets like communication skills like diplomacy, skill sets, like leadership, and definitely about building relationship, connecting with people and having a connection with others. So this is where you can demonstrate that commitment to learning. How do you do that?

Demonstrate and request for participation in coaching programs, request for participating in these coaching programs that help you develop your mind and these skill sets, a lot of companies have professional development budget set aside to support you through these initiatives. Ask, if you don't ask, you don't know. What's the budget they have set aside for you to sponsor you through these coaching programs so that you can develop your mind, develop your skill sets as well?

And as you go through these coaching programs and you are developing your communications, you grow in your confidence, you are able to navigate the terrain and you're able to navigate relationships and you have that vernacular to be able to connect with people once you start being comfortable in it through the coaching, through your mentorship in that program, then step up and take opportunities right there in the workplace to exercise those skills. So far we have A, B, C, D. And the strategy number five starts with letter E and E stands for express your progress regularly.

One of the key behaviors, and this is the second key behavior of a leader that I'm sharing with you right here. If you forgot what the first key behavior of a leader is, go back to the beginning of this video and watch again, right? So the second key behavior of a leader is to constantly be reporting progress.

And sometimes initially especially, it could feel very awkward cuz I've already told them my progress. How often do I have to report it? Do I have to report it again?

What if I'm disturbing them? So, and initially it feels very awkward, it feels too frequent. Chances are if you feel it's too frequent, then it's still not enough.

Reporting progress genuinely is a key behavior of a great leader because a great leader, number one, is able to understand where am I at right now? What are my goals? Where are my professional development goals?

What are the strategic goals of the company? What's the mission and mandate? And to know exactly where they are in progression towards those goals.

If your team and your and your higher ups, if your managers and everybody who's responsible for those projects don't understand where you are progressing, then it's hard to know where we're at. And it's hard to know where things are at. So your purporting of your progress helps your team to be in alignment.

It helps your management to be in alignment as well, to know where you need support, to know where there needs more resources, where to know where there needs greater investments in other things as well. So your report, failure to report your progress then eventually can become their liability. So that's why this is a very important strategy number five is to express your progress regularly.

The final strategy, number six, starts with the letter F and F stands for forge your expertise, forge it. So what do I mean by that? This is your journey and your opportunity to become an unborrowed genius.

An unborrowed genius means you have authenticity of thought, you have uniqueness of thought, uniqueness of processes as well. You have a proprietary methodology that you achieve success for your management team, for your teams as well. And for the people that report to you, you have a process because you've been operating under principles.

So how can you articulate that? Because even if you yourself are confident in your skill set, even if you are confident in everything that you know on the technical aspects of things and you're confident in what you know can really help your company, just because you are confident of it and you know that you have certainty of it, your ability to communicate that certainty is important. Cuz if they don't hear that from you, if you're not able to articulate that with certainty and with effectiveness, they don't know how much you know.

They don't know that you are wise, they don't know that you have a genius inside of you and they're not aware of it. So it is the responsibility of you to be able to articulate that effectively and in a way that people can understand and receive. And in a way also that demonstrates the value you bring again, to the mission and the mandate.

So those are the six strategies that you can become more visible. Now if you're listening to this and you're thinking, well I wanna tell my higher ups, I wanna be more visible. But anytime I'm in front of them, I get really nervous, I feel intimidated.

Well, I have another video for you coming right up next, and this is how to ensure that you don't get nervous when you're in front of the higher up. How do you speak without getting nervous? That video is coming right up next.

I'll see you there.