You are doing excellent work. Your manager knows it. Your team knows it. And yet when promotion decisions are made, your name somehow never comes up. If you have ever felt invisible at work despite consistently delivering results, this episode is going to change the way you think about visibility, reputation, and what it actually takes to get recognized.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: in most mid-size and large organizations, the people making decisions about your advancement are working with an incomplete picture of who you are. Your performance reviews are not filling that gap. Impressions are. Reputation is. What people say about you when you are not in the room is what tips the scale.

In this episode, I share five practical strategies for building your professional reputation at work so you can stand out without feeling like you are bragging. I walk you through how to identify and connect with the right people above your direct manager, how to narrate your work briefly and strategically using a simple three-part story arc, and how to take up space in visible moments like meetings with senior leadership. I also break down what internal mobility really means, why you need to ask for it by name, and how to turn your track record into a reputation that travels across teams and departments.

If you are tired of doing all the right things and still getting overlooked, this episode gives you a clear, actionable path forward. Listen and catch the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch it and replay it on my YouTube channel, JanelAndersonPhD.

LINKS RELATED TO THIS EPISODE:

Episode 260: I Got Passed Over for Promotion, What Do I Do Now?

Episode 261: How to Speak Up in Meetings When You're an Introvert

How do I get more visible at work without feeling like I'm bragging? Now, this is a question that I hear constantly from high performers, the ones that I train and coach, and honestly, it might be the question that I hear the most from people who are frustrated when they feel like their career is stalling out. They're doing great work, they're reliable, they care deeply, their manager thinks highly of them, their team members think highly of them. And yet somehow, when that performance conversation for promotion comes along, their name just doesn't come up.

And when they think about doing something about it, the first thing that stops them is, ew, I don't want to be the overly self-promotional person. I don't want to be the one who's always talking about themselves. So today, let's talk about how you can do this without being overly promotional. Let's talk about what visibility at work actually is and why it matters more than most people realize and how to build it in a way that feels genuine and authentic, not like bragging or being overly promotional. So let's dig into it.

Okay, the real question here is not about how to brag better. The question is, why does doing great work not speak for itself and what do I need to do so that people know who I am? Now I want to make a quick distinction here. And this comes down to what size of organization that you work in. If you work in a small organization, let's say a hundred people or fewer, then this isn't going to be as much of an issue for you. But if it is an issue for you and you're working in a small company, then you definitely need to pay attention to the advice in this episode.

More often though, these things that we're talking about here, this lack of visibility, happens when you get into organizations that are medium sized, say 500 employees and up, or large organizations, say 5,000 employees and up. Now in small organizations, I think it is much easier for you to make a name for yourself and for people who really get and know who you are and your work can speak for itself. And again, if you are in a small organization and you are invisible, then you definitely need this. But if you're in a midsize to large size organization, again, that 500 or 5,000 and up, then it's easier to get lost in the shuffle.

And again, in either case, it's not your fault, but it is your problem to solve. So here's the uncomfortable truth. In most organizations, especially those medium and large size ones, decisions about advancement are made by people who have incomplete information about you. They just don't know all that much information about you. Of course, your manager knows your work and knows your reputation, but what about your manager's manager? What about some senior leader that maybe you've never met who sits on a promotion committee?

They are working with a much thinner picture of who you are and what your work results are. That thin picture isn't filled in by your performance reviews. It gets filled in by impression. It gets filled in by your professional reputation. It gets filled in by what they've heard from other people. What people are saying about you when you're not in the room. Now, you can be the best performer on your team and you can still be essentially invisible to the people who have the decision-making power.

Now, that gap between the quality of your work and the quality of your reputation in the organization, that's what we're solving for today. So if you happen to feel like you're doing all of the right things and still getting overlooked, like you're invisible to the people who are making decisions about you and your future, well, then this episode is for you. Now, quick note, in episode 260, just a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the five reasons that people get overlooked for promotion and visibility topped the list. So today, we're doing a deeper dive on that.

And if you haven't listened to episode 260, we'll link that up for you in the show notes to this episode. This episode is episode 262, so you can find the show notes for this episode at janelanderson.com forward slash 262. And again, we'll link up any of the episodes that are related to this one in the show notes. Now, back to visibility. Visibility is not about self-promotion. I want you to think about it instead as being about information management. You're managing the information that people have about you.

Now, again, the people who are making decisions about you and your career are doing so with incomplete data and your job is to complete the picture. Your job is to close the gap between what they know about you and what you really are capable of. Now, this is not about showboating. This is not about bragging. Instead, this is about making sure that the full story of your work is actually available to the people who need it to be able to make decisions and that it's available when they need it. And when do they need it? Probably yesterday. So we want to make sure that they have a complete set of information as quickly as possible going forward.

So I'm going to share five strategies for building your professional reputation at work. And these will increase your visibility so that you can stand out at work so that you can finally put an end to the feeling that your work speaks for itself, but nobody's noticing. Okay, ready for these five? You might want to pull out a pen and paper and take some notes. Number one, know your audience above the line. What do I mean by above the line? Well, visibility, first of all, is not about being loud in the room. It's by being known by the right people.

Who are the right people? The right people are the people above the line. So identify who are the people above your direct manager. That's the line I'm talking about. Your direct manager knows what you do and knows the value of your work, but what about above them? What about your manager's manager? What about the chief technology officer in your organization? Do they know your name? Do they know about the work that you do? Do they know the quality of your work? If the answer to any of those questions is no, that is not their failure. That is a gap for you to close.

Okay, seriously, I want you to study the organizational chart like it is your homework. Make yourself known to those people, those people above the line, your manager's manager, again, whether it's the chief technology officer, chief information officer, chief security officer, whoever it is, that might be part of a decision-making body when it comes time for promotions, special projects, advancement, any of that. Make yourself known to those people. They probably speak regularly at like town hall meetings that you go to in that town, in that next town hall. Ask a question.

Now, don't just ask a question to get your voice heard. Be serious about the question. Use your curiosity. Ask a genuine, authentic, thoughtful question. Do it with integrity. Do it with, again, genuine inquisitiveness and curiosity. Don't be the obnoxious person who always has something to say and must be heard. And certainly, don't be the person who's throwing out compliments like candy at a parade. Now, instead, you're going to be in integrity with yourself.

Now, if you know who those people are, the ones who always have something to say, it's highly likely that you have a degree of self-awareness that will naturally prevent you from being like them. You will naturally stop yourself from becoming like them because you're not going to do the things that they do. Instead, you want to, again, come at this from integrity and come at this with genuine curiosity. So know who the right people are above the line and make sure that they know who you are and for the right reasons.

Okay, number two, narrate your work briefly and strategically. Most high performers, when they finish a project, they just move on because there's so much on their plate and there's always the next project to take on, they just move on. They don't close the loop upward. So whoever those people are that I was just mentioning, the people above the line, they need to not only know what you're doing, but when you finish a project, let them in on it. So get in the habit of giving brief, confident updates to those people above the line.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that we wrapped up that initiative that I mentioned to you last week. Here's what got delivered to the client. Here's what the client had to say about it. Okay, just one or two sentences. It's not overly performative. It's just a briefing. You're completing an information loop. You're coloring in between the lines so that they know what you did. You're not fishing for a compliment. I want you to keep a running list of these so that when it's time for something like self-evaluation or filling out a profile in your company's talent management system, which I'll get to a little bit later, when you're up for promotion or anywhere else that you might need a list of your accomplishments, you have them at the ready because you've already been keeping track of them.

If that finger snap caught your attention and brought you back into the present moment, yes, this is what I'm talking about. You want to jot these things down and you want to jot them down in story form, in narrative. So what do I mean by that? Well, I want you to have this narrative arc memorized. You've got a business problem and then you've got some climbing, dramatic action and then resolution. That's the three part story arc that I'm talking about and narrative arc.

Now, here is a really easy way to remember it. Imagine this. There's a cat stuck up in a tree. That's the problem. What is your business problem? Then there's some rising action where your team has to think up a solution. You don't have fire trucks. You don't have a ladder. You maybe have to be scrappy or innovative to think about how to get Fluffy down from that tree with the resources that you have on hand and then the resolution. You figured out a solution. You implemented that solution and now Fluffy is safe again. Why don't dogs ever get stuck up in trees? I don't know, but we're not going to go there today, but that is your three part story arc.

So know your three part story arc. What was the business problem? What was it that you thought up or created or how did you solve that business problem and then what is the final resolution of that? So bottom line, be able to tell the story of your successes and tell them in real time as they're happening. All right. Number three, take up space in visible moments. Now the biggest visible moment is anytime that you're in a meeting with senior leaders. Those are visibility opportunities. You don't have to dominate the room, but you do need to show up in it. You do need to say something in it. You do need to speak up in it.

So one well framed question or one clearly stated insight, perspective or opinion, well that's going to put you on the map in a way that being quiet simply does not. Now this is not about being loud. It's about being present and it's about being remembered. So maybe you tie your team's work to an initiative that's important to a senior leader that came up in that meeting, you know, maybe it's cost savings or using AI in novel ways or whatever. If you're doing it and you can make a genuine connection to something that they care about, let them know. Again, this is not about being boastful or obnoxious. It's about just being genuine.

And this ties back to what I talked about last week in episode 261 about how to speak up in meetings if you're an introvert and really it isn't about being introverted or not. You need to speak up and you need to be visible, regardless of your personality type, regardless of where you fall on the introversion to extroversion scale or whatever tool of the day you happen to be measuring yourself against, you need to be able to speak up. So bottom line, speak up with something interesting to say.

Number four, let your work travel. What do I mean by let your work travel? Well ask for opportunities where your work is going to cross department or team lines. So this is called internal mobility. It's movement inside the organization and that movement is not just promotions. It's also special projects, committee work, temporary assignments and project based work that's again going to cross those boundaries between teams and departments. So let your manager know that you want internal mobility. Let your human resources business partner know that you want internal mobility and I want you to call it that, call it internal mobility.

If they don't know that you want it, your name will not come top of mind when something comes up. And those opportunities come up for somebody to be put on a committee, somebody to cover for somebody who's going to be out on medical leave or some parts of their job to be covered while they're on maternity leave. You need to be taking action in order to be thought of. So you need to first of all let them know that you want that internal mobility. And then secondly, you need to volunteer when cross functional opportunities present themselves.

Because again, even if you've told them, they might not remember. So when you see something happening where you know somebody is going to be out on an extended leave or maybe taking a sabbatical or something like that, you want to put your name out there, okay? So you could also just be doing simple things like presenting your findings in a broader forum when you get the chance, letting people know, offering to give part of a department update at a town hall type meeting or something like that. Now, bottom line, get your name and your thinking, your perspective in front of people who would otherwise never encounter your work. That is what we're talking about with internal mobility.

And then number five, build a reputation, not just a record. So your record is what's in your personnel file. It's what human resources has from your performance reviews. It's also to a certain extent what you fill out when you complete your profile in a talent management system. Now, if you haven't heard that term before, talent management system, large companies use talent management systems to track their high performers and their high potentials so that they know who to draw from when there is an opportunity for advancement.

Now, in your conversation about internal mobility with your human resource business partner, with your boss, ask about talent management systems if your company already has one. Now, if you already have a profile in the talent management system, then you don't necessarily need to ask about it. You just need to keep your profile up to date. But if you have not already been asked to fill out a profile in a talent management system, take the opportunity to ask if your company has one and if you are a good candidate for having a profile in that.

Now, if you're not a good candidate, they're going to tell you, no, you're not ready for that level yet. And then you're going to ask, what do I need to do to get ready for that? Because again, in those larger organizations, talent management systems are used for making those promotion decisions. Now, it's not just about your profile in the talent management system. Again, remember, a talent management system profile is going to be a relatively thin representation of who you are and what you can do, okay? You need to also have an actual reputation.

That is what people say about you when you're not in the room and that is going to matter even more than what is in that talent management system. So your reputation is built through relationships. It's not just built through your results. Now, your results are absolutely important, but if nobody knows about you, nobody knows about your results, then your results don't matter that much, okay? So you have to have both. So you want to make sure you're investing in people around you so that they know who you are.

And that comes in the form of helping others, sharing credit when there are big successes, and doing whatever you need to do to be the person whose name comes up when somebody is asking, hey, who's a good resource for X fill in the blank? You want to be the name that's thought of first. That's how your record becomes your reputation. Now, let me just tell you a quick story about Julie. Julie was in an audience of a keynote that I did and after the keynote, there was some networking and of course, I always stick around for those sorts of things. And Julie's standing in line waiting to ask me a question.

And Julie's question just sounds so much like the episode a couple weeks ago about getting passed over for promotion. So Julie had been passed over for promotion a number of times, and she was so frustrated by it. And so as she asks me this question, what do I do to be remembered in the organization? How do I not be passed over for the promotion? I said, Julie, tell me what kind of car you drive. And she was like, what does that have to do with anything? I was like, hang in there. I'm just going to tell you a quick story.

Just a little parable here that will make so much sense. So what kind of a car do you drive? So she said she drives a Honda. I said, okay, Julie, imagine this. You've moved into a new neighborhood, a new city. You moved into some new place. And the check engine light on your Honda comes on. Now, you know you need to take it in to get serviced. You're a responsible car owner. And you don't have a mechanic in the area. You go online, you read some reviews. You narrow it down to three places.

One is the local Honda dealership. Another one is a mechanic that works exclusively on international makes and models. And then a third one is a very local mechanic that seems to get a lot of praise from the people who live in your immediate neighborhood. So you've narrowed it down to those three. And you're in the middle of your decision making process. You're outside, maybe you're doing some yard work. And up drives your neighbor in their Honda Civic. Now, you haven't met your neighbor because again, you're brand new to the neighborhood.

You walk over, introduce yourself to the neighbor and you say, hey, I can't help but notice that you're driving a Honda Civic. I'm curious to know who you take it to when you need to get it serviced. And lo and behold, they share a resource that is one of the three that you have already researched. And they rave about how amazing this mechanic is. Fair prices, reliable service, easy to get an appointment, all the things. And they've been going there for years. Is your decision made?

Okay, so Julie looks at me and she sighs and she nods. And she says, yeah, I see where you're going with this. And I said, Julie, it's called social proof. Social proof is your professional reputation. When people know about the good work that you do, and they can talk about you when you're not in the room, you're much less likely to get passed over. It's not just about being the good mechanic. It's that you have the reputation that neighbors are talking about you to each other. That senior leaders are talking about you to each other.

And Julie said, okay, I understand I need to have a solid reputation in my organization in order to get the promotion. In order to be talked about positively in the room when I'm not there. And I said, yes, yes, you have to have that. Okay, so Julie, if you're listening, this episode is for you because these are all the things you need to do to be talked about positively when you are not in the room.

Okay, so whether you're Julie or not, here is your action step for this week. Identify one person above your direct manager who has some influence over your career trajectory. And then find one natural, low pressure, completely authentic way that you can get your work or a question or just some positive interaction with them or in front of them this week. It's not a pitch. You're not asking for anything unless you're asking a question in a town hall meeting. It's not a performance. You are just closing the information loop or asking a question being genuinely curious. Just one touch point so that they remember you. That's it.

Visibility is not a personality trait. It's a practice and it's a practice that anyone can build even starting this week. All right, my friends, I'll be back right here on the Working Conversations podcast next week with more insights that will help you lead better and get ahead at work. Until then, be well.

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