2 reasons why women are not visible
I've noticed 2 behaviors that get in the way of many talented women from landing a promotion:
Reluctance to talk about their accomplishments.
Expecting others to notice their contributions.
There are two things that professionals do that may be standing in their way to their next promotion. And these are things that are habits or behaviors, years that people have and sometimes may not have noticed and it may be preventing them from making their next career move.
Reluctance to talk about their accomplishments.
The first one is reluctance to claim their achievement. This happens often when a woman works in a role for a longer time, is super performing, has a lot to offer: the ideal starting point for the next career step, ready to move up. Yet she was unable to claim what she had achieved. Not because she did not know what she did achieve but her education and values were that you “Do not talk about your achievements and accomplishments”. There is a big difference between showing up and showing off. The difference is that you have evidence to back up your success stories. This means when you are talking from facts, when you know that you have value to offer, there shouldn't be any shame or you shouldn't feel like you are bragging. Women often do talk about their accomplishments indirectly, the team did achieve this instead of saying under my leadership the team did achieve this and that. The team will like you for this, but if it is about your career, you need to be able to tell your audience what you are bringing to the table, what you have to offer, what is in it for them?
You need to be your best advocate because at the end of the day, if you are not convinced about yourself why should others trust in you? There's no one else who's going to do it for you.
It is really important that you take credit for what you've accomplished.
In order to know your accomplishments, I am proposing to sit down at least once a week to document your successes in your personal book of success. Read more here in my blog post. And it should not stop in documenting your accomplishments but you need to get used to share them with your leadership. Maybe in the regular touch bases talk about them this is better than writing an e-mail or waiting too long e.g. include it in the yearly performance talks. The book of success gives you the opportunity to remind yourself!
Another behavior that I am observing is the idea that your leadership notices your contribution.
Expecting others to notice their contributions.
Don't think that because you're part of a team and you're all working together, that everyone knows what you've been doing. Everyone is busy, everyone is working, everyone has a life and they have other priorities. So, you shouldn't expect that your manager or your director, your boss, know what you have been up to. You have to let them know. And this is where the frustration comes in. It’s because people expect that the manager is supposed to know that they've been working hard, the manager is supposed to know that they've been doing this.
You may be doing extra work that they don't even know you're doing. And so, this is why it's really important to see what you've been contributing to the team and remind them of the achievements regularly. And at the end of the day, if you're not doing this, you'll end up being overlooked.
So, you need to make sure that you're communicating your value and you're also communicating what your desires are, what your interests are. What are your plans for the next six months, the next year? Are you looking at other opportunities in the organization? Let them know what your plans are. Let me share 7 ways to get visible as an employee with you in this blog article.
You are the pilot of your life and you are owning your career. At the end of the day, no one else is going to do it for you. In coaching, I therefore not only give you strategies on how to do self-marketing but most importantly, I show you how to do it JUST like that. (How to get rid of those voices in your head).
Help others to see you. In my course SHOW UP! we start exactly with this topic. This is the start of training your success muscle. Click here when you want to join the waitlist to get the most recent information.
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