How to Showcase Your Potential as a Leader (2023)

One of my clients, let’s call her Pavindra, was a bright engineer in her second job out of college. She embraced hard work and diligently focused on her tasks. As she grew in confidence and experience, her technical skills advanced, enabling her to tackle more complex problems. Pavindra believed that the quality of her output would speak for itself — values that were instilled in her by her immigrant parents and had served her well throughout her university days.

Yet, after some years in her role, Pavindra began to feel stuck. The work became less challenging and others — even people with less technical expertise — were being assigned more interesting projects. Her long-time manager had left the company, and her new boss was too busy to give her the time of day. She felt invisible, no longer recognized or rewarded for her contributions. It seemed that everyone else was developing leadership skills and landing promotions while she was standing in the same place.

What do you think was hampering Pavindra’s growth?

Pavindra had reached a pivotal point in her career. To reach the next level, she needed to prove herself to be more than a “hard worker.” Although she was highly competent in her role, she wasn’t recognized as a leader by people in positions of power. She wasn’t perceived as ingenious enough to be promoted or entrusted with strategic projects.

Early in their careers, individuals like Pavindra often achieve workplace success by keeping their heads down, producing strong results, avoiding conflicts, and saying yes to whatever tasks the boss assigns. Through the research I did for my book, Hardworking Rebels: How to Lead and Succeed as Asian American Women, where I interviewed more than 60 women from 16 countries, I heard a number of stories from young professionals who have been told by their parents and teachers to “work hard and follow the rules” if they want to be successful. This behavior is in fact reinforced by some cultural stereotypes faced by women, people of color, and individuals with quieter, introverted personalities. But just working hard isn’t enough. While being a dedicated worker leads to early workplace accomplishments, like Pavindra, many young employees eventually hit a career ceiling and struggle to advance. They become trapped in this “worker bee” stereotype and aren’t seen as strategic leaders worthy of being promoted. It can feel extra hard to advocate for what you need as a leader and to overcome both the internal habits and external cultural expectations.

But all is not lost. As an executive coach, I have worked with numerous professionals to help them break free from the worker bee tag, overcome career stagnation, and achieve their desired success in the workplace. If you, too, are struggling, here are three strategies you can use.

Strategy 1: Move from performance currency to relationship currency.

Carla Harris, a respected businesswoman, best-selling author, and vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, has been recognized as one of Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed her to chair the National Women’s Business Council.

I heard Carla speak at Meta’s Women Leadership summit a few years ago. She explained that in technical fields that value specific skill sets — such as engineering, computer science, or law — workers are initially assessed based on their performance currency (or how well they deliver on assigned tasks, like creating presentations, writing code, conducting legal research, or performing surgeries). As a result, many people in these industries end up viewing these core tasks as the entirety of their jobs.

The problem is that, over time, the returns diminish. According to Carla, performance currency will only get you so far, but building relationship currency will enable you to soar.

Often dismissed as playing office politics, relationship currency involves making investments in the people around you. For example, rather than immediately diving into a meeting agenda, building relationship currency would involve taking a couple of minutes to connect with your coworkers. In general, it’s taking the time to talk about both yourself and your work with peers and senior leaders in the organization — whether in-person or in a remote setting. This could look like asking a colleague to join you for a virtual coffee, or inviting a leader you admire out to lunch.

Even better, you can reinforce relationship currency by following up with people after you meet. Relationships bloom when they are nurtured over time. Keep the currency going by spontaneously sharing articles that you think they may enjoy based on your conversations or setting a reminder on your calendar to re-connect in a couple of weeks or months.

Relationship currency matters because, today, all workplaces stress on collaboration and we must create cross-functional or cross-organization links to get our mutual goals accomplished.

Remember that building relationship currency doesn’t mean that you become overly agreeable and act like a sycophant to senior executives to fit in. Instead, use the knowledge from your performance currency to share your honest opinions about what’s going on in the organization. If there is a problem, share your opinions on how to solve it. If there’s something you disagree with, speak up and back up your opinion with facts. Your strength and knowledge of the work can give you the credibility you need to move up the career ladder. You just have to make that credibility visible to the right people.

Strategy 2: Set boundaries around low-value work.

Women, newbies, and minorities often find themselves assigned office housekeepingtasks, like taking meeting notes or organizing social activities. Refusing these tasks can sometimes make you feel like you’re being disagreeable or not a team player. However, such low-value work often goes unnoticed, while also draining your energy. Don’t let yourself get trapped in this vicious cycle or tagged as the person who always orders lunch.

Practice setting boundaries. You can start small by saying “no” to requests from peers. Once you become more comfortable turning down unpromotable work, you’ll be more willing to respectfully decline “extra” requests from higher power individuals. Consider using some of these responses when you’re stretched thin or don’t have the bandwidth to take on work that won’t be recognized or rewarded:

• I’m happy to order lunch today, but I think a better long-term solution would be to rotate it among all the team members moving forward. What do you think?
• I’m focused on [high priority project or task] this week. If this task is more important, maybe you can help me reprioritize my workload, or we can pull in someone else to take on the lower priority work?

Sharing the load on lower-value tasks fosters a culture of collaboration and mutual respect while also setting healthy boundaries for yourself. You’ll end up with more time for work that is both motivating and impactful to the organization. It’s also the first step in changing others’ perceptions of you, establishing your reputation as a leader who can assert boundaries effectively.

Strategy 3: Start advocating for more of the work you want.

It can be challenging for quieter leaders to talk about themselves, their accomplishments, and start advocating to work on desirable projects. For Pavindra, as a South Asian woman, it wasn’t considered culturally appropriate to brag about her accomplishments. Yet when her former boss left the company, she had to learn techniques of self-promotion, even when it was uncomfortable.

Asking for what you want can be difficult. You may not want to ruffle feathers or seem controversial. You often want to fit in with everyone else and not stand out as the troublemaker. But learning how to respectfully promote your work and the value you’re contributing is essential to your growth. If speaking up for yourself feels overwhelming or doesn’t feel like your authentic self, start small with these two approaches:

Build a strong relationship with your boss.

Having a boss who supports and advocates for you can make a significant difference, especially when you’re hesitant to advocate for yourself. When searching for a new job, prioritize finding a boss who will be your strongest supporter. While it’s good to learn more about the company and its processes, use your interview time to also interview your potential boss. Consider asking questions such as, “How do you like to support your team members in their work?” or “What is your approach to assigning projects to team members?”

If you’re currently employed, invest time in building trust with your boss — this is where relationship currency comes into play. During your one-on-ones, don’t just dive into work. Take the first five minutes to talk about how their week has been, what they did over the weekend, if they’re pursuing any hobbies, etc. Remember this isn’t a one-way conversation. You should also be ready to share things about yourself. Gradually, as the relationship grows, find avenues to communicate what kind of work energizes you the most, and how you’d like to do more of it.

Advocate for others.

Another strategy is to advocate for the success of those around you as a collective effort, including yourself in the process. While it may feel uncomfortable to talk yourself up, it can be easier to talk about other people’s accomplishments. By highlighting an individual’s or the team’s accomplishments, you can initiate conversations about shared victories and then transition to discussing your personal contributions and the work you found most fulfilling on a given project. During a meeting you could say: “I’d like to call out the amazing work Rana and Ramsey did on this project. I wouldn’t have been able to get this done ahead of time if it hadn’t been for their relentless support.”

. . .

While hard work is necessary in any job, remember that it isn’t enough when you want to be seen as a leader. Rising up requires making your hard work visible by forging strong connections and finding your allies, doing work that adds value, and being your own best advocate.