Back in part 2 of this series, I suggested that, "Humility is a great quality. Save it for everyone but your boss."
So what did I mean by that? Did I mean that you should take credit for other people's work? No. Did I mean that you should throw your colleagues under the bus by blaming everything that goes wrong on them? Not even. What I meant was that you need to continually communicate the value of your work to your manager, so she or he doesn't have to guess, to read your mind, or to figure it out on their own.
Your manager is busy. Save her some time. When you go in for your next 1-1 with her (you are having weekly or bi-weekly 1-1's with your manger, right?), listen to what ever she wants to tell you first. Then, looking over your notes (you went in with written notes, right?), tell her what you've been doing, the challenges (briefly) that you've faced, and either (a) how you overcame those challenges or (b) what you need for her to do, so that you can move forward. What if you talked about it in your last meeting? Well, if you're still working on it, then give her a status update — tell her what progress you've made. Or, if you are completely stuck or overwhelmed, what kind of help you need.
Here are some tips:
- Schedule regular status meetings with your manager. These meetings can be weekly or bi-weekly, but should not be further apart than every 2 weeks. These meetings should last no less than 30 minutes, and you should come with an agenda (see above).
- Share all the good news. From time to time, you will get emails thanking you for all your hard work. These may come from customers, other managers, or colleagues. Immediately forward anything that has a thank you in it to your manager. I usually add a brief summary at the top of the forward message, like "Nice words from the VP of marketing" or "Thanks from Sarah" or "Kudos from the web team". I'm saving my manger time with the summary, and then he can decide whether to send it up to his manager. Managers love doing that, by the way ... sharing good news. So make sure that you give him that opportunity.
- Ask for feedback from the people with whom you work. So you don't have any of those letters or emails to share? It's okay to ask for them. Really. I had one mentee whose boss told her that she couldn't be promoted until she got some rave reviews from her customers. She knew that she'd worked really hard (often much harder than her colleagues), so she asked her customers to write an email to her or her boss to give feedback on her performance. She got the rave reviews that she needed, and almost immediately got that promotion.
- Show some appreciation. Call it Karma or the golden rule or whatever you want, but the best way to get external appreciation and validation is start by showing some. Thank your colleagues. Publicly. And in writing. That's how you'd like to be thanked, right? And it shows that you have leadership skills or leadership potential, because it's not all about building yourself up, it's about building and sustaining a team.
And, if after all this advice, you still don't believe me, then don't take my word for it. Take someone else's (just scroll down to the November 6th posting, How to move up the ladder).