Do you feel invisible at work? Being intentional about how your impact is seen and understood is essential!
Many women find that their work – especially the work done exceptionally well behind the scenes – can go under the radar. These are often the critical roles that keep teams functioning smoothly, projects moving forward, stakeholders happy and leaders performing at their best, yet they rarely attract attention – what’s going on?!
- High competence and seamless delivery can make your contribution invisible. When great work “just happens,” people can underestimate the skill, judgement, and leadership behind it.
- Staying silent and hoping your manager will notice is not a strategy. Your visibility matters. The boss is stretched juggling balls and responding to often unreasonable requests.
- Social conditioning, unconscious bias and for some ethnic and cultural norms encourages us to be humble and our work remains invisible. If we dial down the humble we can absolutely be judged negatively and be seen as self-promoting in ways men are not.
This is not a whine. It’s fact, supported by data worldwide.
So, reframe. Ensuring your impact is seen is NOT self-promotion it is a core career strategy. Women are not meant to be invisible!!
We are here to make a difference, do an awesome job and feel happy and engaged in our work!
Being deliberate about making your contribution visible isn’t optional. It’s a career strategy. It protects the value of your work, strengthens your credibility, and ensures you’re considered for the opportunities, and advancement that you’ve earned.
What is visibility?
Visibility is not just about praise. It’s about positioning, influence, and being seen as someone who consistently delivers impact. It’s about building our brand and value proposition so we can live our best life.
When your work is invisible, opportunities can pass you by, decisions are made without your voice, and your potential is underestimated. It can hurt.When your value is seen, it strengthens your credibility, grows your confidence, and ensures you are considered for opportunities, stretch work, leadership exposure, and advancement.
Visibility is not self-promotion for the sake of ego – it is an essential part of driving your career.
Here are key ways to strategically bring your successes to the attention of your leaders and stakeholders:
- Use intentional updates: Share short, focused progress updates that highlight outcomes, not just activities. Frame them as “Here’s what’s been achieved” rather than “Here’s what I’ve done.”
- Connect your work to bigger organisational goals: Show how your contribution supports strategy, risk reduction, efficiency, wellbeing, service delivery, or stakeholder satisfaction. Make the connection explicit: “This contributes to X priority by…”
- Share wins in team or cross-team meetings: Not bragging – informing. Use phrases like, “A recent piece of work that’s making a difference is…”
Forward compliments, praise, or success stories with a simple: “Sharing this as it reflects the impact of our team’s work.” - Keep a running “wins and impact” log: Use it in 1:1s, performance discussions, and development conversations. Evidence matters. It’s also great for CV, interview and negotiation prep alongside combating negative self talk and beliefs.
- Invite people into your processes: Bring leaders or peers into key moments—pilots, reviews, testing, stakeholder feedback – so they see the value first-hand.
- Leverage storytelling: Don’t just state the task – explain the challenge, what you changed, and the impact. Story turns work into meaning.
- Amplify others, too: When you spotlight the good work of colleagues, they often reciprocate – and you build a culture of shared visibility. Imagine that wahine supporting wahine.
- Seek feedback and reflect it back: “Here’s the feedback we received about that project…” signals both impact and professionalism.
- Use your development conversations to reset expectations: Be explicit about where you want more visibility, exposure, or stretch.
- Say the quiet part out loud: “Because this work happens behind the scenes, I want to ensure you can see the impact it’s having.” BOOM drop the mic! It’s beautiful, poetic and the truth. You are leading with honesty and integrity.
Making your value visible is not arrogance – it is leadership. It is ensuring the right people understand the impact you are having, so your work can open doors rather than sit in the shadows.
Make sure you are on the radar of the people who make decisions about your future.
Ngā mihi nui
Mel Beirne
Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu (with feathers a bird can fly)
