“I feel invisible at work.”
“No one notices my contributions.”
“I do great work, but no one sees it.”
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you’re probably not invisible. You’re visible for the wrong things.
Decision-makers know you exist. They know you’re competent, reliable, and hardworking. They notice you show up on time, answer emails promptly, and never cause problems.
What they don’t notice is that you’re ready for more.
Because you’re being strategic about proving you’re good at your current job instead of proving you’re ready for your next one.
The Competence Trap
Most professionals operate under a flawed assumption: if they do excellent work in their current role, they’ll naturally be considered for advancement.
So they focus all their strategic energy on:
- Delivering perfect work
- Being the most reliable person on the team
- Responding faster than anyone else
- Saying yes to every request
- Making their managers look good
- Avoiding mistakes at all costs
This strategy works brilliantly for one thing: keeping you exactly where you are.
Here’s why: when you’re strategic about being the best possible [current role], you train decision-makers to see you as the best possible [current role]. Not as a future leader. Not as someone with untapped potential. As someone who’s excellent at the job they currently have.
The competence trap looks like this:
You’re the best analyst on the team → People rely on you for analysis → You get more analysis work → You become indispensable as an analyst → When management role opens, they “can’t afford to lose you” as an analyst → Someone less competent but more visible as a leader gets the promotion.
You were visible. You were noticed. You were valued. But you were valued for being really good at the wrong thing.
What You’re Strategic About vs. What You Should Be Strategic About
Where most people focus their strategic energy:
- Perfecting every deliverable
- Being available 24/7
- Responding to Slack messages within minutes
- Saying yes to additional work
- Making sure nothing falls through the cracks
- Being the person everyone can depend on for execution
- Avoiding conflict or difficult conversations
- Keeping their head down and working hard
Where people who advance focus their strategic energy:
- Building relationships with decision-makers
- Making sure their wins are visible to leadership
- Taking on high-visibility projects, even if imperfectly
- Solving problems that executives care about
- Positioning themselves in strategic conversations
- Advocating for their ideas publicly
- Building a reputation for specific, valuable expertise
- Creating opportunities to demonstrate leadership
Notice the difference? One strategy is about being indispensable in your current role. The other is about being undeniable for your next role.
The Visibility Paradox
Here’s what makes this especially tricky: the behaviors that make you a great individual contributor often work against you for leadership consideration.
Being responsive to every request signals you’re available for execution work, not that you’re focused on strategic priorities.
Making everything look effortless means people don’t see the complexity of what you do, so they undervalue it.
Fixing problems quietly means you get things done, but no one knows about the problems you solved.
Never pushing back signals you don’t have judgment about priority, just capacity to do work.
Being the reliable backup means you’re seen as support, not leadership.
All of these behaviors make you valuable. None of them make you visible for advancement.
The Five Strategic Shifts That Change Everything
Shift 1: From Executing Perfectly to Solving Visibly
Stop optimizing for perfect execution of assigned tasks. Start optimizing for solving problems leadership cares about—and making sure they know you solved them.
Instead of: Completing every task on your project list flawlessly and moving to the next one.
Do this: Identify which tasks on your list solve real problems vs. which are just work. Focus energy on the high-impact problems. Document how you solved them. Share results with stakeholders.
Example: Old approach: Process 500 expense reports with zero errors, file them, move on. New approach: Process expense reports and notice a pattern of policy violations costing the company $50K annually. Present findings and recommendations to finance leadership. Implement solution. Now you’re not just processing—you’re driving business impact.
Shift 2: From Being Available to Being Selective
Stop saying yes to everything. Start being strategic about which requests deserve your time.
The person who’s always available becomes the person everyone dumps work on. The person who’s selective about commitments signals their time is valuable.
Instead of: “Sure, I can take that on!”
Do this: “Let me check my priorities. I’m committed to [high-impact project]. If this is more important, I can deprioritize that work. What takes precedence?”
This signals that you manage priorities strategically, not that you have unlimited capacity for whatever anyone asks.
Shift 3: From Quiet Competence to Vocal Value
Stop assuming your work speaks for itself. Start making sure the right people know what you’re delivering.
Good work creates value. Communicated value creates visibility. You need both.
Instead of: Delivering a great analysis and emailing it to your manager.
Do this: Deliver the analysis, present it in a meeting with stakeholders, summarize the key insights, articulate the business impact, and send a follow-up email to leadership highlighting outcomes.
Your work needs an audience beyond your immediate manager.
Shift 4: From Managing Tasks to Framing Problems
Stop positioning yourself as the person who executes tasks. Start positioning yourself as the person who identifies and frames important problems.
Instead of: “I completed the report you requested.”
Do this: “I noticed we’re losing 15% of customers at the 6-month mark. I pulled the data to understand why and identified three patterns. Here’s what I recommend we do about it.”
The first makes you a task-completer. The second makes you a strategic thinker.
Shift 5: From Peer Relationships to Upward Relationships
Stop focusing all your relationship-building energy on peers and direct reports. Start building relationships with people two levels above you.
Instead of: Having lunch with your teammates, helping colleagues with their projects, being well-liked by your peers.
Do this: Request 1:1 time with senior leaders to understand strategic priorities. Volunteer for cross-functional initiatives that put you in front of executives. Build relationships with people who make promotion decisions.
Peer relationships are important. But they don’t get you promoted. Decision-makers do.
What Strategic Visibility Actually Looks Like
Let’s compare two professionals at the same level with similar competence:
Professional A (strategically invisible):
- Arrives early, stays late, works weekends
- Responds to all emails within 30 minutes
- Completes every assigned task ahead of deadline with high quality
- Never misses a meeting
- Helps colleagues whenever asked
- Keeps detailed project documentation
- Known as “the person who always delivers”
- Works primarily with direct manager and peers
- Focuses on making current projects perfect
Professional B (strategically visible):
- Works regular hours, protects time for strategic thinking
- Responds to important emails promptly, batches less urgent ones
- Focuses on high-impact work, delegates or declines low-value tasks
- Skips meetings where they add no value, leads important ones
- Helps colleagues on strategic initiatives, not operational tasks
- Documents outcomes and business impact, not just activities
- Known as “the person who drives results on important problems”
- Regularly interacts with senior leadership on strategic topics
- Focuses on positioning for next role while delivering in current one
Both are competent. Both deliver results. But Professional B will get promoted while Professional A gets told they’re “not quite ready yet” despite doing objectively more work.
Why? Professional B is being strategic about visibility, relationships, and positioning—not just about execution.
The Things You Think Make You Visible (But Don’t)
Working longer hours than everyone else: People notice you’re working a lot. They don’t necessarily think you’re more capable—they might think you’re less efficient or can’t manage workload.
Being the most responsive person: This signals availability, not importance. Important people don’t respond to everything immediately because they’re focused on important work.
Never making mistakes: This signals you’re playing it safe, not taking on challenging work. Leaders are expected to make mistakes on hard problems and learn from them.
Being the nicest person on the team: Likability is fine, but it’s not a leadership qualifier. Leaders need to make hard decisions and have difficult conversations.
Knowing every detail: Subject matter expertise is valuable, but being in the weeds of everything signals individual contributor, not leader.
Fixing everyone’s problems: This makes you helpful, not strategic. Leaders identify which problems are worth solving, not solve every problem that exists.
How to Actually Become Visible to Decision-Makers
1. Speak in outcomes, not activities
Don’t: “I’ve been working on the new customer onboarding process.” Do: “I redesigned customer onboarding, which increased activation rates by 23% and reduced support tickets by 40%.”
2. Connect your work to business priorities
Don’t: “I completed the Q3 analysis.” Do: “The Q3 analysis revealed that our enterprise segment is driving 70% of growth despite being 20% of customers. This suggests we should reallocate sales resources toward enterprise.”
3. Make your wins visible to people who matter
Don’t: Tell your manager about your success and hope they pass it along. Do: Present results in forums where decision-makers are present. Send summary emails to stakeholders. Volunteer to share learnings across teams.
4. Ask for exposure, not just work
Don’t: “I’m happy to take on more projects.” Do: “I’d like to be considered for the executive steering committee” or “I’d like to present our strategy to the leadership team.”
5. Build relationships before you need them
Don’t: Only interact with senior leaders when you want something. Do: Regular touchpoints sharing insights, asking strategic questions, offering to help with initiatives they care about.
6. Frame yourself as future leadership, not just current contributor
Don’t: “I’m really good at what I do.” Do: “I’m focused on developing skills in [strategic area]. I’d welcome opportunities to lead projects in this space.”
The Conversation That Changes Everything
At some point, you need to be explicit about your ambitions. Most people never have this conversation, assuming their manager knows they want to advance.
Your manager doesn’t know. Or if they do, they don’t know you’re serious.
The conversation:
“I want to talk about my career trajectory. My goal is to move into [role/level] within [timeframe]. I know I need to demonstrate capability in [specific areas]. What opportunities can we create for me to develop and showcase those skills?”
This conversation:
- Makes your ambitions explicit
- Asks for specific development, not vague support
- Positions you as someone thinking strategically about growth
- Creates accountability for your manager to support advancement
If your manager responds with vague encouragement but no concrete actions, that’s information. They either can’t or won’t help you advance. Time to build relationships with other sponsors.
What Happens When You Shift Your Strategy
When you stop being strategic about perfect execution and start being strategic about visibility and positioning, things change:
You work less and accomplish more. Saying no to low-value work creates capacity for high-impact projects.
You get pulled into different conversations. Senior leaders start asking your opinion, not just for deliverables.
Opportunities find you. Instead of applying for roles, you get tapped for them.
Your raises get bigger. People who are visible for impact get compensated accordingly.
You stop feeling stuck. The path forward becomes clear because you’re demonstrating readiness for the next level, not just competence at the current one.
The Thing No One Tells You
Being strategic about visibility feels uncomfortable. It feels like self-promotion, like you’re not “just doing good work,” like you’re being calculating about relationships.
Good. That discomfort is growth.
The people who advance aren’t the ones who do the best work in obscurity. They’re the ones who do strong work and make sure the right people know about it.
That’s not manipulation. That’s career management.
You can be excellent at your job and still not get promoted if no one sees you as ready for more.
Stop being invisible where it matters. Start being strategic about the right things.
What’s one strategic shift you’re ready to make in how you show up at work?
