How to Help Your Team Become More Visible

My upcoming book, The Visibility Factor is for corporate leaders who work hard and think that should be enough to help them advance their careers. What they don’t realize is the importance of being in front of their management to show their capabilities and the value that they bring. In this book, you will learn about the importance of visibility, be able to create a customized visibility plan, prepare for obstacles you may encounter, and become the leader you were meant to be.

Here is a small excerpt from the book on Team Visibility:

As you think about the visibility plan you will build, you want to include ideas and actions for yourself, but also think about how you will find ways to get exposure for your team if you have one. I had a responsibility to show up not only for myself, but also for my team. My lack of visibility hurt me, but also had unintended consequences for my team too. They weren’t in all the meetings with senior management to represent themselves, I was the one who was there. They deserved to be recognized and talked about so that others knew how great they were. If I didn’t share what they accomplished, then there could be career implications for them. They trusted me to lead them and support them. I had to learn how to do this for myself and then be able to teach them how to do it for themselves. It was time to push the birds out of the nest and teach them how to fly.

As I learned more about visibility and how to do it, I saw things in such a different light. It was almost like a fog had lifted and I could see everything that I couldn’t see before. I had them “sit at the table” and make presentations to senior management. They were scared to do that, but I reassured them that they had every right to be there. They had conversations that they would have never had in the past. They used their voices and let people know that they were confident and as important as anyone else at any other level.

I continued to promote what they accomplished and taught them how to create visibility for themselves. The changes that they made were amazing to watch. The simple things that we did to shift their perception helped one of them get into a role in the company that she wanted, all because she became visible and promoted herself to others.

How to Build the Confidence and Visibility of Your Team

One of the best ways that you can create visibility for your team members is for you to talk about their accomplishments in front of management and influencers.

It helps to build their brand in the eyes of decision-makers. The team members may not be in meetings with these people yet so they can’t always advocate for themselves. Management will take the credibility that you have and give it to the team members that you lead because of what you tell them.

Another way that team members can gain visibility is to support each other in meetings and open up opportunities for them to shine. Leaders who can lend their support and create opportunities for visibility will help those team members become more confident and open to speak on their own the next time.

Creating Visibility for the Leaders on Your Staff

As you progress to higher levels in an organization, you will inevitably not only be the leader of a team, but you will begin to lead other leaders.

While this may seem similar in scope, leading other leaders requires a different mindset to be effective. These high-potential leaders may already have strong skills, experience, and the respect of their teams. They are looking to be further developed and stretched even more.

You will need to leverage your strong foundation of experience, values, and confidence when you manage high-potential leaders. Make sure you understand what their career aspirations are so you can help them reach their goals.

Be intentional and plan out your conversations with them.

They will challenge your thinking, decisions, and your leadership on a regular basis. They need to be visible for themselves and their teams. They want to stand out, influence decisions, be strategic, develop their teams, and progress in their careers. This is what they should be doing and If you think about it, you are doing this same thing with your own career as you work with your management.

Your job is to stretch your direct reports to prepare them as potential successors for you in your role. Empower them with clear ownership for key areas so they have visibility for what they deliver and how they develop their own teams. Encourage their ideas, decisions and provide them opportunities to demonstrate their leadership presence in front of senior management. They need to know that you are there to help them learn from any mistakes that may occur and be there to support their success.

A Different Kind of Visibility Approach to Help Your Team

A leader doesn’t only increase visibility by talking about what their team does, but also when they need help.

A leader has to advocate for additional resources as soon as they see that things are shifting. It is easy to hope that it will get better, but that isn’t going to happen in most cases. The easiest way to see that issues are building is to monitor how your team is doing and whether things are getting dropped. Those are the warning signs that the workload is not sustainable for the long term.

When one approach isn’t working to get what you want, you have to pivot and look for another way to be heard.

Sending regular updates that include hard facts makes it much more difficult to ignore what is happening. It is up to you as the leader to find the best way to be heard and how to influence the decision to bring on additional resources.

Do you struggle with visibility for yourself or your team and want to improve? If you want my help, here is the link to set up a time with me: 30-minute conversation.

Susan M Barber, President of Susan M Barber Coaching & Consulting, LLC, works with individuals, teams, and organizations to build skills that leaders need to attain breakthrough results. Her passion for coaching and leadership development is driven by seeing the transformation of leaders as they reach far beyond their own ideas of success. She continues to drive custom programs for groups that want to make changes in their careers to become more powerful leaders.