Manage Your Professional Reputation – Learn Who’s On Your Team

You will be passed over for jobs, projects, and opportunities, and never know why. Being passed over isn’t necessarily a bad thing, not knowing why you were passed over is problematic. If you don’t know why you’re being passed over, how can you be prepared next time?

Organizations are political. People talk. You’ve undoubtedly already experienced this.

If you want to manage your professional reputation, one thing you must know is who talks about you and what they say. How decisions get made in organizations isn’t always obvious. There are the obvious channels of decision making, like your boss and your boss’s boss. But there are also the people who talk to your boss and boss’s boss and have an opinion about you, who you may not be aware of.

Everyone in an organization has people they trust, who they listen to and confide in. Who those trusted people are isn’t always obvious. When you’re being considered for a new position or project, the decision makers will invariably ask others for their opinion. Knowing who does and doesn’t support you in a future role is essential to managing your professional reputation and career.

I don’t want you to be nervous, paranoid, or suspicious at work. I do want you to be savvy, smart, and aware.

It’s not difficult to find out who can impact your professional reputation at work, you just need to ask the people who know. Start with your manager. Your manager likely knows and will tell you, if you ask.

To ensure you know who can impact your professional reputation, tell your manager:

“I really enjoy working here. I enjoy the people, the work and our industry. I’m committed to growing my career with this organization.”

Then ask two or three of these questions:

• Who in the organization should I have a good relationship with?
• Who/what departments should I be working closely with?
• Who impacts my professional reputation and the opportunities I have?
• What skills do I have that the organization values most?
• What contributions have I made that the organization values most?
• What mistakes have I made from which I need to recover?

Your manager doesn’t walk around thinking about the answers to these questions. If you want thoughtful answers, set a time to meet with your manager. Tell your manager the purpose of the meeting – to get feedback on your professional reputation so you can adeptly manage your career – and send the questions in advance, giving your manager time to prepare for the meeting. You will get more thoughtful and complete answers if your manager has two weeks to think about the questions and ask others for input.

Don’t be caught off guard by a less-than-stellar professional reputation. Take control of your reputation and career. Ask more. Assume less.

Want to Advance Your Career? Strategically Ask for More Responsibility at Work

Too often people sit at their laptops doing their minimal best while begrudging their boss, organization, or current job, hoping that something better will come along. Or people silently do good work and think that someday someone will notice, and they’ll get the role and recognition they deserve.

If you want to advance your career, you must know how to ask for more responsibility at work.

You may be rolling your eyes thinking, “More? I can’t do more. I already work evenings and weekends. I sleep with my phone and haven’t taken a vacation in two years, and you want me to do more?!?!” Actually, I want you to stop sleeping with your phone and go on vacation. But that’s a post for a different day.

When I say do more, I don’t mean to do anything anyone asks nor anything your organization needs. Offer to take on more work that is aligned with what you want to do AND is important to the leaders of your organization.

Before starting Candid Culture, I had a corporate job, leading an operations unit. Four years into my tenure with the company, one of my peers left, and his role wasn’t refilled. I felt his department was important to our organization’s success, so I offered to run his department, in addition to my own.

My new department was a change agent’s dream. I outlined a strategic plan and long and short-term goals. I re-wrote job descriptions and org charts. But six months into taking on the department, I couldn’t get one change approved. I was confused and frustrated.

I had initially been hired to turn another department around, and I’d been very successful at getting changes approved. Yet this time, I could get nothing approved. After six months of banging my head against a wall, I finally ‘got it.’ The owners of the company didn’t see the department as valuable, thus they weren’t willing to invest in it. Hence why the job sat vacant, until I offered to do it. 

I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to see that the only person committed to my new department was me. When my colleague’s senior-level job wasn’t refilled and there was no hiring freeze, I should have known the department wasn’t seen as important.

If you want to know what’s important in your organization, look at where the money is being spent. What departments and/or leaders are getting resources?

When I say ask for more, I mean be strategic about what you ask for.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What do I want to do?
2. Where in the organization are there opportunities to do that kind of work – that is important to the organization’s leaders?
3. Who will support me in doing this work? Who won’t?

How to ask for more responsibility at work. Tell your boss and/or department leader:    

• I really enjoy working here. I enjoy the people, the work and our industry.
• I’m committed to growing my career with this organization.
• I’m interested in learning more about ________________________.
• I’d love to run ___________________________.
• I think we have some opportunities to make improvements in _____________________.
• How could I get some exposure to ____________________.
• A project is starting in ______________.  I’d love to be on the team.  What are your thoughts about that? Would you be comfortable supporting my participation? If yes, how can we make it happen? If not, what would you need from me in order to support it?

The work you take on does not need to be high level. Everyone in an organization does grunt work. Just be sure that whatever you offer to do is seen as integral to the future of the organization. You’re not likely to get what you don’t ask for.