Too many executives don't take the credit for their achievements. I am not suggesting you need to be excessively bragging at every turn, but if you aren't shining a spotlight on the impact you are having, who will?
Growing up in England I was taught not to shout about my achievements, it was considered rude. When Microsoft relocated me to Seattle with Xbox I had the shock of my life when my first performance review rating was average! I fast learned it was because compared to my American peers I was not telling enough people above and around me about the impact I was having. I'm a fast learner and discovered ways to appropriately talk about my achievements. You can use the Brilliance Barometer to see the ten steps to moving from the best kept secret to a leader getting appropriate credit for your success
You can watch me talk about becoming brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance at one of my recent talks in Chicago or read the transcript below.
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Transcript:
The amount of executives that I have had come to me and say, "Val, I can't believe that guy has just got that promotion. I can't believe they just got that CEO slot. I used to work with them back 3 years ago and they were not very good." Now the reason why that is is because you can be brilliant but the world's best-kept secret. Or you can be not very brilliant and be really good at managing up, managing out, managing how people view you. And there's a disconnect there. But what the very best most successful leaders do is they deliver results so they're brilliant. But they are also brilliant at demonstrating their brilliance.
My challenge to you all is how brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance are you? The 1, 3, 5 and there's actually a 10 which I'll tell you about in a second. The 1, 3, 5, 10 is a thoughtfully ruthless leadership voice. It's how you unpack who you are as a leader. Because if you don't know who you are as a leader, how does your board, how do your executives, how do the people you are trying to bring along with you on the changes and initiatives that you are trying to drive?
So, unpacking who you are as a leader. For those of you who are driving change and organization. The leader who is making the changes, the software implementation, the change in how you are interacting with your customers, the new product launches. Those leaders need to be thoughtfully ruthless leaders. Those leaders need to be brilliant at demonstrating their brilliance.
Val
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