Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / Why Your Best Work Gets Ignored By Leadership
Transcript
- Lucas: Let's talk about the most frustrating phenomenon I see in senior management circles right now. It is not that people are underperforming. It is that they are overperforming in ways that do not register with the people who hold the keys to the next level up. Luna: So you are saying that doing good work is no longer a sufficient condition for advancement? Lucas: Exactly. In fact, if you look at the data from major consulting firms released earlier this year, there is a clear correlation between high individual contribution scores and lower visibility ratings among senior executives. The better you are at your job, the more likely you are to become indispensable to your immediate manager, and therefore less visible to anyone above them. Luna: That makes sense. If you solve every problem your boss faces, they have no reason to introduce you to their peers. You become a secret weapon rather than a public asset. Lucas: Right. And this creates what I call the competence trap. You spend your energy optimizing your current role instead of building the network required for the next one. On October twenty eighth two thousand twenty six, we are seeing this play out across technology and finance sectors where the pace of change rewards generalists who can bridge teams, not specialists who stay in their silos. Luna: But isn't specialization still valued? Isn't depth important? Lucas: Depth is necessary, but it is not enough for promotion. Promotion requires breadth of perception. Leaders need to see how your work connects to other departments. If your impact is contained entirely within your team, it remains invisible to the broader organization unless someone actively translates it for them. Luna: So the issue is translation. You have done the work, but nobody else understands its strategic weight. Lucas: Precisely. And this brings us to the core mechanism of executive visibility. It is not about bragging. It is about framing. When you present your results, are you talking about tasks completed or problems solved for the business? Luna: I see a lot of engineers who list tickets closed or code shipped. That is a task list, not a business case. Lucas: Correct. A ticket closed is an input. Revenue saved or risk mitigated is an output. Executives care about outputs. They do not have the bandwidth to reverse-engineer your inputs into outcomes. You have to do that translation upfront. Luna: This feels like a skill that is rarely taught in technical roles. People are hired for their ability to execute, not their ability to narrate. Lucas: That is true. Most professional development programs focus on hard skills. But the soft skill of narrative construction is actually a hard requirement for leadership. You need to construct a story that links your daily work to quarterly goals. Luna: So how do we fix this? How does someone start shifting from execution mode to narrative mode without seeming self-absorbed? Lucas: You start by identifying your stakeholders. Who benefits from your work outside your immediate team? Marketing? Sales? Product? Once you know them, you align your reporting cadence with their interests. Luna: Instead of sending updates only to your manager, you send brief summaries to those other stakeholders showing how your project helped them hit their targets. Lucas: Yes. And those stakeholders then become your informal sponsors. They mention your name in meetings you are not in. That is organic visibility. It is not manufactured. It is earned through mutual benefit. Luna: It is interesting because that requires a shift in mindset from protecting your time to investing it in cross-functional relationships. Lucas: It does. And it requires discipline. It is easier to just keep working. But if you want to move up, you have to treat relationship building as part of the job description, not a distraction from it. Luna: We should pause here for a moment. We deliberately don't run ads on these shows because we believe our listeners deserve content that respects their intelligence and time. If that resonates with you and you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — that's F. E. X. I. N. G. O. Lucas: Thanks for keeping this conversation ad-free and focused on real strategies. Now let's go back to the mechanics of sponsorship. Luna: I want to dig deeper into that idea of informal sponsorship. How is that different from having a formal mentor? Lucas: A mentor gives advice. A sponsor advocates. An informal sponsor is someone who has the power to open doors and uses that power on your behalf when you are not in the room. They vouch for your potential, not just your past performance. Luna: So it is about trust. They trust that promoting you reflects well on them too. Lucas: Exactly. It is a reputational bet. If you succeed, they look like a good judge of talent. If you fail, it looks like bad judgment on their part. So they only sponsor people they are confident will deliver. Luna: That means consistency matters. One great project might get attention, but sustained reliability builds the trust required for sponsorship. Lucas: Consistency is key. But so is accessibility. You have to make it easy for potential sponsors to understand what you do. If they have to guess, they won't bother. Luna: So regular, concise updates. Not weekly status reports that no one reads, but monthly highlights that connect your work to bigger picture goals. Lucas: Yes. Think of it as marketing your own value proposition. You are the product. Your manager is your first customer. But you need to reach the board of directors, which are the senior leaders. Luna: This changes how I think about my calendar. I usually block time for deep work. Maybe I need to block time for deep networking instead. Lucas: Deep networking is a great phrase. It implies intentionality. You are not just chatting at happy hour. You are having structured conversations to understand strategic priorities and position your skills accordingly. Luna: And those conversations should be two-way. You offer value to them, too. Maybe insights from your team or help with a specific problem. Lucas: Always. Reciprocity is the foundation of any professional relationship. If you only take, you will not build lasting capital. Luna: What about remote work? Does this visibility strategy work when you are not in the office physically? Lucas: It works even harder because digital leaves a trail. Every email, every document, every meeting note is a record of your contribution. The challenge is ensuring those records are visible to the right people. Luna: So cc'ing relevant stakeholders on key deliverables. Or posting summaries in shared channels where leadership hangs out. Lucas: Exactly. Use the tools available to amplify your signal. Slack, email, project management boards. Make sure your name appears next to positive outcomes in places that senior leaders check. Luna: It feels like being proactive about your own documentation. Instead of waiting for a review cycle, you are creating a continuous paper trail of value. Lucas: That is exactly it. A promotion packet is just a curated version of your ongoing documentation. If you have been doing this all year, the promotion packet writes itself. Luna: Whereas if you wait until review time to start thinking about visibility, you are already behind. Lucas: Yes. Visibility is a habit, not an event. It is built day by day through small acts of communication and alignment. Luna: So the takeaway is stop hiding behind your output. Start narrating it. Build bridges to other teams. Let the right people know what you are solving. Lucas: Summarized perfectly. Work hard, yes. But also work loud. Not loudly in a disruptive way, but clearly in a strategic way. Luna: Clear and consistent. I think many of us can start implementing that today by reviewing who our key stakeholders really are. Lucas: Start there. Map the network. Then find one person you haven't spoken to recently and re-engage with a specific update on shared goals. Luna: Small step, big ripple effect. Thanks for breaking that down, Lucas. Lucas: Anytime. The question now is whether you will let your next big win remain invisible or use it to launch your next career chapter.