Joelle K. Jay

business leaders

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My Top 3 Strategies for Gaining Recognition in the Workplace

As Dale Carnegie said, “People work for money but the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards.” For many leaders, recognition in the workplace is a reward in itself. They want their good performance celebrated, and recognition by management and peers of their contribution to the organization is a source of validation and fulfillment.

You might want that kind of recognition for yourself. Many of us do. But we don’t always get it.

In fact, many of us feel just the opposite. Unappreciated. Undervalued. Overlooked.

 

You can actually influence this yourself, however. Instead of waiting for others to recognize you or hoping they do, you can build recognition with some effort of your own. Try these strategies:

 

Signposting

To reiterate the importance of performance, the quickest way to get noticed is to get something accomplished that no one else has been able to do. But there’s an additional piece to performance that ensures you actually get your good work recognized – you have to point it out.

One strategy you can use to do this is called “signposting.” You tell people exactly what you did so they can recognize it. It might sound something like this: “As you know, I’ve been working on increasing revenue. I’m pleased to announce in the last quarter I raised our revenue by eight percent.” Or: “You’ll see our team has succeeded in bring in several new clients. I’m proud of their efforts. I’ve made it a priority to focus their attention and make sure they had the resources to get there, and they did.”

Signposting doesn’t mean you brag about yourself and take all the credit. In a team effort, you may very well acknowledge that the team gets the credit and that they made the difference. But you can also make it clear as to who enabled that to happen.

 

Capture the Brilliance and the Buzz

Secondly, when taking credit or looking to get noticed, it’s important to make sure you got the message right. You have to take responsibility for expressing what you want, and you need to be qualified when you do so.

Some people do this badly. They may take credit they don’t deserve, or make their results look better than they are. You have to have the substance to back up your claims. Does that mean a little bit of buzz doesn’t matter? Not necessarily. If people don’t know you very well, they may respond to your enthusiasm and the impression you make. The excitement you create around your ideas can draw attention to your ideas. On the other hand, if you have a brilliant mind and game-changing ideas but convey the message awkwardly, people may get distracted and overlook the substance.

In other words, neither is enough. The goal is to have substance, presented well—the brilliance and the buzz. Some people have exceptional performance that goes unnoticed. Some people get all the attention but don’t deliver. You need both.

 

Know Where the Bar Is

Finally, in order to gain recognition from others, you need to know what they’re looking for and what will count as success. For example, it’s not just what matters to you that gets you noticed. It’s what matters to the person you want to do the noticing.

If you want to impress your bosses, are they impressed by numbers, or do they focus more on stories that wow and inspire?

If you want recognition from your team members, do they value autonomy more, or direction?

Being able to discern what others value gives us the opportunity to align to their needs, which they are likely to appreciate and recognize.

So we ask ourselves, how do we find out what matters to these people? Begin with being perceptive—notice what people respond to and what they seem to value. Then, put yourself in their shoes. Understand what their concerns and goals are, along with what drives them. Finally, you can ask the person directly what’s most important to them. You can view this as a high sign of respect.

 

By taking these steps, you’ll make an impression on the people you want to notice you – developing your relationship with them while understanding more about how you can stand out in their minds.

Find more strategies for gaining recognition and creating win-wins for your organization and yourself in Joelle’s book with Howard Morgan, The New Advantage.

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How To Define Your Metrics For Success In 3 Questions

What is the single biggest driver for career advancement? In my view, it’s your performance. Or, at least performance is the one over which you have the most control. If you excel at your job and get stellar results, you’ll know you’re positioning yourself to be noticed.

 

There are three questions you can ask yourself to assess the impact of performance on your career:

First, is performance emphasized where you work?

Second, which performance measures will you use?

And finally, how will you claim your results?

If you can get crystal clear in all three areas, you will be doing everything possible to make your good work count.

 

Begin by assessing your company, and what it values when promoting. Does your company place a high emphasis in performance, or does it take in to account other aspects which are more important to them? If your company does place a high emphasis on performance, then you have to decide which performance measures will best highlight your hard work. There are tons of performance measures to choose from, some of which your company might track themselves, and others that you will have to do on your own. Either way, tracking your performance so that they numbers can talk for themselves is very important.

Finally, you have to be willing to claim your results and let people know that you played a vital role in achieving them.

In short, the strategy is this: focus on performance, get the results, and make an effort to point out those results so you can get the credit (and opportunities) you have earned.

 

Performance is one of the key advantages for leaders who want to advance their careers. To learn all nine advantages, check out The New Advantage: How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for Their Companies and Themselves and take your free self-assessment!

This article was originally published on Inc.com.

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Leaders: This Is The Secret To Preserving Top Talent

If company leaders hope to keep top talent, they are going to have to preserve their most talented employees.

If talented employees hope to fulfill their potential, they are going to have to learn to think differently.

For both company leaders and their talented workers, the kind of thinking and working required in the complex work environments that have come to characterize today’s business settings are more intense than they were in the past. To succeed, employees must learn to be more strategic.

More thoughtful.

More aligned.

Leaders at every level must be approach their work with all of the talent they have, for the benefit of the company and for the sustainability of their results.

Imagine what a difference that could make. Leaders who take time for the proactive, good strategic thinking feel clearer and more settled. They are able to discern the priorities and stay focused on them, and the rest of the busyness just fades into the background. They are more focused on results. They are better team players. They are aligned to their company vision, their managers’ needs and their partners.

Best of all, they have time for themselves to rest and renew their energy. Overall, they experience a more committed, results-based approach to work and life that leads to loyalty in a company, better retention, and a better quality of life.

How does one create such an environment? The secret is personal leadership.

Just as corporate leaders must apply the practices and principles of strong leadership to make their company succeed, so must individual employees apply the practices and principles of strong leadership to succeed for themselves. Personal leadership is at the heart of a high quality way to work.

Bringing a personal leadership approach to an organization – or even to your own work – requires three steps.

First, identify talented individuals in whom to invest. If you’re a leader who wants to be successful in your own career, that “talented individual” may be you.

Next, empower them to take a leadership mindset, and teach them to focus on their top priorities.

Last, do so in a way that would be efficient in terms of both cost and time so they develop themselves as leaders while keeping up with the pace of their business.

One company I worked with build a program around these three steps, with impressive results. They nominated their top talent to participate in a leadership program focusing on personal leadership. They helped participants to see themselves as leaders who added value to the company. And they integrated their leadership development with big goals for the company. As a result, the program participants not only felt stronger as leaders, they improved their impact to the company, to the tune of millions of dollars added to the bottom line.

Learn more about how personal leadership can help get results for your company – or for you personally. Download a free Executive Summary of personal leadership and get started learning how you can be a better leader… and lead a better life.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Get Recognized At Work

Do you feel overlooked? Unappreciated? Undervalued?

 

Even the most promising leaders may not get the recognition they’re hoping for. One 2006 Gallup study revealed that 61% of employees feel unappreciated at work. That can be demotivating and affect your sense of self-confidence, as well as the sense of joy you get for your work.

If you’re a high performer, you want to know you’re important and make a difference. And you are – but you may have to be the one to help others see it.

 

Here are five things you can do today to make sure you’re being recognized.

 

  1. Raise your hand. Recognition is about raising your hand, claiming credit for your work, volunteering yourself, and speaking up, so that others value your contributions and you create opportunities for yourself.
  1. Speak up. Results don’t always speak for themselves. Sometimes we have to speak for them. This means getting real about the numbers – pull metrics to show how much capital you’ve raised for your company, how many hours you’ve put into projects, or how many team members you’ve mentored. Quantifying your results will bolster your credibility, and help get you the recognition you deserve.
  1. Advocate for yourself. You can be yourself and still get yourself noticed. You may feel self-conscious shining a light on your accomplishments, but you don’t have to be a braggart to be appropriately self-advocating.
  1. Know your own value. In order for others to value you, you have to first value yourself. Your ability shine a spotlight on your good work serves your own career, of course, but it also serves your company, your clients and your team.
  1. Celebrate your wins! Recognition comes when you achieve what’s important to the people around you and highlight the wins. Whether this is in a presentation, a paper, or even a company-wide email, highlighting the wins and shouting out about a recent success is one way to earn the high-visibility you’ve earned.


Your ability to call attention to your achievements and ask for what you need will serve your career. You don’t have to overdo it. Just make sure you don’t avoid doing it at all.

As you’re articulating your accomplishments, ask yourself:

  • What do you want to be recognized for, and why?
  • Who do you want to recognize what you’ve done, and what’s important to that person to know, see and hear?
  • What changes in your own behavior might you need to make to effectively get recognition?
  • Have your results been noticed so far, and what has been the result?

Companies with a “recognition-rich culture” have a 31% lower turnover rate – which is important for women, who reportedly value “appreciation by their manager” 15% over men as an important reward for their work.

You can get yourself noticed at work. When you do, you’ll gain the benefits and opportunities that come to you when you clearly convey your true worth.

 

For more on how to be recognized at work, see my resources.

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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4 Reasons Successful Leaders Lose Sight Of The Importance of Performance

Have you ever felt that no matter how well you do at work, you never seem to get the rewards?

It’s a frustrating experience, and perhaps even more so for women than for men. (Research shows that whereas men only have to show potential, women are only promoted on their performance). Either way, it’s critical for you to have proven accomplishments if you want your talent to be recognized.

Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that your performance will speak for itself. Corporate life is more complex than that. But, you can make great strides by understanding the advantages of exceptional performance. Throughout the ups and downs of a career, it may be the best thing you can do for yourself.

You may be thinking as you’re reading this that you’ve been focused on your performance all along, which is excellent. But leaders lose sight of this critical element of their success. There are several reasons:

1. It may seem strange, but it’s possible to miss the importance of performance.

Performance measures may not be clear in your organization, or maybe you’re the one who’s not entirely clear on those measures.

2. You can become focused on the wrong thing – the next job, office politics, or the fire drill of the moment, instead of your results.

If you’re not tracking your progress, it could be that no one else is, either.

3. You can neglect to track changes in your performance measures over time.

Your performance measures change as your jobs change throughout your career. Be sure you’re staying current.

4. One final, and potentially disastrous mistake is forgetting to identify, communicate, and improve your results.

You don’t have to overdo it, but you do have own your performance. No one else will do it for you.

You can avoid these pitfalls by getting clear on the performance measures that matter in your role – tracking the changes in those measures as their careers progress – and continuing to prioritize your results. Ask yourself: What are the performance measures on which you’re judged? Does your manager agree, and how do you know? Do you have concrete examples of results you’ve delivered and their importance to the organization? How will you measure your own results, and how will you communicate those results?

Remember, when it comes to your own performance, you are your own best advocate. You secure your performance by getting clear on the metrics that matter in your role – tracking the changes in those measures as your career progresses – and continuing to track your results.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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The Four-step System For Conquering Your New Year’s Resolution

It’s the 3rd week of January.

How’s that New Year’s Resolution going?

New Year’s Resolutions have a poor reputation for being successful, but it’s rarely because of the goals set themselves. Your goals are important. You do want to achieve them. Sometimes people are quick to dismiss the value of New Year’s Resolutions and even stop setting them – after all, what’s the point, if you’re not going to follow through? But if you set a resolution – or a goal – that matters to you, maybe the solution lies not in giving up but shoring up your chance to be successful.

What you need is a proper framework.

A framework is a way of thinking and doing things that you can count on to help you succeed. Without a framework, you’re left to your own unreliable devices. Will power. Trying really hard. Both strategies that fail when your motivation wanes.

It’s better to tackle your goals with a framework you can follow that will lead you through the hard times and help you stay motivated for the long term.

So how to you go from “trying really hard” to actually achieving your 2017 goals? Try this framework: problem, project, plan, and process.

Problem. Define the problem. We make changes when something is wrong and we want it to better. So what’s wrong? What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?

Project. Once you’ve identified the problem, make solving it your new project. Aside from setting the goal (“Drop 10 pounds.” “Increase revenue 10%.” “Hire new team.”), take the time to sit down and map out how you will achieve it.

Plan. Once you know how you want to tackle this project, put pen to paper and make the plan. What will you do, and when? What’s your timeline? What are the milestones? What are the steps?

Process. A plan is only as good as the paper it’s written on until you implement it, so the last step is to put a process into place. Decide when you will revisit the plan, and how often. Set about a regular routine of identifying the next immediate step; taking that step; evaluating the outcome; and revisiting the plan for the new next step. If you do this, achieving your goals is no harder than a walk through the park. You just take one step after another, until before you know it, you’ve arrived where you wanted to be.

Imagine the difference this could make for you in achieving your goals. Where once you had a feeble resolution (“Get my finances together”) now you have clarity about the problem (“My finances are a mess, and if I’m not careful I’m going to miss the chance to build a strong retirement.”). You have taken it on as a project. (“In the next six months, I am going to focus squarely on getting organized with my finances.”) You developed a plan. (“I know what I am going to do in each month to move from a mess to a strong financial set-up for the long-term.”) And you have a process. (“Monday is now “Money Monday.” Every Monday I look at my financial plan and choose the steps to move forward.”)

When it comes to making your 2017 goals a reality, remember, don’t just get inspired. Get ready, get started, get it done, and get the results!

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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3 Challenges To Personal Mastery Every Successful CEO Must Conquer

Leadership is the ability to define an inspiring vision of the future and then compel people to achieve it. Personal leadership is the ability to do that for yourself – identifying “what do I need to do,” “why am I doing it,” “how do I do it,” “who can help” and “how do I leverage my strength.” If you do that in a way that is structured and disciplined, you can gain personal mastery.

Several months ago I spoke with fellow coach, Dawn Grossart, on the subject of personal mastery, and we came to the same conclusion: Personal mastery is that pot at the end of the rainbow that most people are trying to achieve, whether they’re first starting out in their careers or if they’re successful entrepreneurs or CEOs.

When done right, personal mastery becomes self-initiative growth and drive to success on your own. When you can do that, then you’ll have clarity and confidence, and you can achieve what you want to achieve and live the life you want to live.

The greatest challenges entrepreneurs face when it comes to self-mastery are the usual suspects: Procrastination, fear of visibility, running out of steam or giving up before you see the results you’re looking for. It gets hard. What I like to coach leaders to do is to identify those challenges, and then identify the polar opposite – the matching solution.

So, for example, if procrastination is the challenge, then personal mastery for you might be about developing discipline. Or, if you’re challenge is fear of visibility, then maybe the solution has to do with finding your way and your comfort zone. So, maybe you’re not ever going to be on The Today Show, maybe that’s not your kind of visibility, but maybe a local audience on your local station’s public morning show is where your true customer base lies.

Last, when it comes to giving up or running out of steam, sometimes leaders forget to identify the matrix and measure themselves against those matrixes so they can see the progress they’re making and let that become their motivation to keep going. They may actually be, in fact, moving forward, and they need to be able to see it on paper to get the feeling that they’re actually moving ahead getting where they want to go.

Here is something I’ve learned as a leadership coach: The coaches’ job is to help people find their own answers. But people can only find their own answers if the answers are already within them. Sometimes just a little bit of information from the outside can change everything, so in addition to finding your own framework, successful leaders must go out and search: What is the framework you need to accomplish your goals, what are you trying to achieve, and who can help you do that? Now, take your framework and tweak it until you find the one that’s right for you and get to the results you want: personal mastery.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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How To Take Command Of Your Executive Presence In 2017

Executive presence is a vital sign of your readiness to take on bigger leadership roles. Yet, many leaders don’t know what executive presence actually is, much less if they have it. That would be worrisome, except for the fact that you can change it. You can shape your presence to project an image consistent with who you want to be and the opportunities you want to have. Executive presence is the degree to which others perceive you to be a leader.

The trap many leaders fall into is being underestimated by others because of the way they present themselves. They may be perfectly capable, but if their presence doesn’t project the expected image of a leader, they may be seen as less powerful than they are. Women can easily become victim to this problem, being undervalued because of their perception from others. To eliminate this problem, they need to think deeply about acquiring executive presence, which can be complicated for women.

With historically few women holding high-level leadership positions, the image of what executive presence should be is often based on a man and, to further complicate things, “women are unfairly deemed to have the wrong leadership style needed to be successful.” Business women are trapped in a double bind of combining being an ideal manager, which means being masculine, with being an ideal woman, which means being feminine. To combat this contradiction, women must present themselves as leaders while maintaining their natural strength and style.

The second hurdle women face when tackling executive presence is the sensitivity of the topic. Women, in particular, have trouble getting feedback on their presence- especially when it comes to appearance. While appearance is only one small element of presence, it is an important one. Specific details of appearance, like unkempt attire and provocative clothing, can undercut presence up to 75 percent. Not to mention it is difficult to address.

Resolving this dilemma is more than a matter of managing perception and communicating to others that, “I have what it takes, and I’m ready to fill the role of a leader.” It is also about being confident in yourself. The more you can learn about the impressions you make on others, the more you can shape your image to fit their expectations, while also working on strengthen your own self-image.

Executive presence manifests in the silent judgements people make about you, rightly or wrongly. The more specifics you can get about how you are being measured, the better you can assess yourself. These attributes play important roles in determining executive presence: status and reputation, physical characteristics, demeanor, communication skills, interpersonal skills, interpersonal behavior patterns, values-in-action, intellect and expertise, work outcomes and power use. By understanding these different elements in yourself, you can shape your presence intentionally, to make a positive impact.

When you find your unique way of expressing executive presence, you will naturally develop a stronger sense of yourself as a leader, termed as “A Sense of Self” (another vitally important factor of executive presence). Understanding yourself as a leader will not only allow you to shape your executive presence, it will also make you feel powerful, and it will show.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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Leadership Experts Weigh In: Why Women Leaders Need A Mentor And A Sponsor

Getting mentors and sponsors who can help you sustain the confidence and momentum its takes to succeed and who can pave the way for future success is more than beneficial, it is necessary. In order to build strong mentoring and sponsoring relationships, we need to distinguish clearly between the two.

A mentor is a guide who offers you advice, helps you solve problems, provides a sounding board, and shares his or her years of experience to help you learn and grow. A sponsor is a powerfully positioned champion who advocates for you, opens the door to new opportunities, introduces you to the right people, increases your visibility, and makes the case for your advancement.

To simplify, mentoring is taking an interest in you and sponsorship is taking action for you.

In her research, Sylvia Ann Hewlett reveals that leaders are advised to have a mentor, but they need a sponsor. Sponsorship turns out to be crucial to all leaders. The trouble is, it is less accessible to women. Only 13 percent of full-time, female employees at large companies have sponsors compared to 46 percent of men.

A number of obstacles can percent women from getting sponsorship. Some of these include: hesitancy to ask for help or showcase their talents, real or imagined boundaries across power relationships, the tendency to under-reach for promotions, and sometimes even fears about what others might think.

As a result, even women who do have a healthy network can end up over-mentored and under-sponsored. Do not let these obstacles stop you. Once you know you need a mentor and a sponsor, you can form those relationships and take advantage of all they have to offer. As an integral part of your network, your mentorships and sponsorships are deeper, more focused relationships that deserve special attention.

Mentorship gives you a distinct advantage. It shortens the learning curve, provides support in a challenging time, and offers a way to learn the nuances that lead to mastery in a skill- not to mention it can be the foundation for a lifelong relationship, often treasured on both sides. Women who take advantage of mentoring opportunities maintain their ambition and self-confidence in their careers.

In addition, people who are mentored “garner more promotions, higher salaries, and more career satisfaction and even report being less stressed than those who lack such guidance.” Mentorships are invaluable because you can learn and grow with little risk. However, if you want to advance, you need a sponsor.

The sponsorship advantage gives women the chance to stretch beyond their own boundaries into opportunities they may not have had otherwise. When women have a strong sponsor, the likelihood that they will seek other ways of advancing their career, such as a stretch assignment or a raise, goes up 8 percent– a small but significant impact. In addition, men and women with sponsors are most satisfied with their career advancement. In this regard, they obtain a “sponsor effect” from 19 to 23 percent.The benefits are even more impressive for mothers, at 27 percent, and minorities, up to 65 percent.

When leaders have strong mentors and sponsors in place, they feel supported and championed. Women in leadership must educate themselves about the benefits of mentors and sponsors, fill those roles, and cultivate and leverage the relationships. When you do, you will be surrounded by opportunities where you can add value and gain benefits in returns.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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3 Ways See Yourself Bigger – And Help Others See It, Too

You’ve accomplished a lot in your career, you’re eager to move to the next level – but how do you get your colleagues and superiors to see you in your new role as a leader when they still see you in your old role?

For example, you want to be seen as strategic and visionary, but others see you as someone they can rely on to “get things done.” Or, you want to be involved early in important conversations, but others pull you in on an “as needed basis.”

So how do you get other people to shift their perspective of you, to see you as the leader you want to be?

Many leaders struggle to change others’ perceptions of them simply because they don’t realize they can influence the way they are seen. Here are three ways you can get others to see you as the leader you are:

See yourself bigger. Don’t let your own self-doubt hold you back. If your self-perception needs a boost, spend time with your strengths. Remember what it is you do especially well and what you want to do more of.

Step into bigger shoes. In several companies where I coach and speak, the way to get promoted is to act the part of a position for six months before you get the title. If you can prove yourself to be an effective leader at that next level by doing the things next-level-leaders do, then and only then will you be eligible for the actual post. Hold yourself to this standard and play the part of the role you want, whether that means contributing in new ways, speaking up with more courage and conviction, or sharing innovative ideas.

Tell others how you want them to view you. It sounds like this: “I’ve been a salesperson in this organization for a long time, but I’d like to take on more of a leadership role.” Follow it up with requests to get involved in higher-level activities, or share your ambitions so others can help pave the way.

By being proactive in these ways, not only will you be seen as “bigger,” you’ll actually become the next-level leader you want to be. Take a moment to imagine if your colleagues and superiors viewed you in your new role. You would be able to elevate yourself into the kind of position and reputation you want to have, as someone essential to the leadership team who can help drive the direction of the company or lead a project to a successful outcome. You would be having fun, contributing and engaging with others – instead of striving and driving so hard every day to just get yourself noticed.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!