Your Hard Work Is Invisible - Here’s How to Fix That
Make Your Impact Impossible to Ignore
This is
- your weekly guide and shortcut to mastering emotional intelligence through the power of empathy. I talked recently about how not to lose your mind when prioritizing fixes (bugs).
You worked and worked and worked some more to meet the Friday deadline for your project. To overdeliver, you even managed to get it in on Friday morning instead of Friday afternoon.
Monday…crickets.
Tuesday…a simple "thank you" as a reply from a leader who received your notification email of completion.
Next Friday, you will be exhausted. You have put in another long week, and it was not for one particular project. You have put your heart and soul into this week.
Yet, you feel invisible. You've worked hard, but nobody seems to notice the impact.
It doesn't make sense, but you must fix it.
The Harsh Truth: Effort Doesn't Equal Recognition
Work hard, go to school, get married, get a house, have kids, and then retire.
Who else was fed this mantra?
It's a lie. It is at least a lie for my generation (older millennial here).
Hard work does not mean a job that you are secure in and can eventually retire from. Heads-down work does not mean anything if there is no output.
As part of your professional development goals (yes, you need to identify these), you need a plan to ensure your work is noticed.
I knew a manager who often stepped in for their team. Once she left, it was discovered to the degree she stepped in - far beyond what anyone thought. Complaints began to roll in from stakeholders to the new manager almost daily since "work was not being done." She was not leading; she was doing her team's work.
While she was at the company, it did not go unnoticed, but the degree to which she did it was unknown.
Let's look back and think how this could have been prevented. It was a slow march to get here, after all.
First, consider the needs of your stakeholders. This takes a degree of social awareness to assess the environment around you and the needs of those people surrounding you. This requires a willingness to have a candid conversation, curiosity, and empathy. Do not assume; find out.
Build connections. Your team is to do this internally and externally. Build your team if you are running one. You should be doing most of their work for them. You might not have the right people if you are because they have proved incapable. The right people might be in your organization, a different department, or your network.
Working hard does not mean you get recognized. It's harsh, I know. But people need to see and absorb it and know they will miss it in your absence.
Why People Take Your Work for Granted
Kindness first and foremost in your actions brings kindness back, but not at a cost to the kindness to yourself.
Do something kind for yourself and get on those highly visible tasks and projects. Doing work in the shadows, the hidden background work to be the "nice person" or "pick up the slack," ultimately does not provide medals. It is okay to pivot and take on the bigger project.
I think of a time when I had two upcoming projects colliding. One was an opportunity to have high visibility, reporting out to some executive leaders and partnering with a consulting firm to dive into our data. The other was to be a leader of a once-yearly event on our work campus. Both promised to bring recognition.
I had to sit and think about it. The latter project was stressing me out. I spoke with a trusted leader with whom I have had lunch on occasion. He recommended I stick with the first one, as that is where I could have the real impact. So, I did just that.
It was the right choice. I don't even know who led the once-yearly event. I don't know many people did. People, including me, by no fault of our own, took the leader of the event and their word for granted, as it was hidden.
But, people did know who I was on the highly visible project. I was up and presenting, and my face showed on slides at executive leader meetings. I made new connections, forged partnerships, and got a promotion. I listened throughout the project and then took action.
Your ability to have empathy in communication will take you far within these visible projects to be noticed and show that you are attuned to the needs of the leaders and other stakeholders involved. If you know what will make an impact by listening in and executing it, you will not remain in the shadows.
How to Make Sure Your Hard Work Gets the Spotlight
Getting the spotlight does not mean you have to be an obnoxious narcissist or arrogant prick bragging about your work.
I say that because, as someone who likes to be more humble and sometimes turns red in the face when receiving a compliment, it can be hard to spotlight my own work.
What do you do? You have others spotlight it for you.
In Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, he described a Harvard Business Review study (page 144), that says the the star performers are those who have built reliable networks at work, before they need them.
But how would this help spotlight your work? If you have eyes on your work and are collaborating, you are getting eyes on it.
The work you toil in at your desk will not be seen if other eyes are not on it. People will not see your strengths shine.
Get out there, and discretely get in the spotlight, and get your hard work noticed!
You are Visible, so make your work Visible
Are you invisible? No
You are a breathing human being with cells making up your body. You are a figment of someone's imagination.
Your work should not be either. It is evolving and a living display of your hard work and strengths.
Remember, it's good to be kind. But if your kindness is harming you, stop. You do not want to be taken for granted. Don't take on more than you can chew in an attempt to be nice. It only hurts you in the end.
Take on the visible project. If you choose between projects, take on the more impactful one.
Want to spotlight your work? Collaborate with others. It's okay to be humble and visible, but you don't have to be a prick to talk about your work and highlight it.
Feel like your work is invisible? The good news is that it is not too late to fix that!
✅ What I’ve been Analyzing this week (reading, watching, listening, etc.)
📖 I’m reading Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown. I’m how vulnerability does not mean you open up your mouth about everything, but how it can be leveraged rather strategically to build trust
📺I watched No Taste Like Home and saw in episode one how the actor Florence Pugh was moved emphatically, learning about her ancestor sharing her name
✍️ I commented on a post by
about her commentary on how we are all wired differently. True words!Want more on Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Elevate your career? 📈
I empower💪tech people to elevate their empathy, to accelerate their careers
You are visible, so make your work visibile. this is partly why I started a newsletter and hopefully, I can get back to it. Lovely piece and always encouraging.
I really like this article for acknowledging the frustrating feeling of invisible hard work. It's easy to feel overlooked when you're consistently putting in effort, especially on background tasks.
However, the article makes a valid point: in the reality of human attention spans, we tend to focus on what's most visible and impactful. It's not that people don't value your hard work, it's simply that visibility helps them see and remember your contributions in a meaningful way.