Have you ever noticed that after accomplishing one of your biggest leadership goals, the attention starts to shift away from you?
You worked hard to implement new processes, develop your team, and build strong relationships with your customers.
Your leadership recognized your accomplishments and rewarded your success.
But over time, something changes.
Those accomplishments become the new normal.
Not because you’re doing anything wrong—but because excellence is now expected.
That’s where many successful women leaders in IT get stuck.
They continue delivering exceptional results but aren’t receiving the same visibility or leadership opportunities they once did.
The answer isn’t to work harder.
It’s to create visibility in new ways.
In this episode, we’ll explore how increasing your visibility outside your organization can strengthen your credibility, earn greater respect, and create new leadership opportunities.
From Internal Success to Industry Recognition
I had been a woman leader in IT for about 20 years when the opportunity arose to create a new program for IT Vendor Management.
I was fortunate to have a knowledgeable and supportive manager at the time who believed in me and my capabilities.
The program, supporting processes, and team we hired were all new to IT, which made the opportunity especially exciting.
The first couple of years were spent creating the foundation, and training my team. And from my perspective, everything was progressing well.
However, shortly after I transitioned to the position, there was a change in management—the new manager was supportive, but had no experience with IT Vendor Management, so there was a lot of educating to do.
And within about 18 months, a new Director was also hired who had no experience with IT Vendor Management.
Understandably, both leaders brought valuable expertise from other areas of IT, but IT Vendor Management simply wasn’t part of their previous experience.
Despite the many discussions I had with our Director, he still didn’t fully understand the scope of our program or the value it brought to the organization.
An opportunity arose to present at an IT Leadership conference where companies similar to ours, in addition to technical vendors, would be attending.
Traditionally, the presentations were technical “how tos”, best practices, and lessons learned. But I saw it as an opportunity to share what we were doing with our program and the positive impact it was having at our company.
I really wasn’t sure how many people would attend our presentation, but I felt confident in what we were presenting and believed it would benefit other companies to hear how we managed our subcontractors and managed services.
To my surprise, the room filled quickly!
People were engaged. They asked thoughtful questions, and several stayed afterward to continue the conversation and exchange contact information.
At the time, our CIO was president of the CIO organization among our sister companies. During one of their meetings, conference highlights and lessons learned were shared—and our presentation was one of them.
That experience taught me something I’ve never forgotten.
Sometimes, the fastest way to increase your visibility inside your organization is to first build credibility outside of it.
Let me say that one more time because I think it’s an important leadership lesson…
Sometimes, the fastest way to increase your visibility inside your organization is to first build credibility outside of it.
When people outside your organization begin recognizing your expertise, your own leadership often starts seeing your contributions through a different lens.
It wasn’t just my CIO who began to recognize our work. Leaders from our sister companies also learned about our program, the impact it was having, and the value it brought to our organization.
As a woman leader in IT, I’m sure you can relate to how rewarding it feels when your work is recognized and the impact you’ve made is finally visible to others.
That experience shifted how my CIO and DCIO viewed me, and eventually how my Director and manager did as well.
It elevated my visibility from a senior program manager to someone other organizations looked to for guidance and best practices.
The work we were doing was unique, but it spurred the vision for other companies to follow in our footsteps and create similar programs, processes, and teams at their companies.
I was able to participate in multiple discussions throughout the years with the sister companies to share our best practices with them, which was really rewarding.
And none of those opportunities would have happened if I hadn’t been willing to step outside my comfort zone and submit that first conference presentation.
So, take some time this week to ponder what you can do to elevate your visibility through external organizations.
If you’re wondering where to begin, here are three places I’d encourage you to consider:
- Share your expertise (conference presentations, panels, advisory boards).
- Expand your leadership (rotational assignments, enterprise initiatives, cross-company projects).
- Strengthen your professional network (professional associations, mentoring, leadership councils).
You don’t have to do all of these. Just choose one opportunity that stretches you a little beyond your current role.
And most importantly, you don’t have to wait for someone else to create your next opportunity—take the initiative and pursue it yourself.
When you contribute beyond your current role, visibility, credibility, and new leadership opportunities often follow naturally.
You never know where one opportunity might lead. I certainly didn’t.
So are you ready to step outside your comfort zone and experience some more professional growth? You may be surprised where those opportunities lead.
Stay empowered and lead assertively!