Ever feel undervalued at work?  Missed promotions, meager salary increases and scarcity of gratitude are all symptoms that your efforts may be going unnoticed.  Why is it that some people seem to get all of the opportunities, promotions and rewards while others working twice as hard are left treading water? 

You might suspect it’s a popularity contest, luck or even secret leverage, but successful people are generally not manipulating their employer with discoveries of affairs and crimes.   It’s not luck or popularity opening doors either.  These individuals actually take very specific action to ensure they rise to the top and cannot be overlooked.

If it’s not a popularity contest, what is it?

Individuals that demonstrate skill in climbing the ladder of success tend to approach business from more than one perspective.  For example:

• They know how valuable they are -AND- they also know their internal sense of value doesn’t matter unless their employer is of the same opinion.
• They work hard -AND- they also know how to get added value from their work by using it as a massive marketing campaign.
• They know that when leaders choose employees for opportunities, it’s based on how successful they were -AND- how memorable the success was.

It’s not a popularity contest, it’s a who-makes-the-boss-feel-confident-this-isn’t-going-to-blow-up-in-their-face contest.  Skillfully shaping your employer’s opinion of you is the key to opportunity!

Seven reputation shaping habits

If you could be a fly on the wall and watch a successful ladder climber build their career, you would notice several strategies and habits that help them get ahead of their peers:

1) Ladder climbers succeed habitually:  They find opportunities to work in areas where they can demonstrate their talents as they achieve important objectives.  The trick is knowing your strengths and recognizing the right opportunities to demonstrate them.

2) Ladder climbers succeed helpfully:  Solving a problem no one cares about isn’t going to have much impact.  The best way to gauge how your efforts will impact your career is understanding how your results will impact your leadership’s career.  If they equate your success with their own, you have established value.

3) Ladder climbers volunteer strategically:  If no one volunteers when there’s extra work, it gets distributed randomly.  Most employees find reasons to say no (no extra pay=no value in volunteering), but the ladder climber finds value by volunteering for work that is:

1. high value to the boss/company
2. high profile/visibility to decision makers
3. an opportunity to showcase their talents. 

Volunteering builds rapport with your boss, but more importantly it gives you some control over which work you do.  When an opportunity to shine comes along, the ladder climber is first in line.

4) Ladder climbers document their success:  When efforts lead to noteworthy success, printouts of results, KPI (Key Performance Indicators), and other metrics immortalize the proof of your value to your employer.  A personal success log keeps it all organized for future use in meetings, strategy discussions, proposals, reviews, interviews, etc.

5) Ladder climbers talk about their success:  Reviews, self assessments, presentations, executive summaries, etc. are filled with documentation of their successful results.  Some people are uncomfortable talking about themselves professionally or aren’t sure what to say, but ladder climbers focus on their success, especially if they had to overcome an obstacle or prior failure in the process. 

Pro Tip:  Don’t confuse successful outcomes with hard work.  Leadership doesn’t care how hard you’re working.  They care about the results you are generating.

6) Ladder climbers develop a reputation of success:  Success on a top priority project leads to more opportunities for top priority projects.  Bosses are reluctant to trust others with the highest value work… unless they know you’ll make them look good and have a high probability of success.  Once you have that reputation, you are officially a ladder climber!

7) Ladder climbers take their success with them:  How many people do you know that get totally derailed or depressed when they feel they aren’t appreciated? When a ladder climber doesn’t get the opportunities they want (despite demonstrating reliable, consistent high value), they don’t get mad or stop working.  They gracefully shift their efforts to a more receptive audience. 

Their habit of documenting success contributes to a very attractive resume, linked in profile, publications, industry awards, etc. If the boss isn’t paying attention, plenty of other employers/recruiters would jump at the chance to snag a superstar with a documented record of success.

Leveraging your reputation

When leadership needs someone for a high value project, they aren’t spending hours researching historical job performance indicators to methodically identify a candidate.  They go through their mental list of memorable, recent performances and choose someone they trust to do a great job.  Leaders remember how good they felt when they picked a winner for an important project and want to enjoy those good feelings again.  So the question is, “Who have you impressed with your awesomeness lately?” 

Demonstrating value makes leveraging your reputation a nearly automatic process.  Employ the habits above to build your image in the eyes of your employer and reap the rewards.  Ladder climbers make their own opportunities by knowing when to step in and do what they do best for the benefit of others.  Have you been able to leverage your talents into rewards and climb the career ladder?  We’d love to hear what’s worked for you in the comments below.  Happy climbing!