Is Visibility more Important than Skills?

Would you agree that to become a leader, visibility in an organization is more important than skills? I hate to admit this premise as I am hard on competition with technical skills supplemented by soft skills such as communication, being sociable and a fair public image but being reminded and coached by a lot of my senior managers and having seen the progression of a number of people in various organizations on visibility as a major factor is compelling enough to believe the importance of this in progressing your career.

In a lot of occasions, senior managers have stressed the importance of being visible to your team, group, and division of even the entire organization but do it in such way that you won’t look like a kick ass politician spattering your face and name all over the place. It’s hard to accept this fact, but anywhere and everywhere you go, a sense of politics exist and the one who can put his foot out the door more, is the one most likely to succeed.

How do you do it?

1. E-Mail Regularly – Almost always send emails for updates on your current task progress or even lack of progress since this will show that you are always on top of things. Long time ago, I heard a manager’s philosophy on this: Email your client even to say nothing. — Enough said.

2. Availability – Be available all the time by making sure your manager or team can reach you any time of the day and everyday. I agree that outside the working hours is personal time and I display being reachable during personal time, but on so many instances when something unexpected screws up or senior management needs to bank on someone, the person who is always easy to contact becomes the go-to-guy and in the long run, he builds an image of dependability.

What are some of the excuses for not being available?

1. Ensure that you don’t have any “celfone low-battery” excuses as this lame and overused excuse just shows how minimal you can manage yourself. If you cannot work on a simple task of keeping your celfone’s battery life always dependable, then you cannot manage bigger things and there goes your future leadership aspiration.

2. Don’t ever tell your boss you were not able to receive their mail because your inbox was full. I heard that lame excuse from a team lead during a meeting and the manager simply answered back — “Keep giving us your “inbox is full” crap, then your promotion will stay in the recycle bin forever”. If you receive the message of the senior people, then how could you read the message from your people who need your leadership the most?

3. Speak-up – Whenever there are general assemblies and meetings, always make it a point to ask a question if time is allotted for it, but make sure to ask intelligent questions. This helps you build your image of smartness and confidence. This is really effective, and I personally have had so much success on this as managers would always like to send you in trainings or conferences (international) since managers are confident you are curious enough to learn and acquire more stuff than the average Joe, making their investment worth while.

4. Volunteer – If there are team buildings or social activities, make it a point to volunteer to be the coordinator once in a while as this will give you the opportunity and chance to network with people outside your group and shows people that you have what it takes to add more work and have the flexibility to work on other things. Plus, it gives you the chance to build on your leadership qualities even if it’s as small as being the head of the food committee.

I have seen a colleague who always volunteered to arrange and beautify the bulletin board of our division, and after a few months of doing this stuff, people recognized him more and were given more bulletin boards and layouts to work on and were even in charged on PowerPoint and flash presentations during parties or celebrations. Because of this he was given a team to work with and later was seen as a layout and presentation expert.

Last week, around ten months after he began doing this bulletin board stuff, the lead for User Interface team resigned and he was immediately given the lead role for this team. Strange as most of us laughed at his dedication to voluntarily work long after hours to do bulletin board stuff, then he became the lead for the UI just because of that. We were surprised as there are a number of highly technical kick ass UI guys in the division, but we could not argue with this decision, as everyone knows him, everyone recognizes his work, dedication and his commitment was unparalleled.

What keeps us from being visible?

1. Too shy – I have seen so many people who are willing to be visible but are just too shy to do it because they feel they will be branded as politicking. This is crap and childish, people who think like this are immature enough to be thrown back to school. There’s always a natural way to do it, but still, people would always think negative about you. Don’t mind them, sooner they will be under your command.

2. Minimal amount of work – A lot people refrain from getting additional tasks which is understandable especially if they are not paid more for it. But as a leader, you will need to sacrifice and a lot of times, you will have to take one for the team. Get my point? No one will know how ready you are unless you actually get more work and perform.

Would you agree that Visibility is more Important than Skills? Let’s just straigthen it up a bit and say that visibility is as important as skills. Would you agree?

As much as I believe in silent leaders who lead by example, majority of people don’t and would prefer celebrity like people (The world love celebrities). Make sure if you go the path of the talkative leader you have the skills to walk the talk and just don’t babble around and end up like a comedy flick show.

If you want the advantage in your organization and the position to begin with, get out there and announce your presence. Just remember the tips above.