- Advocating for yourself is key to your own professional advancement, while also driving better teams within a company.
- That's why it's important to make your accomplishments clear to your manager — and your manager's manager.
- The SVP of business and legal for BET Networks, Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard, explained exactly how to outline achievements in an email to your boss.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Self-advocacy is not only key to getting ahead professionally — it can also uplift your team and generate better collaboration within your company. But, if you don't make your accomplishments crystal clear to management, they won't be aware of them.
Communicating what you and your team have accomplished helps senior management identify the company's most valuable employees. This is important because most senior managers have no idea who the key players are.
As Business Insider's Shana Lebowitz reported, some of the most influential employees are deeply embedded in the company and are not usually the individuals at the top. They're the problem solvers in the everyday grind who people turn to when they have questions or a crisis.
Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard is the SVP of business and legal for BET Networks, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS. At one point in her career, she discovered that sending an email to her boss was the best way to build awareness of her and her team's effectiveness.
"You have to figure out ways that you get your own voice out there so that you can translate for people what you're really doing," she told Business Insider.
She sent an email to her boss' boss outlining what the team was working on — he responded that he didn't know she was handling so many responsibilities.
Sharif-Drinkard realized that even if you communicate to your direct manager what you're working on, that information may not move up to your manager's manager.
"As you communicate one level up, let's say that supervisor, what you do, it doesn't always mean that information is getting taken up to the top. So you have to figure out how things cascade down," she said.
Ultimately, your manager's manager has more influence over whether you get promoted than your direct manager does. Career coach Anna Cosic previously told Business Insider that employees should communicate their accomplishments to their managers at least weekly.
"A lot of people do amazing work every single day, but it goes unrecognized," Cosic said.
Sharif-Drinkard shared her exact outline for writing an email to your boss to highlight your accomplishments.
First, frame the email as a year in review.
Setting a time period for progress toward goals gives your boss a clear point of reference. This can be a year, a quarter, or another timeframe that reflects your goals and responsibilities.
Sharif-Drinkard said this can translate into larger leadership opportunities. "When people get to see the accomplishment over a year or even over six months, let's say, well this person is adding value," she said.
You can introduce your email by saying something like, "I have outlined my accomplishments for the first quarter of the year, during which I was responsible for creating and implementing new procedures in risk management."
Next, give your boss a view of your everyday responsibilities.
Give management a view into the problems you and your team face every day in your area of the organization, and how you're tackling them.
Sharif-Drinkard said we assume management knows what we do, but just because your job is hard, it doesn't mean your boss knows everything you're doing. "You have to take affirmative steps to ensure that people know what you're doing because a lot of times people won't necessarily know," she said.
Then, list your accomplishments from the past year or quarter.
Let your manager's manager know you're contributing great work and adding value to your company. List your accomplishments from the past year or quarter in an organized format. Using a bulleted list is great for this since it makes it easier to read. Be descriptive but concise, using figures to highlight the impact of your accomplishments.
If there are a few major points you believe are especially important to the organization's success, bold a couple of key phrases to highlight that. But use bold and italics sparingly.
List your team's accomplishments
If you're a people manager, you can and should also list the accomplishments of the team you lead. That in turn, recognizes the employees you manage so they have a chance to gain leadership experience and contribute to company decisions.
"We don't do any of this alone. We have people on our teams who don't necessarily get the type of recognition that they deserve or that they need to develop the confidence to move forward,"Sharif-Drinkard said.
However, it's important to strike a balance. Don't let the team's achievements overshadow or take the place of highlighting your own accomplishments.
Self-promotion can be difficult because it's easier to celebrate your team over yourself. Sharif-Drinkard has observed this is especially true for women.
"We're socialized oftentimes to put everyone before us, to not make a big deal about what we're doing," she said. This mindset starts early on when young girls are taught not to be loud or stand up for themselves, which can then translate into a fear of taking credit as adults.
"I know a lot of great women negotiators for the company and when they negotiate for themselves, they do a poor job," she said.
Research shows that the fear of being disliked can deter women from salary negotiations. But a Harvard Business Review article outlined several steps women can take to improve their negotiation skills, such as preparing fully and boosting emotional intelligence.
Prove that you're a problem solver.
To take it one step further, show that you're a problem solver by recognizing areas of the organization that need improvement. Explain how you can apply the accomplishments you've just outlined to make those improvements.
Sharif-Drinkard said the key is not just to recognize issues, but to provide the solutions. Otherwise, it's just complaining. "Can we bring solutions to the issues that we've spotted and how do we solve for the challenges that are before us?" she said.
This is also a good way to quickly get a promotion, James Caan, CEO of private-equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw, wrote in a LinkedIn post.
"Every manager is impressed by self-starters, and somebody who takes the initiative in areas where the business may be weak is putting themselves high up the list for a promotion," Caan wrote.
Ultimately, your boss won't know you want a promotion unless you tell them. Managers aren't mind readers, so it's up to you to communicate what you want and that your accomplishments are worthy of that raise or promotion.
SEE ALSO: Your 30-step plan for getting the promotion you want and deserve
Join the conversation about this story »
Visit dearJulius.com to get free premium content for all of your lifestyle needs.
COMMENTS