Use this when “be consistent” sounds nice, but your career still feels quiet. You don’t need louder self-promo—you need clearer signals. Stop hiding the work. Show the change. Turn one week of work into a simple visibility trail: what you tackled, what improved, and what you recommend next.
Mara had been working for fifteen years.
Ten years ago, she got promoted—her first big jump. It felt earned. She had stayed late, learned the ropes, carried the messy projects, and made herself dependable. People started coming to her when things got confusing, and she was proud of that.
After that promotion, she told herself, “Okay. This is it. I’ll just keep doing great work. The next one will come.”
It didn’t.
Years passed. New hires arrived. Some left. Some got promoted. Mara stayed.
Not stuck, exactly. More like… parked.
She didn’t say it out loud, but she felt it every time another org announcement came in: “So this is my ceiling?”
The kind of worker bosses love… until they don’t notice anymore
Mara wasn’t lazy. She wasn’t clueless. She wasn’t toxic.
She was a veteran.
She knew how things worked. She knew where the landmines were. She knew which people to avoid when you needed something done quickly.
She also had a habit: she said yes too fast.
When a teammate panicked, she rescued. When someone missed a detail, she fixed it. When a deadline was at risk, she stayed late.
Her boss, Carlo, depended on her. And because he depended on her, he rarely asked what she was working on.
He assumed she had it covered.
That’s the strange reward of being reliable: people stop checking. They stop asking. They stop seeing.
The meeting that finally broke something
One Monday, Carlo called Mara into a quick meeting.
Carlo looked tired. Not the “lack of sleep” tired. The “too many expectations” tired.
He opened his laptop and started listing problems. A client escalation. A missed internal deadline. A new directive from the VP. A budget conversation he wasn’t ready for. A report he needed by Friday.
Then he paused and said, “Mara, I need you to step up more.”
Mara blinked. Her throat tightened.
She didn’t explode. She didn’t argue. But inside, she was thinking: Step up? I’ve been stepping up for years.
So she asked, carefully, “What do you mean?”
Carlo leaned back. “I can’t see your impact anymore. I know you’re busy, but I don’t know if you’re busy on the right things. And when my boss asks me who’s moving our priorities… I don’t have a clean answer.”
That hurt.
Not because Carlo was insulting her.
But because he was revealing something she hadn’t considered.
The boss’s frustration wasn’t about her effort
Carlo wasn’t frustrated that Mara wasn’t working.
He was frustrated because he was carrying pressure from above, and he couldn’t translate Mara’s work into that pressure.
His week had a scoreboard.
He had three things he was being measured on, whether he liked it or not. If those three things didn’t move, he was the one who looked weak. He was the one who got questioned. He was the one who lost trust.
And Mara—without realizing it—had been doing a lot of work that helped the team survive, but didn’t clearly move the scoreboard.
That’s why Carlo couldn’t advocate for her.
Not because she lacked value.
Because her value wasn’t pointed at the right target.
What changed when she asked one question
Later that week, Mara tried something simple. Not a big strategy. Not a new productivity system.
She walked into Carlo’s office and said, “Before I lock my week, can I ask something? What are your top three priorities this week?”
Carlo didn’t hesitate.
He named them quickly. Like he had been carrying them in his chest all day.
Mara listened and realized something uncomfortable: two of the big tasks she planned to spend time on weren’t connected to any of those priorities. They were important, yes—but not priority important.
So she said, “Got it. If those are the top three, here’s what I’ll focus on to move them: one, two, three. I’ll give you a quick update midweek.”
Carlo’s shoulders dropped a little.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s what I need.”
That moment didn’t magically promote her.
But it did something more important first: it made her visible again—because she was finally working in the same direction as her boss’s pressure.
You might not have Mara’s problem… but you might have her pattern
Maybe you’re not stuck. Maybe you’re doing fine.
But if you’ve ever felt like you’re working hard and still not getting pulled into bigger opportunities, it’s worth considering a quiet possibility.
You might be doing valuable work that isn’t clearly tied to what your boss is trying to win.
And if your boss can’t see that connection, they can’t fight for you.
This is why this belongs in the Visible Impact circle. Visibility is not about being loud. It’s about being aligned and findable in the places that matter.
Make your boss’s priorities your priorities
You don’t need to guess what matters.
Ask for it.
Once a week, ask your boss: “What are your top three priorities this week?”
Then reflect it back: “Okay. Here are my top three actions to move those. I’ll update you on Wednesday and Friday.”
That’s the shift.
You’re not trying to impress your boss.
You’re making it easy for your boss to trust you, represent you, and invest in you—because you’re playing on the same scoreboard.
And when that happens, visibility stops being awkward.
It becomes leverage.
If your team is stuck in meetings, misalignment, or slow decisions…
Let’s design one shift they can use immediately.
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