The easiest way to get a promotion into a leadership position is to put your head down, work hard, and wait—right? Wrong.
One of the biggest takeaways from my recent case study project with over 100 leaders in STEM is that self-advocacy is a key component to reaching leadership positions.
I’ll share 3 easy ways to self-advocate in this blog. However, first we need to define the term. This is important, because when I first started as an engineer, I only associated self-advocacy with the hard-sales approach of a used-car salesperson.
You know the type - you’re browsing for a car, you are approached by a salesperson, and pretty soon you’re learning that this person is the top salesperson in this organization for 5 years running, they offer the best deals in town (according to the person trying to sell you the car) and they are trying to sell you on all the features of a vehicle you’re not even sure you want.
I have witnessed this type of behavior at work, where one day I overheard one (male) coworker bragging to another (male) coworker about a project he had just landed. I thought to myself: “If that’s what it takes to get ahead, count me out.”
Self-advocacy is not “tooting your own horn” and bragging about your accomplishments. It’s about showing the value of your work to the people who need to know about it so that you can do work you enjoy, be well-compensated for that work, and rise to the level of responsibility you desire.
Three effective self-advocacy techniques you can start using today:
Celebrate success through gratitude
Speak up in meetings
Have breakthrough conversations
Let’s look at each of these further in-depth to see why they’re so important and how you can start advocating for yourself today.
Celebrate Success Through Gratitude
You’ve probably heard Maya Angelou’s famous quote:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
This relates to self-advocacy because people won’t really care about what you want to accomplish until they feel like you care for them. One of the best ways to do this is to channel the power of gratitude.
Gratitude is a way to celebrate your successes and other people’s successes. And it’s a powerful force, backed by neuroscience; gratitude activates your prefrontal cortex which is responsible for problem-solving, emotional intelligence, creativity, and intuition. Or, in other words, leadership skills. Gratitude will help you show up as your best at work.
There are a few ways you can express gratitude to your colleagues, team, or network (check out the examples below):
Send a thank you email to someone who helped you out.
Post on social media (e.g., LinkedIn) and publicly shout out or thank people who gave you an opportunity to collaborate or present.
Recognize people celebrating a special occasion like a birthday or promotion.
Gratitude and celebrating successes help with self-advocacy by positively re-wiring your brain for leadership.
It also makes other people have a positive association with you and your work. So, instead of “tooting your own horn,” you’re top-of-mind as someone who does excellent work and makes them feel good working with you.
Speak Up in Meetings
This second self-advocacy strategy is essential in a virtual work environment, where it is harder for your work to be visible to others. And it’s also particularly important for anyone who identifies as a woman, as studies show they are interrupted more often than those who identify as men.
In fact, men are almost three times more likely to interrupt women than other men in meetings! Check out this data from Leanin.org and McKinsey & Company about who is interrupted during meetings:
There was an exception in this study, though—women who were leaders were not as likely to be interrupted because they had learned how to interrupt people back and make sure their ideas were heard and recognized.
At this point, you might be thinking: “I don’t want to be an interrupter!” And I agree—we all need to stop interrupting each other. But there are some effective things you can say when you’re in a meeting to hold space for yourself and your ideas. I wrote an entire blog about how to stop getting interrupted in virtual meetings with some real-life scripts and phrases you can say.
Speaking up in meetings will set you on a path to leadership. I’ve seen it with so many people I mentor and work with—self-advocacy through speaking up, sharing your ideas, and making your voice heard is a fast-track to leadership roles.
Have Breakthrough Conversations
My final method of self-advocacy is to have breakthrough conversations. These conversations position you as an emerging leader by using strategic, big-picture questions to build connections between yourself and the person you’re speaking with. Here are six questions that will help you get there:
How do our team and my role specifically align with core business priorities?
How do we measure success? What are the metrics?
What are the most important things I do in my role that contribute to the team's success? And how do we measure those?
What can do in my role to better support you?
Where is the firm going? What opportunities are you most excited about?
Where is the industry going? Where are the challenges and opportunities?
These questions show that you’re looking for more than just a quick-fix answer to a problem. You’re thinking about the big picture and showing management that you are ready to take on more leadership responsibilities. They can help you move from frustration in your role, where your skillsets are underutilized, to getting on a leadership or management track.
These three self-advocacy techniques are designed to help demonstrate your skills and abilities without feeling like a car salesperson. They’re about being authentically you while speaking up and advocating for yourself. It’s time to be your own biggest cheerleader and go after that leadership position you deserve.
