here are all those powerful girls and women who crushed it throughout their school years?

Compared to succeeding in the work world, it’s often easier for women to excel in school because they cando great work without having to defy feminine norms or navigate the likeability costs that too frequentlycome with being high achievers in the workplace.

Yet, research has found that a higher percentage of women in senior leadership positions have apositive impact on an organization’s bottom line. Credit Suisse’s study, The CS Gender 3000:Women in Senior Management, confirmed that "where there is at least one female in theboardroom, companies have seen an average Return On Equity of 14.1 percent since 2005compared to 11.2 percent for all male boards."

Women have to realize that their presence in leadership is essential, but if their good work isn’t leading toraises or promotions it’s likely because it isn’t sufficiently visible – on an ongoing basis – to those scoutingtalent within their organizations.

How to Make Your Successes Visible

More often than not, female employees are totally unpracticed in the art of making their accomplishmentsvisible when they land in the workplace, and self-promotion can feel forced or awkward.

Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create,and Lead, offers these three ways for women to become more comfortable with promoting theirachievements, while keeping those efforts aligned to their values.

1. Embrace visibilityHow can your talents, ideas and accomplishments become more visible to audiences, influencersand decision makers within your organization or field? When you shift the frame to visibility,you’ll notice it’s not all about you. Instead, it becomes about making your work and ideasavailable to those who can utilize them.

Michelle M. Smith, CPIM, CRPVice President, Marketing – O. C. Tanner

2. Focus on serviceMake your work more visible so you can reach those you want to serve. Posting an article on yourcompany’s intranet or hosting a discussion at your office about the innovative process your teamhas been using makes your achievements more visible and allows other teams to benefit. Sharingyour ideas about potential operational improvements showcases your good thinking and can makea positive impact for the customers you serve.

3. Tell the whole truthFor many women, it’s helpful to think about ‘telling the whole truth’ rather than self-promotion,especially because so many of us tell little lies of omission about our own roles in successfulendeavors.

Are you guilty of any of these omissions?

• Always giving credit to others on the team while not acknowledging your own role• Communicating about areas of a project where you fell short, but not communicating equally

about your areas of success• Never mentioning your extra work or off hours spent on a project• Not highlighting your past accomplishments, education, awards etc. – even when they’re highly

relevant• Rationalizing away your past achievements, training, education or awards• Confusing the personal path of turning away from external status markers with the devaluing of

what you’ve achieved in the past

What we are and aren’t willing to say about ourselves affects our sense of self.

Learning to become comfortable with self-promotion is important for professional success, butspeaking forthrightly about our accomplishments allows women to integrate those qualities intoour sense of self. If we never hear ourselves owning – or even hinting at – what we’ve overcome,created, nurtured, or completed in our lives, how can we embrace competence, strength andresilience into who we are?

4 Tips to Help You Become More Visible

Turn these concepts into reality by following this additional advice from Tara Mohr, which appliesequally well for men in the workplace.

1. Relating to authorityGet really good at understanding what each of your leaders want/expect of you and provide it tothem. But don’t stop there – challenge and influence those authority figures where appropriate, andalso find other leaders in the company who may be closely aligned with your point of view. Thisexpands your sphere of influence and opens up opportunities for greater/wider responsibility,which may lead to a leadership role of your own.

2. Preparation vs. improvisationYour schooling taught you to be ready with an answer for anything you might be asked, and that’sstill wise advice. But brilliant careers require that we think well on our feet too. Continue to beprepared, but understand that being able to successfully improvise on-the-spot is essential and avaluable skill in a fast-evolving workplace.

3. Inside out vs. outside inSeeking information and insights from external sources is a powerful method for ensuring you obtaina well-balanced, comprehensive view of a situation. As you advance in your career and into moresenior roles, you’ll also need to turn your focus inward for guidance. As a leader, it’s essential youhave a strong and trusted internal compass to guide you as you pursue additional viewpoints toprovide checks and balances.

4. Do good work vs. do good work and make it visibleIn academia, working hard and performing well was enough to put you at the top of the class. Inbusiness, continue to work hard, but make certain colleagues know about your excellentperformance. Find your way to own your accomplishments and talk about them gracefully.

Continue to use your good-student skill set as a foundation for creating and doing quality work, butalso embrace these new visibility skills that will allow you to continue to crush it throughout yourlife and career!

Named one of the most influential women in the incentive industry, Michelle M. Smith, CPIM, CRP, is anaccomplished international author, speaker and strategist. She’s past-president of the FORUM at NorthwesternUniversity, president emeritus of the Incentive Marketing Association, vice-president of research for the BusinessMarketing Association, and vice-president of marketing for O.C. Tanner.

amed as one of the Ten Best and Brightest Women in the incentive industry, a Change Maker, Top Idea Maven, and President’s Award winner, Michelle has worked in every facet of recognition and incentives, both domestically and internationally.

A highly accomplished international speaker, strategist, and author on performance improvement; Michelle is a respected authority on leadership, workplace culture, employee engagement and talent. She’s published and presented more than 1,000 articles and speeches and is a trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful organizations and the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. Michelle is President Emeritus of the Incentive Marketing Association and Past President of the FORUM for People Performance at Northwestern University. She’s Vice President, Research for the Business Marketing Association and serves on the Boards of the Incentive Federation and the Incentive & Engagement Solution Providers Council. She was the Founder and Chair of the Editorial Board of Return on Performance Magazine and is on the Executive Panel of McKinsey Quarterly. Michelle is also active in the C-Suite Network, the National Speakers Association, WorldAtWork, the CMO Council, the Marketing Leadership Roundtable, the HR Leadership Council, Recognition Professionals International, and the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence. For more information visit Michelle’s: Profile on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michelle-m-smith-cpim-crp/5/b00/368 or her three Blogs: http://www.octanner.com/blog/author/michelle-smith/ and http://www.eremedia.com/author/michelle-m-smith/ and https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/17667584?trk=pulse-det-athr_posts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/michelleMsmith9 or her YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/theMichelleMSmith

N Michelle M. Smith, CPIM, CRP Vice President, Marketing – O.C. Tanner