How can I transform the way my role is perceived and even my team’s role, making it clear that we are worth the investment in?
This is a question that was just asked at a keynote I led and I think it resonates with a lot of mid-career managers and senior leaders.
Acknowledge the negative perception
The first thing I want you to do, if you are seeking to change the perception (there could be a variety of reasons why there is a negative perception of the role), is acknowledge it. Call it out and recognize in meetings that there has been perhaps a legacy of poor leadership or poor decision-making from your predecessor perhaps, or maybe the team in general and here you are looking to steer the ship around.
Acknowledge the perception, don’t sweep it under the rug.
Look for opportunities to partner
I also want you to look for opportunities where you can partner with your clients. When I say clients, I mean your manager, your boss, your business partners, your stakeholders, even your team is your client, right?
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Find ways to “go-give”, offer extra support or over-deliver on expected results
Now back to partnering with your clients. So when you’re promising those results, and I don’t say this for every circumstance, but I want you to over-deliver on what it is that you and/or the team are tasked to do and make a commitment to over delivering.
Whatever it is that they want, maybe it’s a little bit of extra resources and the time that you give. Maybe it’s more assets that you bring to the project or more support.
Socialize your Management’s Agenda
Your clients will also always want you to socialize their agenda. I’m just going to use your boss for a second here. So your boss wants you to answer his or her sentences for him or her. They want to know that you have the answers to their questions before they even ask them, as their PR person. That’s a key skill that a lot of professionals don’t think about.
Your manager has his or her own projects and programs that they have to get out. How do you socialize that? It’s a challenge. And so you are right there ready to step into that opportunity. So socializing that agenda, representing what you and the team stand for, what your boss stands for, not sweeping anything under the rug, talking about the challenges and maybe even some of the dysfunction.
As companies get bigger, the more complex these projects are, so really speaking to some of the dysfunction that has happened in the past and focused on the change that you’re working towards today. That impactful change gets baked into the projects that you’re working on.
Choose key opportunities where your team can be more visible
Now as far as your your team goes, if it’s the team’s perception that you want to change, well I highly encourage you to give them opportunities to be more visible, and represent you. By that I mean giving them the face time that they need.
All right, I hope you enjoyed some gutsy guidance I shared here. Thanks so much for stopping by. I’ll talk to you soon.
“Reflecting on the early years of my career, I recognize where I had appeared more she-woman strong because I had a lot more to prove at the time.
This substantiated for me how perception means everything and how cultures naturally develop. Keep in mind that your team and clients will only go as far as you give yourself permission to learn and grow.”- Marisa Santoro
Own Your Authority (McGraw Hill)
👠To your gutsy success,
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