Position Yourself for the Career You Want
Natasha Williams 
Learn how Black professionals can build visibility, sponsorship and career capital without relying on performance alone.
Recognising workplace patterns gives you information, while protecting your health and resources gives you greater capacity to act on what you learn.
The third responsibility of becoming the CEO of your career involves positioning.
Many Black professionals have built careers around the belief that strong performance will eventually receive the recognition it deserves.
Performance matters, but organisations do not distribute opportunities based on performance alone.
People also progress through relationships, visibility, sponsorship, organisational influence, access to high-value assignments and the way decision-makers understand their contribution.
Competence and positioning perform different functions
Competence answers whether you are capable of doing the work.
Positioning affects whether influential people associate you with work at the next level.
The distinction becomes important when Black professionals are already investing significant effort in proving basic competence.
The Cost of Black Excellence research found that 86.4% of Black-heritage respondents always or often felt they needed to work harder than others to be seen as competent.
If most of your career energy goes into proving that you deserve your current position, there is less capacity available for building the relationships and visibility required for the next one.
Several respondents described this tension directly.
One professional said that progression appeared to require additional support, qualifications and shadowing for Black colleagues. Another described large contributions receiving little recognition or reward until she eventually felt she had nothing left to give.
A senior respondent described working longer hours, solving some of the organisation's most complex problems and still experiencing a longer route to progression than colleagues.
These experiences show why more effort does not automatically produce more career movement.
Stop assuming your work has explained your value
Your work does not provide its own interpretation.
Senior leaders might know that a project succeeded without understanding your role in making the success possible.
They might know that a difficult client relationship improved without knowing who repaired it. They might know that a team consistently delivers without understanding the invisible leadership required to maintain that performance.
You therefore need a disciplined way of recording and communicating your contribution.
Instead of describing yourself as someone who “supported” a project, explain what you were responsible for, what problem existed, what action you took and what changed as a result.
Instead of saying that you work well under pressure, collect evidence showing the complexity, scale and outcome of work you have led.
This approach is not self-promotion for its own sake. It gives other people accurate information about the value you bring.
Learn the difference between mentoring and sponsorship
Mentoring remains useful because good mentors provide perspective, advice and knowledge.
Sponsorship performs a different function because sponsors use their organisational credibility and relationships to create access.
A mentor might tell you what senior leadership requires, while a sponsor raises your name when a senior opportunity becomes available.
A mentor helps you prepare for an important meeting, while a sponsor makes sure you are invited into rooms where important work gets discussed.
Black professionals who are repeatedly offered development without increased access should pay attention to this distinction.
Another course is not always the missing intervention, particularly when your qualifications and performance already demonstrate readiness.
Sometimes the missing asset is someone with influence who understands your value and is prepared to advocate for you.
Build relationships before you need them
A strong professional network should exist before you start job hunting.
You should know people across your organisation, profession and sector whose perspectives differ from your own and whose work connects with your future interests.
This includes peers because today's peers become tomorrow's directors, clients, commissioners, founders and board members.
It also includes relationships outside your employer.
Your organisation should never become the sole source of information about your professional worth.
Regular conversations with people across your industry help you understand salary levels, emerging opportunities, changing skill requirements and the reputation of different employers.
This external knowledge becomes particularly useful when your internal progression has slowed.
Decide what you want your professional name to represent
Positioning becomes easier when you know what you want to be known for.
Your answer should go beyond your job title.
You might want to become known for transforming underperforming services, managing complex change, building psychologically safer teams, using data to improve workforce decisions or solving difficult commercial problems.
Once you identify the professional problem you want associated with your name, your choices become easier to assess.
You begin looking for projects that strengthen that reputation, relationships that expand your understanding and learning that increases your authority in that area.
This is where career strategy starts moving away from waiting for an employer to decide what happens next.
The next article takes this further because positioning creates options, and options matter most when you face a difficult career decision.
Continue with Part Four: Think Like the CEO of Your Career — Make Career Decisions Before Exhaustion Makes Them for You.
Categories: : Career & Work