If you’re a leader in the tech sphere and have defied boundaries, challenged the status quo, or made a meaningful impact within your industry, it’s worth nominating yourself for an Obsidi® Award. 

Formal recognition from a source outside of your own company is an excellent way to get the execs within your organization to take notice, even if you don’t end up winning.

The cutoff date for the 2025 awards is June 3, 2025, so be sure to get your submission in ASAP.

Connect with Senior Leadership 

Another proactive tactic is to connect with the senior leadership members of your organization.

Often, people only meet with senior team leaders if there’s an issue or problem that needs addressing. When things are going well, most people just keep plugging along. 

This is a mistake, a missed opportunity.

Here’s why you should cultivate a mentorship-like relationship with the senior leaders in your organization: Perhaps you’re hitting your financial goals, but the team seems misaligned, and you’re hoping for some insight on how to address the problem.

Senior leaders will notice your proactive approach to team management and increasing employee engagement. They’ll be impressed by your desire to continuously learn effective leadership styles and ways to improve.

This is an excellent leadership development strategy that will get you noticed and will help with your professional development in the long term.  

Foster a Positive Work Environment

Creating a positive employee experience is a big part of effective leadership. It improves employee retention rates and increases job satisfaction.

There are plenty of ways to demonstrate your leadership skills. Calling attention to your employees for a job well done not only highlights their achievements but can also reflect on you as a testament to your excellent leadership.

Think about ways to add employee recognition programs into your practices, perhaps by making them a regular part of your team meetings. 

When recognizing employees for a job well done – perhaps the people you manage worked exceptionally well together and demonstrated exemplary teamwork – it’s okay to make a big deal about it. Commend others and don’t be afraid to share how proud you are of your team.

Recognition examples can be based on employee performance or contributions that resulted in organizational success. 

If it’s in the budget, use gift cards or some other worthy form of effective recognition.

It’s obvious: Leaders who inspire and encourage their team are almost always inspiring and encouraging leaders.

If you strive to be the person who shows up and inspires a positive workplace culture by bringing energy, enthusiasm, and care to everything you do, your team will notice. Their performance and engagement will improve, and they may attribute some of their success to your skills as a leader.

Self-Promote (Without Bragging!) 

If you’re not careful, self-promotion can come across as hubris, which is definitely something you want to avoid.

The best self-promotion has evidence to back it up. Perhaps your team accomplished something major. Or you transformed the people you supervise from a disorganized group of coworkers into a team that embodies company values through collaboration and innovation. 

Often, just sharing the accomplishments that have happened since you assumed the position is enough for people to recognize the part you played in contributing to the overall success.

Keep track of positive feedback you’ve received through public recognition or from other employees. This can be anything: handwritten notes or cards, emails, and any other shout-outs you receive.

When giving a presentation or meeting with your superiors, be prepared to share your efforts and accomplishments as a leader. Showcase how your influence has had a significant impact.

Incorporate data by establishing metrics to document the growth and wins your team has celebrated since you assumed your leadership role.

Be detailed when highlighting how the strategies you implemented led to success — aligning team efforts to company goals — and share examples of how you were tested and the obstacles you overcame that helped shed light on development opportunities. People love hearing stories surrounding challenges that spur growth. The images and messaging used when you share experiences in story form is a powerful way for people to actually see you as an influential and effective leader since you painted that picture in their mind’s eye.

The images and messaging used when you share experiences in story form is a powerful way for people to actually see you as an influential and effective leader since you painted that picture in their mind’s eye.

Finally, don’t forget to use the word “we” when discussing team efforts and “I” when talking about leadership.

Learn how Obsidi® can help you take your career to the next level

2. Make Your Value Visible

In order to be recognized for your hard work as a leader, it’s important to demonstrate your overall value. 

Here are some ideas on how you can achieve that.

Create Cross-Functional Initiatives

Creating cross-functional initiatives is an excellent way to demonstrate your value beyond your own department. 

An example of this is the collaboration between the sales and marketing departments or manufacturing and procurement working together to find an ethical, sustainable production approach.

The more visible your efforts are, the more people will begin to take notice.

Be Deliberate with Your Presentations 

When giving presentations, don’t forget the power of data. Data is an incredibly powerful tool for showing your impact, so use positive data to highlight your point whenever possible.

There’s a popular saying among writers that goes, “Show, don’t tell.” If you apply this to your presentations, you’re way more likely to captivate your audience and make an impression.

Share a story that demonstrates how you discovered which areas needed improvement. What did you do about it, and how did that positively impact the bottom line? 

Ask Questions that Demonstrate Your Aptitude

Another crucial way to make your value visible is by being thoughtful. Ask questions to show that you’re engaged and interested. Your questions should highlight your desire to deepen your knowledge of the topic or process, or they should demonstrate the current depth of your understanding. 

Show Interest and Impact 

Showing genuine interest in the big picture. Generate team initiatives that revolve around overall company goals. This is an excellent way to get the senior members of the organization to notice you. 

Volunteer for Projects Senior Leadership Care About

By getting involved with projects that seek to affect change within the company, you’re demonstrating your investment in the bigger picture, 

What do the senior members of your organization care about? How are they looking to pioneer growth and change, and what can you and your team do to help realize these goals?

If you’re unsure, ask! 

It never hurts to just meet with your leadership and chat, perhaps to brainstorm ideas or just talk things through.

Create Quarterly Summaries Outlining Your Influence

This is an excellent practice because it gives insight into what is and isn’t working. If you’re deploying a new strategy, one of the best ways to gauge if it was successful or not is through data.

The more you pay attention, the quicker and easier it is to correct the proverbial ship if you accidentally veer off course. If you’re not paying attention, issues could take a while to spot (and, meanwhile, you’ve wasted valuable time and money).

Create summaries that track performance, and highlight the ones that demonstrate your value as a leader.

When showcasing your positive contributions, do so by framing them within the context of company goals. First, this demonstrates that you’re paying attention, and second, it shows that you care.

Do anything you can to show you’re a team player and fully capable of leading your people to support the company’s overall goals..

3. Work to Create a Culture of Recognition Within Your Organization

Celebrating wins is an excellent way to boost morale and recognize those who go above and beyond. Just because your organization doesn’t currently have a formal means of employee appreciation doesn’t mean there will never be one.

If there are no current means of recognizing employees for outstanding achievements, check to see if the company would be willing to host one.

This may require a little bit of extra work — since it’s your idea, you may be in charge of putting it together — but go with it.

Create different categories, and let employees participate through peer recognition. Make it fun! It doesn’t have to be anything outlandish or fancy. Seek inspiration from company culture and make it your own. 

4. Remain Engaged

By staying active and engaged, both within your organization and the industry at large, you’ll develop a second nature for demonstrating exemplary leadership. It’s much easier to lead people when you know how the industry is changing. Staying involved in ongoing company discussions is the best way to be a part of the change instead of having to adjust or react because you weren’t paying attention.

Create an open-door policy with the team members you supervise, and encourage them to come to you with any challenges or concerns. 

If your employees trust you and see you as a source of support, it’s far easier to get recognized as a leader.

5. Mentor and Inspire

Becoming a mentor to someone else is an incredible way to really make an impact. You can start by initiating an active presence within the community, or you can let employees know you’re always there to help them learn and grow.

By positioning yourself as someone others can come to and learn from, you’ll solidify yourself as a leader. Over time, people will think of you when they think of people who make a difference to the team.

You can always seek out your own mentor, as well. If there’s someone in an executive position that you admire, they’ll likely be flattered to know that you look up to them, and they will probably love to share their knowledge and ideas with you.

If you haven’t already picked up on it, there’s an underlying theme here. The more active, present, and engaged you are, the more visible you become through the positive impact you have.

Conclusion

No matter which position you hold within an organization, it’s always nice to be recognized. 

By demonstrating your value across the entire organization and working to create a culture of appreciation, you’ll gain the advantage of having employees who know that they’re valued, and as a result, they’ll be much more likely to stick around and try to make you proud.