723: Create Visibility for Your Work, with Melody Wilding

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Education, Business, Management, Self-improvement, Careers

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melody Wilding: Managing Up
Melody Wilding is an executive and leadership coach for smart, sensitive high-achievers who are tired of getting in their own way. She teaches human behavior at Hunter College and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider, who named her one the “most innovative coaches.” She is the author of Managing Up: How To Get What You Need from the People in Charge*.

Good work speaks for itself. It’s a lie many of us have wished was true, but found that there’s actually much more work involved. In this conversation, Melody and I discuss what really helps in creating more visibility.
Key Points

Good work does not speak for itself.
Our fear of appearing self-promotional can hinder the visibility conversations that our leaders and team need from us.
A story will be told about your work. By having stories that you are ready to tell, you get to shape the narrative.
Instead of listing what you’ve done, highlight what you want to be known for.
Give visibility to work that is important to your team, puts you in contact with stakeholders, and impacts that bottom line.
Always have a 3-step pocket update at the ready. Share a (1) project, (2) detail, and (3) result.
Capitalize on casual conversation. Say yes to the right invitations and be the person that keeps the relationship going.

Resources Mentioned

Managing Up: How To Get What You Need from the People in Charge* by Melody Wilding

Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes

Get Noticed Without Selling Out, with Laura Huang (episode 480) (Mention the facets analogy.)
How to Start Finding Useful Stories, with David Hutchens (episode 593)
Getting Better at Internal Communication, with Roy Schwartz (episode 687)

Discover More
Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good work speaks for itself. It's a lie many of us have wished was true, but found that there's actually much more work involved. In this episode, what really helps in creating more visibility. This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 723.
0:18.2	Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:26.8	Greetings to you from Orange County, California.
0:30.0	This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahofiak.
0:34.6	Leaders are born, they're made.
0:37.0	And this weekly show helps you discover leadership
0:39.3	wisdom through insightful conversations. A topic that comes up all the time again and again with
0:46.7	our members and listeners is, how do I create more visibility for my work? I have lost count
0:53.7	of how many times I've had that conversation
0:55.5	over the years and helping folks with the tactics and next steps to do that. And that's why today
1:01.1	I'm so glad for us to zero in on this topic to help all of us to do a better job at creating
1:07.3	the visibility for our work in a way that, yes, helps us, also helps the people
1:12.4	around us and supports our organizations too. I'm so pleased to welcome Melody Wilding.
1:17.6	She is an executive and leadership coach for smart, sensitive, high achievers who are tired
1:22.6	of getting in their own way. She teaches human behavior at Hunter College and is a regular
1:27.3	contributor to
1:28.1	Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider, who named her one of the most innovative
1:33.0	coaches. She is the author of Managing Up How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.
1:39.3	Melanie, so glad to have you. I am honored to be here. Thank you. Oh, the pleasure is mine. I, as I mentioned,
1:48.0	this is a topic that comes up so much. And I find that one of the things that is behind this
1:56.5	and the struggle that so many of us have, and certainly I've had over the years too is a belief.
2:01.9	And the belief is that good work should speak for itself. And I find that that's a belief.
	...

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