Coaching Real Leaders – Episode Summary

Podcast: Coaching Real Leaders
Host: Muriel Wilkins (Harvard Business Review)
Episode: How Do I Address Feedback on Increasing My Visibility?
Date: September 22, 2025
Guest: “Jada” (pseudonym for confidentiality)

Overview

This episode centers on a live coaching session between leadership coach Muriel Wilkins and “Jada,” an experienced professional facing slower-than-expected career growth in the tech sector. Despite strong skills and previous fast-track promotions in another industry, Jada repeatedly receives feedback that she needs to increase her "visibility"—a concept she finds ambiguous and possibly at odds with her actual contributions. Together, Muriel and Jada deconstruct what “visibility” means in her organizational context, how to align it with promotion pathways, and create an actionable plan to enhance her perceived value to leadership.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jada’s Career Backstory and Challenge

• Early Career Success & Shift to Tech

  • Jada thrived in her first industry, quickly climbing the ranks (“I was promoted pretty often and quickly in the beginning of those stages…” [01:42]), leveraging her people skills.
  • She shifted to tech seeking better alignment with her values and more strategic work. The move was fulfilling but came with slower career progression and challenges in regaining previous promotion momentum.

• Feedback on Visibility

  • Jada has repeatedly sought and received feedback from multiple managers, all highlighting “visibility” as her growth area.
  • This feedback perplexes her, as she perceives herself as highly engaged (“People see me, I’m very engaged. I’m in lots of different groups…” [03:23]).
  • Jada wonders if “visibility” is misunderstood or is code for something else, prompting her to question the real barriers to her advancement.

Deconstructing Visibility

• Defining Visibility

  • For Jada: "Visibility was ensuring that when we have company-wide events that I get an opportunity to present... In virtual sessions, I am contributing..." ([07:58])
  • For Management: Possibly conflated with impact and relevance to business goals. Muriel notes that visibility isn’t just showing up, but about being “relevant to those who ultimately need to be impacted by that visibility…” ([09:50])

• Visibility vs. Relevance

  • Muriel uses a social media analogy: Something can be highly visible, but unless it’s relevant to its intended audience, it doesn’t have impact ([09:50]).
  • “You're visible on a particular path, but is that the critical path?” ([13:02])—clarifying that being known isn’t enough; one must be known for the right things in the right circles.

Strategies for Relevant Visibility

• Targeting Stakeholders and Priorities

  • Jada is encouraged to focus on understanding what keeps decision-makers “up at night” ([12:21]), and pursue visibility around projects and contributions that are directly relevant to their priorities.
  • She acknowledges that becoming known for culture-building hasn’t translated to promotion currency.

• Depth vs. Breadth

  • Jada realizes her strategy has been “a mile wide” (across departments) rather than “an inch deep” (inside her division) with key stakeholders ([18:05]).
  • Muriel recommends a T-shaped approach: combine depth inside her own team/division (vertical bar) with selective broad relationships (horizontal bar), but not at the expense of showing strategic and operational impact where it matters.

What Should Jada Be Known For?

• Jada distinguishes between what she wants to be known for (collaboration, team play) vs. what earns advancement (strategic impact, value creation).
• Muriel: “What do you want to be known for? And then what do you think you need to be known for to be advanced? Which are two different questions.” ([22:21])
• The consensus: Both are valuable, but in her current context, strategic contributions and reliability are the “ticket to entry” for high-visibility, promotable assignments.

Shifting the Visibility Narrative

• Move from “Culture Carrier” to “Task Finisher”

  • Jada recognizes that while being a “culture person” is appreciated, it isn’t the “currency that gets [her] advanced” ([22:01]).
  • She identifies that those advancing are detail-oriented, reliable, and demonstrate strong product knowledge—traits she must more actively communicate and exhibit.

• Self-Advocacy and Articulation

  • Jada needs to clearly state her interest in strategic projects to the right leaders and articulate the value she brings.
  • Muriel explains, “When we don’t know the value that we’re bringing and we’re not articulating it, what it feels like in those conversations…is, ‘Oh, here’s what you, manager, can offer me,’ but we’re not really responding to what do I have to offer.” ([27:34])

Learning Organizational “Currency”

• Observation & Hypothesis

  • Jada is coached to observe colleagues who are advancing and hypothesize what “currency” they offer (e.g., detail orientation, independence, reliability) ([33:13–34:53]).
  • Muriel’s analogy: Instead of assuming, ask what “ticket of entry” is actually required for the work or promotions context ([29:08–30:41]).

• Balancing Strengths & Organizational Needs

  • Muriel encourages leveraging both relational and task-oriented strengths—“The sweet spot is being able to do both” ([39:08])—but leading with the strengths that align to the organization’s immediate needs: “You can’t just be icing.” ([40:12])
  • Jada accepts that she doesn’t need to use her strengths 100% of the time but must ensure visibility reflects her multi-faceted contributions ([41:47]).

Building Sponsorship and Advocacy

• Leveraging Advocates
  • Jada identifies existing sponsors but notes they’re not always in her division, reducing their relevance.
  • Muriel distinguishes true sponsorship: it’s active advocacy in relevant forums, not just praise ([47:04–48:28]).
  • Jada is encouraged to intentionally seek and brief sponsors within her division to help promote her for key projects ([48:28]).

Action Plan & Reflections

Jada’s Assignment (43:37)

• Focus meetings with senior colleagues inside her division.
• Ask better, priority-revealing questions (“What keeps you up at night?” “If you had more resources, what would you focus on?”).
• Clearly express her desire to join strategic projects and communicate the unique value she adds.
• Shift her visibility from “culture” wins to reliability, consistency, and execution.
• Integrate her relational strengths into strategic work, rather than abandoning them.

Barriers & Next Steps

• Jada identifies fear/discomfort and the need to banish assumptions as personal barriers ([43:56]).
• Muriel instructs her to test assumptions in conversations, and clarify directly with managers what is meant by “visibility” and where she should focus ([50:03–51:08]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Visibility:
  • “Visibility, for the sake of visibility, is just showing up… But being out there for what?” – Muriel ([09:50])
• Social Media Analogy:
  • “It’s like when you scroll through social media and you get ads and you’re like, why is this in my feed? Like, it’s visible, but it’s not relevant.” – Muriel ([09:50])
• Defining the “Ticket”:
  • “What is the ticket of entry? …The price of admission is giving the sense for getting on these projects and these assignments that they have full confidence that you’re going to get the job done.” – Muriel ([30:41–35:00])
• On Organizational Currency:
  • “You got to be able to get past the initial entry points.” – Muriel ([36:47])
• Cake & Icing Metaphor:
  • “You can't just be icing.” – Muriel ([40:11])
• Challenge as Opportunity:
  • “At the beginning of this conversation, I thought we were really going to go into a place where visibility was inaccurate feedback... But I am happy to hear that there's some value that I can take from that when I didn't really believe it in the beginning.” – Jada ([49:36])

Useful Timestamps

• [01:42] Jada’s early career and transition to tech
• [03:23] Receiving feedback about visibility
• [07:58] Jada’s initial understanding of “visibility”
• [09:50] Importance of relevance in visibility
• [13:02] Targeting visibility to strategic priorities
• [18:05] Depth (in-division) vs. breadth (cross-division) strategy
• [22:21] What to be known for vs. what’s required for advancement
• [27:34] The importance of articulating your value
• [33:13] Observing organizational “currency” for advancement
• [40:11] Cake & icing metaphor—balancing relational and task skills
• [43:37] Jada’s assignment/action plan
• [47:04] Activating internal sponsorship
• [50:03] Re-engaging managers for clarity & feedback

Tone and Language

The conversation is candid and reflective, with Muriel providing straightforward, pragmatic coaching and frequent analogies. Jada is self-aware, direct, and eager for tactical solutions, openly discussing her doubts and aspirations. The tone is supportive, constructive, and focused on actionable growth.

Episode Takeaways

• “Visibility” means being known by the right people for the right things—not just being seen.
• Organizational advancement depends on aligning your visible strengths with what leadership values as “currency.”
• Strategic self-advocacy (expressing both what you want and your unique value) is critical.
• Sponsorship should be cultivated in relevant circles, not just broadly.
• Growth means both adapting your tactics and remaining authentic to your strengths.

This episode offers a clear blueprint for professionals trying to decode ambiguous feedback and bridge the gap between perception and impact on their organization’s advancement track.