Merito Group is a woman owned business and, as part of its services, drives to help both men and women achieve their greatest potential. Something that Merito tries to educate our clients on, is the importance of self promotion.
Despite the fact that most women understand the importance of self-promotion for their advancement, they do not intentionally use it. We have been conditioned to take the back seat and wait to be recognized. As a consequence, we often have this inner argument about how to proceed with self-promotion. We know we should do more of it. We know we should be better at it. But at the same time, it’s much more comfortable to stay focused on doing our work.
We have the mind-set that self-promotion is self-serving, and therefore distasteful. Even if we attempt to talk about our accomplishments and take credit for our success, doing this with confidence and conviction is challenging.
It is important to see that self-promotion is a leadership skill. It is your responsibility to talk about what you and your team have achieved, not only for your own benefit, but also for the team and the company. It’s how to create influence. It’s how you sell your ideas across the organization. It’s the basis of building relationships with key stakeholders and gaining access to the power networks.
From this perspective, self-promotion takes on a different purpose. You are letting others know of your accomplishments and your value proposition, and you are offering to help in ways that benefit the organization. Everyone wins. Your team benefits from your promotional efforts. They receive recognition for their efforts and success. You benefit as the team leader who spearheaded the project or initiative, and the company wins as well. The company can use your accomplishments to initiate other projects or ideas across the organization. They can use your success metrics as an example for future company cannot leverage your success in other areas.
Self-promotion is not just about you. It’s about you, your team, and the organization.
Betsy Myers, former senior advisor to Presidents Clinton and Obama, has always been an advocate for women’s issues. She demonstrated promotion as a leadership skill when she aligned her skills and passion for women’s issues with President Clinton’s reelection campaign. Betsy ran the office for women business owners when she worked for the Small Business Administration (SBA). She recognized that women business owners were a potential Clinton voting bloc. Women had elected him the first time and they would reelect him. Women voters were thus very important for his reelection.
So Betsy began working her relationships and promoting herself and her ideas for the benefit of President Clinton’s reelection: “I started to go over to the White House and meet with different people to say, ‘Hey, what can we do to make sure we harness this voting bloc and these women out there? They’re the fastest-growing segment of the business economy.’
“I went over there to alert people to what I was doing; the conferences out there where I was speaking that were potential opportunities for the president or someone else to speak at; these statewide conferences on women. And that’s where I developed my reputation as someone who was an expert on a particular issue of women entrepreneurs; passionate, supportive of the president and his reelection. And then, when the president decided to create an office in the White House on women’s issues, I had made a name for myself and was appointed director of this department.”
To read more about Betsy’s work, as well as the complete article from Bonnie Marcus in Forbes magazine, click here.
Merito Group is a small women-owned business providing excellence in outsourced talent acquisition solutions including retained executive search, RPO, and consulting services. Looking to hire exceptional talent? Contact us by email or 703-734-6340. To view our current career opportunities click here.