hello and welcome back to the career pivot accelerator the podcast for skilled professionals who are done waiting to be discovered and ready to be strategic i'm your host peggy mcknight and today i want to talk about something i hear over and over again from professionals i've worked with from people who reach out after listening to this show and honestly from my own experience you fit in the room you had the idea you did the work and somehow someone else got the credit or worse the conversation moved on like you hadn't spoken at all today we're going to talk about why that happens what really is going on beneath the surface in some workplaces and what you can actually do about it starting with yourself let's get into it i want to start with a belief that a lot of high-performing professionals carry quietly and often unconsciously it's this if i do excellent work that will be enough it sounds reasonable right work hard deliver results let the quality speak for itself that's how it's supposed to work and for a while maybe even a long while it does work you get good feedback you get promoted people call you reliable the one they can count on but then something shifts you passed over for a leadership role unless experience colleague gets the visibility and the title you've been quietly earning for years or you're carrying the workload of three people and nobody seems to notice i want that to sit with you that last part for a moment because nobody seems to notice isn't always innocent sometimes it's that you make it look effortless which is great people genuinely don't see the effort behind it that's one reality but there's another reality that doesn't get talked about often enough and i'm going to name it directly today because i think a lot of you will recognize it some people are being taken for granted deliberately their confidence is being used as a tool to keep them exactly where they are because if they stay busy stay quiet and keep delivering the work gets done and someone else gets the look and they also get to look good then there are the people who actively quietly don't want to see you succeed they won't share information with you they won't bring you into the right rooms they won't advocate for you when it matters but they'll advocate hard for others you know who i mean those chosen ones and when anyone dares to point that out suddenly there's a narrative shutdown in the phrase of that narrative needs to stop does that sound familiar because what actually is the translation is stop noticing that the playing field isn't level stop pointing out that support isn't distributed fairly stop making it visible that some people are being set up to succeed while others are being set up to stay stuck and here's the most insidious version of this dynamic the one i want you to really hear some people deliberately withhold support information and development opportunities from colleagues not because they're too busy because keeping people reliant on them keeping people looking less capable serves their interests if you never learn never grow never get the visibility you stay dependent and they stay indispensable that my friend is a toxic workplace dynamic and naming it is not complaining it's clarity now here's what i've come to understand after years of watching this play out competence earns respect but environments like this the one i just shared earlier competence alone will never be enough to break through because the game isn't being played on merit it's being played on access visibility and who controls that narrative that doesn't mean you're powerless it means you need to be smarter about how you move and that starts with being honest about the environment you're actually in not the one you wish you were in so what do you actually do when you're in an environment like this when a narrative is being shaped about you that isn't true or when the work you're doing is being attributed to someone else or when you're being quietly positioned as less capable than you actually are the first thing i want you to say is this reacting in the room is almost never your best move hear me say that again reacting in the room is almost never your best move meaning don't have any knee-jerk reaction now i know i know that it's really hard to hear because when someone says something that misrepresents you every instinct says correct it right now loudly in front of everyone but here's what actually happens when you do that especially if you're a woman especially if you're already in an environment where certain people have more social capital than you you get labeled difficult emotional defensive and the original narrative the inaccurate one gets quietly reinforced because now the conversation has very cleverly converted and it's about your reaction not about what was actually said emotional regulation in this context is not about suppressing how you feel it is absolutely not about pretending everything is fine it's about choosing where and how your energy lands and what that signals to the people watching because there are always people watching lurking waiting to pounce and some of them are not aligned with the people trying to shut you down the professional who stays calm names what's happening with precision and redirects the conversation that person is demonstrating something that is genuinely rare in most organizations they're demonstrating composure under pressure they're showing that they can't be rattled and that is one of the most powerful signals of leadership capability that exists reframing this isn't spin it's returning to what's actually true with language that doesn't sound defensive even when you have every right to be say something along the lines of and let me see how this lands with you you could say when somebody comes on the attack you could calmly say i notice we're spending a lot of time on what went wrong i'd love to talk about where we could go from here that's the reframe simple clean it moves the room forward without you having to win an argument and without giving anyone the reaction they may have been looking for the ability to do that to hold your composure reframe the conversation and keep your dignity intact that is a skill it takes practice and i want to be honest with you it is one of the hardest skills to develop especially when the stakes feel personal which they often do because quite frankly they are whoever said it's not personal it's business was really lying everything is personal of course it is now if they explained it better to help you see the strategic business decision then that's absolutely fine but oftentimes people like to go for the jugular all right i want to talk about strategy and i want to be very clear about what i mean by that because i've heard the word strategy used to dress up advice that well if you strip it back especially and essentially it says work out who the powerful people are make them like you and ride that wave that's not strategy that's rebranded sickle fancy and if you're a person of integrity which i suspect most of you listening are it will feel wrong because it is wrong so let me tell you what i think real strategy actually looks like it starts with a brutally honest question when you ask yourself privately before you do anything else am i genuinely doing everything in my role at an exceptional level not good enough not meeting expectations exceptional because if the answer is yes truly within your heart and gut is yes then you have a foundation and from that foundation you can move if the answer is honestly no or not quite yet then that's where the work starts not in managing perceptions not in building relationships with the right people in the work itself because nothing else holds without that foundation underneath it now assuming the foundation is there here's what strategic movement actually looks like in practice and i want to be real about this because organizations are political whether we like it or not senior leaders have significant influence over who gets promoted and who doesn't but here's something important that often gets glossed over senior leaders do not automatically promote people into leadership roles because those people are talented they promote people when it benefits them when it solves a problem they have when it makes them look good when it reinforces their position i have never in all my years working in and observing organizations seen a senior leader champion someone for promotion purely out of altruism and if they do it too overtly for someone they're obviously close to it gets called out immediately as favoritism so overt sponsorship has its own ceiling so what does work and this is the part that requires both honesty and finesse is making yourself genuinely useful and visible to senior leaders in ways that don't compromise who you are that means once your foundation is rock solid you can ask a senior leader for their advice on something you're working on not flattery actual advice on an actual challenge senior leaders in general have large egos spoiler alert if you haven't noticed it and being asked for their expertise and perspective is something most of them genuinely respond to you're not sucking up you're accessing experience and in the process becoming a face they associate with thoughtfulness and initiative it means when you have a genuine contribution to make and an idea an observation a solution you find the appropriate moment and the appropriate channel to make it visible not loudly not performatively appropriately and it means understanding the system you're operating in its rules its culture its unspoken expectations well enough to work within it intelligently rather than blindly conforming to it or exhausting yourself fighting it at every turn that is what i mean by strategy it's not about becoming someone you're not it's about being the best most strategic version of who you already are and understanding the terrain you're navigating well enough to move through it with your integrity intact all right i'd really like to dial in and deep dive into strategy over emotion here's something i want to say out loud that doesn't get said often enough sometimes when we say i can't be bothered we don't actually mean we don't care we mean we're exhausted we've spoken up before and it didn't land we've tried we've delivered we've watched people who didn't try half as hard get the recognition we were quietly working toward and at some point the brain does a cost-benefit analysis and the conclusion is what's the point that's not apathy that's learned helplessness and it's a completely understandable response to an environment that has consistently failed to reward your effort sometimes we stop speaking up because we've learned it doesn't change outcomes but influence isn't built in one room it's built over time all right now i want to pivot i want to speak specifically to my infj listeners here and if you don't know what infj means it's a personality type characterized by deep empathy strong intuition and the ability to feel everything very very deeply even if you're not an infj what i'm about to share will give you insight into how infjs think and approach work which is what we're all about building a mutual understanding of each other and how we can all communicate better at work the advice you'll hear most often in professional development circles is leave your emotions at the door or my personal favorite there's no crying in baseball you can fill in the baseball with your current department for an infj or for anyone who processes the world through feeling that advice is not just unhelpful it's physiologically impossible we don't experience emotion as a layer we can peel off before we walk into a meeting we experience it as information as data about what's happening around us who's being honest where the energy in a room is going our feelings are often the most accurate read of a situation that anyone in that room has so the goal is not to turn your feelings off the goal is to know when to act on them and when to sit with them until the right moment here's a practical way i think about it when you're in a high stakes moment a meeting a conversation with someone who is provoking you in order to get a rise a situation where a narrative is being shaped to their advantage your feelings are gathering intelligence let them take it in but give yourself a rule don't act from that intelligence in the moment this is not knee-jerk reaction time you act from it later when you've had time to process what you actually sensed and decided what if anything to do with it that pause even if it's drawing a breath before you respond that's not suppression it's the difference between your feelings running you and you running your feelings and for an infj who will often be the most perceptive person in the room, that distinction matters enormously. So remember, you are running your feelings. Take a breath and pause. Because here's the thing, your empathy, your intuition, your ability to read a room and understand what's really going on in the right conditions with the right boundaries around it, that is not a liability.
It's the one of the most powerful leadership tools that exist. The problem is that most organizations don't know what to do with it. So you learn to hide it. And hiding it costs you, my friend.
Strategy for an INFJ isn't about becoming less of who you are. It's about learning when to speak and when to wait. When to act on what you know and when to let the moment pass. That discernment, that timing is the skill.
And it is genuinely one of the hardest things to develop. Now, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it is possible. And it starts with giving yourself permission to feel what you feel without letting every feeling become an action or reaction. I want to close with something I think is worth sitting with, really sitting with.
So much of the conversation around professional development and career growth gets framed around the obstacles, the difficult people, the unfair environments, the systems that weren't built with you in mind. And those obstacles are very real. I've spent most of this episode naming them directly because I think pretending they don't exist helps nobody. But I want to ask you a different question today, a harder one.
If nothing changed in your department, not the politics, not the people, not the culture, would you still want to become leadership ready? Would you still want to grow? Because your development, your growth into the professional and leader you're capable of becoming is not contingent on your environment becoming fair first. It is not contingent on the people around you deciding to behave well.
It is not something that can be taken from you by someone controlling a narrative or withholding support. The professionals who break through difficult environments are not the ones who waited for the environment to change. They're the ones who develop themselves so thoroughly, so intentionally, so strategically that the environment eventually had no choice but to respond. That's not naive optimism.
That's the long game. And it requires a decision, a conscious one, that you are building yourself regardless of what's happening around you. Think of yourself as the calm in the eye of the storm, not because the environment deserves your best, but because you do. And nobody can take that knowledge away from you and that skill set that you have nurtured and grown.
That is what I call the architect mindset. The architect doesn't wait for perfect conditions before they start to build. They understand the terrain. They work with the materials they have.
They design for durability, not just for the moment, but for what they're building toward. You becoming leadership ready, earning that promotion, that pay increase, that seat at a bigger table begins with a decision about who you are committed to becoming, regardless of who is or isn't supporting you, regardless of how level the playing field is. That commitment is yours and nobody, not the people controlling the narrative, not the ones withholding support, not the ones who quietly hope you'll stay stuck, can take that from you unless you hand it to them. That is what we work on here on the Career Pivot Accelerator and in everything I do.
Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Career Pivot Accelerator. If any of what I talked about today hit close to home, if you recognize yourself in the dynamics I described, or if the question I left you with stirred something, I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out. Tell me where you are.
Tell me what you're navigating. Also, if today's episode resonated, please leave a review. It genuinely helps more professionals find this show. Please share this with someone who needs to hear it today.
You already know who that person is. Oh, and by the way, something is coming next week that I've been quietly working on for a while. I'm genuinely excited to share it with you. I cannot wait.
Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. Until next time, my friend, take care of yourself. Bye for now.