Rene Carayol recently wrote:

“Capability alone doesn’t accelerate careers. Capability that other people understand, trust and advocate for does.”

It is a powerful observation—and an uncomfortable one.

Many capable people were raised to believe that good work speaks for itself. Deliver consistently. Be dependable. Keep learning. Avoid unnecessary noise. Eventually, the right people will notice.

Sometimes they do. Often, they do not.

Work does not speak. People speak about work. They interpret it, attribute it and decide whose name becomes associated with it. In organisations, careers are influenced not only by what we can do, but by who has seen us do it, whether they understand its value, whether they trust us with greater responsibility and whether they are willing to mention our names when opportunities are discussed.

That raises difficult questions.

How do we ensure that the right people understand our capability well enough to advocate for us? How do we create relationships that lead to substantive conversations—not shallow networking performances—in which our ability becomes visible? How do we attract sponsorship? How do we navigate jealous peers or superiors who feel that we need to be “taken down a peg or two”? How do we stand out without becoming the proverbial tall poppy that gets cut down?

And how do we avoid being labelled “too much”, “too loud”, constantly auditioning or attention-seeking?

These are the questions that sit underneath conversations about personal branding, networking, mentorship, sponsorship and being discussed in rooms where we are not present.

It can all sound exhausting: a second job spent trying to influence conversations over which we have little control.

Visibility is not the same as performance

Perhaps the first distinction we need to make is between performing for attention and making our contribution legible.

Visibility is not being the loudest person in every meeting. It is helping the right people understand three things:

● the problems you are equipped to solve;

● the evidence that you can solve them; and

● the scale at which you are ready to operate.

This requires translation. A long list of activities does not necessarily communicate capability. Neither does working harder in silence. Leaders need to understand the connection between our work and the outcomes that matter to the organisation.

Instead of saying, “I managed several workstreams,” we might say, “I brought five teams around one delivery plan, resolved the decisions delaying implementation and reduced the risk of missing the regulatory deadline.”

That is not boasting. It is context.

Credible visibility is specific, proportionate and useful. It focuses on outcomes, gives appropriate credit to others and makes the value of the work easier to understand.

Create conversations around contribution

Meaningful relationships rarely begin with the question, “Will you sponsor me?” They develop when people repeatedly experience our judgement, reliability and ability to contribute.

The most valuable conversations are often built around real work. Ask a thoughtful question after a strategy session. Share a concise insight that helps a senior leader see a problem differently. Volunteer for a visible problem that aligns with your strengths—but clarify the mandate, decision rights and recognition before accepting another invisible burden. Request fifteen minutes with a leader to understand one of their priorities, then offer a relevant observation rather than a rehearsed biography.

The objective is not to impress everyone. It is to create enough high-quality contact for a few credible people to understand how you think and what you can do.

A useful conversation might include:

● the business problem you are solving;

● what you are learning from the work;

● the decisions or support required;

● the measurable difference your contribution is making; and

● the kind of responsibility you are ready to take on next.

This is a more sustainable form of networking because it is rooted in contribution rather than proximity alone.

Sponsorship must be earned—but access is not equally distributed

A mentor advises you. A sponsor uses their credibility and influence on your behalf. They recommend you for a role, defend your readiness, introduce you to decision-makers or put your name forward when you are absent.

Sponsorship usually grows from three forms of confidence:

1. Confidence in your performance: You have delivered and can point to evidence.

2. Confidence in your judgement: You understand context, handle complexity and know when to escalate.

3. Confidence in your conduct: You can be trusted with people, information, pressure and organisational reputation.

We can improve our chances of attracting sponsorship by making our aspirations known, asking for developmental exposure, building relationships beyond a single manager and giving potential sponsors credible evidence they can repeat in another room.

But we should resist pretending that sponsorship is a pure meritocracy. Access is uneven. Familiarity, social similarity, gender, race, class, language, school networks and participation in informal activities all influence who becomes known and trusted. Some people enter the workplace already connected to powerful networks. Others must build access while also overcoming assumptions about whether they belong.

The answer cannot simply be to tell excluded employees to network harder. Organisations also have a responsibility to democratise visibility through transparent succession processes, cross-functional assignments, structured sponsorship, fair access to strategic forums and evidence-based talent reviews.

What if visibility makes you a target?

Visibility is not always rewarded. In insecure or highly political environments, competence can be interpreted as competition. A peer may withhold information, minimise your role or claim your ideas. A superior may restrict your access, recast confidence as arrogance or use vague feedback such as “too ambitious”, “too visible” or “not collaborative enough” to make you smaller.

This is where advice about simply “showing up boldly” becomes incomplete.

Standing out safely requires both courage and situational awareness.

Document your contributions and decisions. Share progress through normal governance channels so that the record does not depend on one person’s retelling. Credit collaborators publicly while stating your own role clearly. Build a network across functions and levels rather than relying on a single gatekeeper. Ask for vague criticism to be converted into observable behaviour: What did I do? What was its impact? What would effective behaviour look like instead?

Most importantly, distinguish between useful feedback and a pattern of containment. Good feedback helps you increase your impact. Containment asks you to become less visible so that someone else can feel more secure.

No communication technique can completely protect a person in a culture that punishes talent, difference or independence. Sometimes the problem is not that you have failed to manage your brand. Sometimes, as a former colleague once wrote, if life gives you lemons, perhaps you are planted in the wrong garden.

I knew just enough Afrikaans to translate that without turning to Google.

Visibility cannot depend on the second shift

This question is especially important for women.

I meet many women who feel stuck in their careers. They are capable, experienced and ambitious. They are also wives, mothers and daughters. Many work a second shift of housekeeping, childcare and caring for ageing or ill parents. They cannot always meet for drinks after work, attend every evening event or spend a day on a golf course. Nor should career progression require them to risk their health, marriages or family relationships to prove commitment.

When access to influence is concentrated in informal, after-hours spaces, the system rewards availability as though it were ability. It confuses social proximity with leadership potential.

Women need ways to remain visible that fit inside the legitimate architecture of work. These can include:

● concise monthly impact updates;

● presenting at existing business and governance forums;

● leading high-value cross-functional problems;

● requesting structured quarterly career conversations;

● publishing useful internal insights or lessons from delivery;

● participating in formal mentoring and sponsorship programmes; and

● building small, purposeful networks through short conversations during working hours.

A twenty-minute coffee with a clear purpose can be more valuable than three hours of socialising. A well-written one-page update can travel into rooms you cannot enter. A strong contribution in a strategic forum can reveal more capability than repeated attendance at informal events.

Leaders also have a role to play. If important relationships and career decisions are built mainly at bars, dinners, sports days and private social gatherings, inclusion is being left to chance. Access to opportunity should be designed into working hours and formal processes.

Be known for something that matters

Personal branding is most useful when it is not treated as self-promotion. At its best, it is the alignment between what you consistently contribute, what others experience when working with you and the problems they trust you to solve.

Choose two or three themes that reflect both your strengths and the organisation’s needs. Build evidence around them. Communicate that evidence consistently. Let others see not only what you have completed, but how you think, how you lead and what becomes possible when you are involved.

You do not need everyone to understand you. You need a credible network of people who have directly experienced your contribution and can describe it accurately.

You do not need to be everywhere. You need to be present where relevant decisions, problems and opportunities intersect with your capability.

You do not need to audition constantly. You need a rhythm of contribution, evidence and conversation.

And you should not have to shrink to make insecure people comfortable.

Capability may not accelerate a career on its own. But neither should career acceleration depend on endless performance, access to old boys’ networks or sacrificing the rest of one’s life.

The goal is not maximum visibility. It is meaningful visibility: being understood by the right people, trusted for the right reasons and advocated for on the strength of work that matters.

Perhaps the deeper leadership question is not only, How do capable people attract sponsors? It is also, What are we doing to ensure that capable people do not need extraordinary privilege, proximity or personal sacrifice to be seen?