How To Be Known as Highly Impactful

There was a moment in my career when I stopped feeling like a cog in the machine.

I stopped doubting what it would take to have success, learned how to step into my personal power, and knew I was not just “working”

I was making an impact.

Regardless of age, culture, level, gender and experience, the main frustration I hear from corporate leaders is that there’s something or someone holding them back from making the professional impact they want to.

This frustration and the struggle that goes along with it can often hold them back for years.

YEARS!!

I’ve studied this struggle for the last decade. And in this first inaugural newsletter, I’m sharing the best of what I’ve learned over my 10+ years of coaching.

Because when it’s a wrap and I’ve retired from the professional chapter of my life, I want to look back and know that I shared knowledge and expertise in a way that helped people realize their goals by increasing skill and collapsing the timeline of their struggles.

That, to me, is making a positive impact.

Why Impact?

One of the biggest mind-exploding learnings I had was at a Tony Robbins event where he talked about the 6 Human Needs:

Certainty, Uncertainty, Significance, Love/Connection, Growth and Contribution

We did an exercise where we looked back at our schedule and bank account over the last two months and mapped all our time and money to one of these six Needs.

And guess what? My mapping looked like the majority of humanity with Certainty and Significance topping the list.

What does mean?

In a flash, it made complete sense why people stay in dead-end jobs and why they stay in the struggle even if they hate it.

They have a high need for Certainty.

Because even if it sucks, at least it’s known.

And those same Needs explain why many drive hard to pursue higher levels, more money, recognition and yes, Impact.

Even at the cost of their health, their relationships and their free time.

They have a high need for Significance.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that. Being impactful requires (and fulfills the needs for) growth. Being impactful means that you’re adding a contribution at a higher level.

My point in sharing this?

Understand your motivators and drivers for wanting to be impactful.

What Stops You?

Ah yes, and this is where careers can come to s screeching stop. The crappy thing is that even if you want to be impactful, it’s like there’s this invisible net that stopping you from doing so. Some call this the glass ceiling.

I call it leadership blind spots.

There are a multitude of different blind spots that can keep you from getting ahead in your career and building a reputation for being highly impactful

Because one of my favorite pastimes is looking for patterns, I’ve looked back at the hundreds of leaders I’ve worked with over the last decade.

And I’ve narrowed these blind spots down to the core six.

Or, for you football fans, you can think of this as the pick six:

1. Knowing who you are, aka your Personal Brand
2. Mastering Emotional Intelligence
3. Having high Confidence regardless of the circumstances
4. Building skill in Exec-Level Communication
5. Understanding (and using) the Language of Impact
6. Increasing Influence Skills for any audience

All six of these skills are necessary, but typicaly you won't find them in corporate trainings. This is why they’re such common blind spots.

Learning how to overcome any one of these? It doesn’t come by accident. It’s built, step by step.

If you’re realizing that one (or all?) of the above have been blind spots for you, you’re not alone.

I struggled with every one of these earlier in my career. I had no idea who I was, how to begin to think about Personal Brand or why it even mattered. I was emotionally aware but had zero understanding of my emotional triggers in the workplace and how they held me back. I felt like an imposter at many moments and had no idea how to step into a room as my most Confident self. And although I worked with executives every day, it took years to understand their “language”. Impact? I thought the measure of success was how much I was doing. I even built an identity around being “so busy” thinking that this somehow made me significant. But I had no clue how to really think about what I did and how it actually created Impact. It’s no surprise to me looking at this list and my history that my ability to Influence was severely crippled due to the lack of skill in the earlier 5 skills.

The takeaway? You may be technically smart, educated and able to deliver. But unless you master these additional skills, it will be impossible to build a reputation for being highly impactful in your organization.

It took thousands (yes, thousands) of hours of professional development, and hands-on experience working with hundreds of clients to master the list above.

The best part? I have had a front-seat view of how completely transformational these skills are. How it can catapult careers, open up the biggest opportunities for leaders, and put them in the spotlight. The good news? They’re all learnable.

What Can You Do?

If you’re reading this newsletter, I already know a few things about you: You care about the work you do. You pride yourself on delivering meaningful results for your team, your clients and your company. You want to continually learn, grow and improve as a person and a professional.

Highly impactful is not just something you want to do or have, it’s who you want to be.

Here’s the thing about impact:

You don’t wait for someone to give it to you. You create it. 

But how? Let’s break it down.

1. Know Who You Are.

Your personal brand is built by determining what your superpower strengths and values are and reflecting on how you want to be known as a leader. Then narrow this data down to the 3 qualities you want to be known as a leader. This matters because if you don’t define who you are, others will do it for you.

And you may not like what they come up with.

When I pivoted from corporate to coaching, I didn’t know how to articulate who I was as a coach. My identity was wobbly and my inner dialogue was full of doubts:

"Who am I to be a coach?" "What value do I even bring?"

It wasn’t until I learned about my personal brand, why it mattered and started owning my story that I could confidently share the framework with others.

Whether you're transitioning roles or climbing the ladder, being able to clearly differentiate yourself and the value you bring is key because:

70% of employers say personal branding matters more than a resume (Explore Careers)

That’s a scroll-stopping stat.

2. Build Skill In Emotional Intelligence.

I know, I know. This is one of the “soft skills”. But I’ve seen careers plateau for years, candidates get rejected from interviews (20x), trust and relationships shatter and leaders lose credibility in a moment because they never placed a value on emotional intelligence.

Dr. Daniel Goleman is the founder and GOAT of emotional intelligence. If you’re not familiar with his work, look him up. This is a good place to start.

Being highly impactful is as much about the results you deliver as it is how you show up.

If you are lacking in the emotional intelligence department, how you show up will be overlooked, judged or even critisized.

Why?

Because if you’re not aware of your mental operating system, your triggers in the workplace, how you cope with stress and how all of these govern your choices, behavior and language, your name will not be at the top of the list when the next promotion is decided.

The saddest thing about this situation is that rarely, if ever, can you get honest (much less actionable) feedback. If you’re hearing things like “we just didn’t think you were ready” or “the role needed a different set of skills” or “you didn’t have the experience we needed” they’re often smokescreens for lacking emotional intelligence.

3. Work On Your Confidence

Here’s a little secret I had to learn the hard way:

Confidence doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from knowing who you are, what your strengths and triggers are, and being willing to take action in the face of fear.

Early on in my career, I burned out trying to please everyone, overperforming to the point of threatening my marriage.

“Confidence” was this elusive thing that everyone, including myself, was chasing.

It wasn’t until I started building all the skills listed above and owning my successes AND failures that I started making a real impact. This shift is what will set you apart.

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to confidence. Too little will hold you back. And too much will turn people off:

Lack of confidence during the interview is why 40% of interviewers don’t take a candidate past the first stage. (Twin Employment) and 76% of interviewers reject candidates who appear arrogant. (Inc.)

We think if we're smart or experienced enough, we'll get ahead. But these stats prove that's not necessarily the case. Confidence is King (or Queen).

4. Start Learning Exec-Level Communication

No one gets promoted to a leadership level and automatically assimilates the language of executives. There isn’t a corporate training manual that includes this. Or a manager who has time to teach you. And yet, if you want to be known as impactful, it’s a crucial skill to learn. 

You have to be concise. You need to know how to make your point in 3 minutes or less. You need good pacing, tone and no self-deprecating phrases. You need to understand how to use a balance of data and direction in your proposals. And you most definitely need to speak in the language of impact (see #5)

I didn’t realize how important this was until I started spending time in exec decision-making meetings. And watching speakers come into those meetings bumbling their way through their presentations. Getting discounted, talked over and never getting their proposals approved.

That’s not how I would advise anyone to walk into an exec 1:1 or an exec team meeting.

When you know the secret code of exec speak, you build credibility, and your impact grows stronger.

There’s a lot more I could go into here, but I’ll save the details for another newsletter. Ignoring the skill of exec communication can be a career-limiter. Learning it will be a career-advancer.

5. Learn the Language of Impact

If there’s one thing that I get asked about repeatedly, it’s how to write a performance review. Most people know they need to write a better review but they have no idea where to start or how to make what they’ve done, meaningful and measurable. And the biggest gap is that they don’t know how to communicate what they’ve done in the language of impact.

Here are a few tips…

Let’s say your goal was to manage and lead global cross-functional program team meetings and events? Okay, you did what you were tasked to do. But what was the impact? When you look at the impact of the work done, you influenced a reduction in process and system redundancy by 10%, saving the company $2M. And you reduced time to market, saving an estimated $500k in development cost. 

Now THAT’s impact.

The language of impact is looking at the work you’re doing and asking yourself, how did this increase revenue and/or efficiency, decrease cost and/or redundancy for the business. And what was the upside in revenue or profit (or your influence on this) or the increase in efficiency or cost savings. And if you are a manager, impact can be multiplied across your entire team.

How did what you do impact the bottom line?

6. Increase Influence Skills

Influence seems to be this elusive quality. There’s often a resignation that you “have it” or you “don’t”. But if you want to be highly impactful, building your awareness and skill in influencing any audience is necessary.

Working on the above five skills will take you to about mile 20 in the 26.2-mile marathon that is leadership influence. The remaining 6.2 miles are made up of several additional qualities and skills – all of which are learnable.

These include things like Knowing Your Audience, Building Rapport & Trust, Being Present & Connected, Seeking to Understand (versus waiting for your turn to talk or seeking to be understood), Being Informed & Educated, Acknowledging Risks & Objections, Praising Sincerely and Challenging & Encouraging.

The Bottom Line

Being known as impactful doesn’t happen overnight. But every day you make an intentional choice to learn new skills, differentiate yourself, build your confidence, stop communicating ineffectively, and articulate the impact you’ve actually been making, you’re laying the foundation for lasting impact.

Here's one of my favorite questions:

After you leave that interview, or skip level 1:1, or executive team presentation…how do you want to be remembered?

I have a hunch that it’s not “s/he is really nice” or “s/he is doing a good job” or even “s/he is a great manager”

It’s [Your Name] is highly impactful, creating measurable value for our team and leading with purpose.

Because let’s face it. You’re spending a high percentage of your time at work. And in the end, no one wants to be forgotten.

If you’re interested in doing more than just “great work” and want to be known as highly impactful, consider checking out the resources on our newly updated website. Or work 1:1 with us to become what one of my clients aptly described as a force multiplier in the business.

The most impactful leaders don’t just talk about change --they create it. It’s time to get to work. :)

Julie

Weekly Career Edge

Quantify your accomplishments. One of the biggest gaps in resumes, interviews, plus promotion and raise requests is that people are too vague. They do incredible work. They’re badasses in the board room. They’re loved by their team…

But they do not recognize the importance of quantifying their accomplishments.

This is a Big Deal if you want to get into the interview, get hired or get promoted. You have to provide people with proof, data, and measurements of your successes.

Think about it this way…

You go into your favorite burger joint, order the burger, and all that shows up on your plate is the nice soft bun, a piece of cheese and some lettuce.

Where’s the beef?

The metrics, KPIs, data or measurable outcomes are like the beef. You need this. (Just be sure the data you're providing is not confidential)

If you haven’t been tracking or keeping your numbers, start now. Or go back and dig the data up. This is definitely a best practice because I’ve heard stories from clients that they’ve been fired and had their laptops immediately confiscated. Poof. No ability to get data.

If you have job security and want advancement, you need to make it easy for your manager to promote you. The more quantifiable results (beef!) you have, the easier it is for your boss to advocate you to the next level.

Want To Work With Us?

1. Want to Stand Out On LinkedIn, Overcome Imposter Syndrome, get a personalized Leadership Impact Scorecard, or attend a live masterclass on Eliminating Blind Spots? Check out our new Resources page for free training and tips to help you get ahead.

2. Realizing it’s time for a Resume Revamp or LinkedIn Rewrite? Contact us for information about saving time and getting yourself a lasting career asset (or two) that will help you differentiate yourself, stand out from the competition, and yes, that you’ll be proud of for years to come. Yes, AI can write you a resume. But beware of getting flagged or thrown out of the application process. You’re much better off investing in an asset you know is branded, quantified and aligned to the perfect job you’re seeking

3. Ready to get the Expert Coaching Guidance to collapse your job search timeline or become highly impactful in your organization? Want to be that force multiplier for your team, stakeholders and clients? These are just a few examples of what working with us 1:1 can do for you, your leadership and your career. Set up a time to chat with us and see if it’s a fit.