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Early on in your career, your wins tend to be more straightforward and obvious. You’re the one closing a deal, writing code, or delivering a presentation.
That can change as you advance. Your value begins to come from setting direction, influencing others and moving projects that span several teams and functions over the finish line. All of this makes it harder to articulate and own your contributions.
Saying “it was a team effort” sounds modest, but can leave decision-makers wondering why you matter. Swing too far in the other direction, though, and you risk coming off like you’re ignoring that anyone else played a role. Neither approach builds trust.
As the author of “Managing Up” and an executive coach to high performers at companies like Google, Amazon and JPMorgan, I know that you don’t need to choose between humility and visibility. It’s possible to walk the fine line between taking credit and steamrolling others.
Here are the strategies my clients use to talk about their wins without pissing off their teams or sounding like narcissists.
1. Use ‘we’ then ‘I’
Start by shouting out your colleagues, then mention your specific actions. Leading with “we” shows you’re collaborative and aware that nothing is achieved alone. Following up with “I” ensures your own impact isn’t lost in the process.
Recognizing your colleagues publicly also builds goodwill that can make them more inclined to support you on future projects.
You might say:
- “Eric worked hard on the portal’s back end. I cleared the data issues and worked directly with the operations team on the rollout.”
- “Retention is up 45%. Customer success did a great job responding to client requests. I built a tracker that helped us save at-risk accounts worth $200,000 in recurring revenue.”
- “Yulan and Theresa went above and beyond with their research into patient wait times. That made it possible for me to design the strategy that should lower average waits by about 20%.
2. Speak to scale
Instead of saying, “the campaign was a big success,” add context. Did it affect 100 customers or 100,000? Was it a $50,000 budget or $5 million? Did it air nationally or globally?
Scale helps the listener grasp the size, reach and complexity involved, showing how significant your accomplishment was without claiming you achieved it solo.
You might say:
- “The program has already reached more than 1,000 students in the last four months, which puts us on pace to exceed our goal by 25% before year-end.”
- “This was the team’s biggest launch to date. It required coordination with marketing, design and our partners across Europe.”
- “Every department has adopted the policy change, which means it has the potential to impact over a million people nationwide.”
3. Identify the invisible work
Give insight into the thinking and behind-the-scenes work you’ve been doing. Share what options you weighed, why you prioritized one over another, which connections you built or what problems you proactively solved.
Your boss evaluates your judgment when making promotion decisions, so be explicit about the decision-making and relationship-building you’re capable of.
You might say:
- “I pushed back on a premium tier because we’re seeing price sensitivity and suggested we reallocate resources to the mid-tier offer instead.”
- “I spent three months aligning the clinical team and regulatory group, which meant the submission was done in half the time.”
- “Meeting with donors one-on-one turned out to be the key to generating more support for the fundraiser.”
4. Tie your work to company goals
Explain how you moved the organization’s top priorities forward. This makes your role clear and situates it in the context of goals everyone cares about. Instead of bragging and boasting “look at what I did,” you’re demonstrating how you supported the business overall.
You might say:
- “I know we’re focused on expanding community reach, so I contacted three agencies we’ve never worked with before that have impressive track records building local programs.”
- “Since creativity is one of our core values as a company, I took the lead on testing a new workshop format.”
- “By consolidating our software stack down to just one provider, I made sure we’re doing our part to control costs, which is top of mind for the C-suite.”
Melody Wilding, LMSW is an executive coach, human behavior professor and author of “Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.” Get her free training, 5 Steps to Speak Like a Senior Leader, here.
