Why Letting Your Work Speak for Itself Is Costing You the Promotion
The strategy that got you here is quietly working against you.
Helena came into our session with a plan.
She was going to stop engaging with 'the drama.'
The difficult colleague.
The family member who pulled her into every crisis.
She'd decided: less time on their ongoing issues, and more of what matter to her. of that, more focus on what mattered to her.
It was a reasonable
plan.
Sensible, even.
But as we talked, something else surfaced.
Something older and more painful than the drama she was trying to avoid.
Eighteen months earlier, Helena had been passed over for the top role.
A colleague had got it instead.
A colleague she'd trusted.
She still felt burnt by that and more resentful than she wanted.
The Feedback that Changed Everything
We weren't looking for a revelation.
We were just talking through how Helena was showing up at work.
Who she spent time with.
Who knew what she was working on.
That's when she remembered something an ally had told her, quietly, without agenda.
He'd said: "You actually talk so much about the team, I don't know specifically what you are achieving."
She sat with that for a moment.
Her instinct, after being burned, had been to pull back.
Trust fewer people.
Hold on to her anger.
Keep her head down and let her work make the case for her.
It's a very understandable response to being hurt.
It's also the response that was making the problem worse.
The Pattern Behind the Pattern
I've seen this so many times.
Women like Helena work incredibly hard.
She leads with the team.
She deflects credit because taking it feels uncomfortable — like showing off, like she'll be accused of taking up too much space.
And she genuinely believes the work will speak for itself.
Not naively.
She's seen it work before, albeit earlier in her carer.
After all, it got her here.
What she hasn't noticed yet is that the context shifted.
At senior level, people need to know what you're driving — not just that your team is delivering.
The room where decisions get made about who's ready for the next step needs your name to come up naturally.
Not pushed.
Just known.
Helena's name wasn't coming up.
Not because she wasn't good enough.
Because nobody knew what she was doing to deliver on strategy.
What Helena Decided
She left our session with something she hadn't expected.
Not a strategy to protect herself from difficult people.
She didn't need protection, she need engagement.
Instead, it was a list of people she wanted to make more time for.
Colleagues she'd been meaning to catch up with.
Peers in other departments who had no idea what she was working on.
People who, in a room deciding who was ready for the next level, she knew wouldn't have enough to go on.
She wasn't going to perform for them.
She wasn't going to self-promote in ways that felt uncomfortable.
She was simply going to let people know what she was doing and the impact it was having.
And ask what they were doing in return.
That's it.
That's the whole strategy.
It sounds almost too small to matter.
Until you realise it's the thing that was missing.
If This Sounds Familiar
The instinct to keep your head down and work harder is not a character flaw.
It is a pattern that served you brilliantly for years.
It got you noticed early.
It got you promoted through the middle layers.
It built a reputation for quiet competence that you are genuinely proud of.
The context changed.
The pattern hasn't caught up yet.
And that gap — between what got you here and what gets you to the next level.
It's one of the most disorienting things to navigate alone.
Helena left that session with a spring in her step.
Not because anything had changed yet.
Because she could finally see what to do differently.
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Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris is an ICF Master Certified Coach with a PhD from Cambridge.
She has spent over 20 years coaching senior women in STEM at Director, VP, and C-suite level.
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I'm Dr Suzanne Doyle‑Morris and I support professional women working in STEM.
Whether you’re seeking your next promotion, aiming for leadership, or simply looking to make your mark, this blog is created for you.
It's written for the ambitious woman in STEM ready to advance and succeed on her own terms.
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The Women in Tech Promotion Playbook
Your roadmap to advancement with balance
The Women in Tech Promotion Playbook is a practical, evidence-based guide designed for ambitious women in STEM who want to advance their careers without burning out. Drawing on over 25 years of coaching and research, I outline five strategic steps that help women move from being overworked and under recognised to confident, visible leaders.
