MAKING YOURSELF VISIBLE
Make yourself visible. To make yourself visible, you must be seen and talked about by management people above you. You must be noticed, which you can accomplish in a number of ways.
Speaking up (sometimes critically) in staff meetings
Turning in written suggestions through channels
Making appointments with upper management people to ask questions but always going through channels
Being seen around the facility
Leading a cross-functional team
Participating in organizational events or recreational activities
Taking advantage of lunch to meet other people
Of course, the best way to be visible is to do a quality job and get recognition from doing it. In fact, it may be more important to be visible silently rather than physically or verbally. You need to avoid being visible in a negative way. Some supervisors become too aggressive and play the management game too forcefully, hurting instead of helping their personal progress.
Show strength from your present position. If you are to move up toward executive management, you must occasionally stand pat and refuse to be pushed around. It may mean quietly standing up to your own superior and other management people when you know you are right and have all the facts to document your case or holding your own in a controversy over the role of your department; it may mean fighting back in an acceptable way when someone tries to invade your area of responsibility. You cannot build a reputation as a strong leader if you always back down under pressure. When you know you are right, stand up for your ideas. It is the best way to win the respect of some top managers.
Always defend and protect your employees to outsiders. You cannot move up the executive ladder without the enthusiastic support and loyalty of the employees in your department. You earn some of this loyalty when you go to bat for them with outsiders. This way you keep departmental problems inside the department, where they belong. The easiest way to destroy a good departmental image is to air dirty laundry with outsiders, which your employees are free to do any time they wish. However, if you defend and protect them, they will probably do the same for you.
Do your homework. If you keep your department in top shape at all times, you will not be vulnerable to those who may wish to stop your personal progress. Some extremely ambitious supervisors spend so much time playing management politics that they neglect their department and defeat themselves. You can afford to work on outside communications only when your department is completely under control. You can make outside moves only when you yourself are safe from attack.
Stand firm with other supervisors. You will need the support of other supervisors if you hope to join middle management because in many cases you will be supervising them following your promotion.
Sound, healthy relationships with other supervisors can be developed, but it is naive to expect them all to be open and supportive. You are their competitor, so some may use devious tactics to undermine you, try to outmaneuver you to gain something you both want, or even try to trick you into making a poor move that will give them an advantage. Of course, most will be aboveboard and easy to work with. Even when other competitors use unfair tactics, your best move is to win their respect without resorting to the same methods. Protect yourself and your department while maintaining your personal standards and your belief in human relations principles. Be tough in defending what you feel is right, but avoid revenge or vindictiveness. Such conduct will only destroy the reputation you are attempting to build.
Be a team player in staff meetings. The staff meeting is the perfect setting to make either good or bad impressions, so it will be a challenge to get the right kinds of reactions from other management people in this environment. Here are some suggestions that might help: (1) Don't hesitate to speak up when you have something to say, but don't overdo it.Overtalking and underlistening are serious problems. (2) Make a critical contribution now and then, even if it is something your own manager doesn't want to hear. In short, say what you really believe; don't just accommodate the group. (3) When you do say something, be brief and stick to the topic at hand. (4) Support others enthusiastically if you agree with them. It is a sound way to build relationships with other supervisors. (5) If you lose interest in a staff meeting that is dragging, try not to show it. Sometimes you can tolerate it by arranging your priorities, thinking about a problem, or engaging in some other mental activity so long as you don't miss anything vital. (6) Never show personal hostility in a staff meeting.
Read and study. The supervisor who stops reading is locking the doors to opportunity and throwing the key away. Required reading includes company brochures, bulletins, reports, and research papers, as well as outside articles and books on management techniques. The ambitious supervisor must keep informed on company matters and prevailing management practices or, sooner or later, he or she will be passed by.
Look as though you are ready. It should go without saying that a junior manager on the way up must look ready. You should project an image of confidence, demonstrate leadership, stay constantly organized, and handle problems with finesse. In short, you should communicate upward—through your leadership style—a readiness factor that shows you are stronger than your competition.
Two different routes can take you to the top: on the straight-line route, you climb the ladder of your present organization; on the zigzag route, you change employers. The choice you make is critical and should involve a careful study of your own personality, values, and lifestyles.