Limelight

One of my biggest struggles and a source of significant personal pain is taking the credit. Tooting my own horn. Patting myself on the back. Self-congratulations. Saying “I” instead of “we,” “us,” or “our.” 
I was raised Catholic in the Midwest, which has its influence, and I am sure there are many other sources/excuses. The phrases we grow up with can be hugely telling,

Cream rises to the top. You’ll get yours in the end. Nobody likes a braggart. You KNOW how well you did; why do you need their recognition.

I think a lot of it is my personality, and it has been a challenging mindset to address. For years, I have had a scarcity mindset, and the fact is, there is more than enough limelight to go around. 

I played soccer when I was growing up. I had enough innate talent that I started and typically played most of the game (this was long before I learned how much a little extra training, skill-building, and discipline could pay off). My position was sweeper/stopper, a defensive position that supports both the midfield and defense, kind of a leader/expediter for the back half of the field. I was really good at was breaking up offensive plays.

All details aside, this is classic invisible work to the untrained eye. The few coaches who knew soccer appreciated my value, but most coaches were just dads/moms doing their best and spending more time with their kids. They didn’t see my value, and I never helped them understand my value. I avoided the limelight.

To add to this, there are usually a handful of memorable plays in a season, much less a game, and the glamorous moments are often owned by the forwards taking the shots on the goal and the goalie putting it all out there. The limelight naturally gravitates to the last person to touch the ball.

As tortured as sports analogies can be, team sports are a bunch of humans trying to do something together, which describes life pretty accurately. This circumstance plays out again and again. Whether you’re supporting a boss/manager/client get a big win, facilitating a meeting, or just keeping the wheels on the proverbial bus. This is important work, institutional lubricant, organizational hygiene, and the 80% of the work behind the scenes.

Like everything, there is a dichotomy here. Many times, your job is to work behind the scenes quietly. You’re paid to make your clients look good, whoever they might be. To consistently execute on the basics that help your organization thrive, grow, gain positive recognition. There are also moments when your work is critical when something would never have happened without you.

I’m classically type A, which means that I usually miss these moments in the present. I’m on to the next problem/opportunity. I feel pangs of jealousy, envy, anger, or regret when someone else gets the pat on the back. Sometimes these people have actively stolen the limelight (which is the person I don’t want to be!), and the majority of the time, the credit goes to whoever is obvious or present, just like those youth soccer leagues. Per Marcus Aurelius, “Never ascribe to animosity what can be ascribed to apathy.”

So how do you get better at stepping into the limelight?

I’m a work in progress but I will share what I’ve learned.

First, you need to understand your value. This goes beyond your title or job function. What is the role you typically play in projects or organizational dynamics? Visionary? Details? Risk mitigation? Cat-herder? Keeper of the deadline? Guardian of the scope? Contrarian?

Once you start to understand this “functional title,” you should try it on. A lot of us do this unintentionally. We say things like “as the grammar nerd” or “as the numbers person.” You have the opportunity here to put your words in other people’s mouths. Your colleagues might start repeating your self-appointed “functional title.” This is where you own the narrative! One caveat, make sure you don’t pigeonhole yourself. Try to align your “functional title” with an organizational value or mission.

Bigger picture, I highly recommend keeping a wins board. Good teams do this at least twice a year. We take a few minutes and write down every win we can think of across the team. These are big wins like major projects completed, and “small” wins like fixing a lingering process or getting consensus from another organization. We read the PostIts out loud. It is an amazing reminder of how much the team is doing, where the value is coming from, and all of the work that is going on underneath the hood for those headline wins. Finally, it helps us all pause and appreciate the good work we’ve been doing.

We keep these wins to a spreadsheet that we reference for reviews, justifications for promotions, team presentations, and resumes. It is straightforward to think you will remember your big wins, which you might, but like anyone else, you might be shining the limelight in the wrong place.