You’re grinding. You’re pushing through. You’re delivering. But is anyone noticing?
In corporate world, execution and independence are table stakes. But real impact, and real career growth, come from something more: alignment, visibility, and sponsorship.
Pushing Through Is Necessary, But Not Sufficient
As I wrote in Pushing Through, the ability to keep going through ambiguity and resistance is critical. It builds resilience. It earns trust.
But grit alone doesn’t guarantee your work will land. You might deliver a technically elegant solution that no one uses. You might solve a problem no one is prioritizing. You might operate so independently that leadership doesn’t know what you’re solving for.
Going solo might get the job done—but not the recognition, the resourcing, or the strategic influence.
Lone Wolves Are Often Misunderstood or Misaligned
In The Lone Wolf, I explored the idea that what feels like independence is often invisibility.
Data teams face a unique challenge: our work is often an intermediary. We’re not building products; we’re enabling decisions. That makes storytelling, alignment, and context all the more critical. If your stakeholders or leaders don’t understand what you’re doing, they can’t support it. And they won’t fight for it.
Alignment: Know the Game You’re Playing
Alignment means tying your work to what matters for the business—not just what’s technically interesting.
Ask yourself:
- Who is this work for?
- What decision does it influence?
- How does it connect to our goals?
Avoid the trap of perfecting something no one’s waiting for. It’s better to deliver 80% of something important than 100% of something irrelevant.
Visibility: Tell the Story of Your Work
If a model improves accuracy but no one knows, did it really help?
Visibility isn’t self-promotion. It’s stakeholder communication. It’s helping others connect the dots between what you’re building and what they care about.
Think: demos, pre-reads, Slack posts, dashboards with context, regular updates.
Think: hallway conversations that turn into lightbulb moments.
Don’t assume people will infer your value. Make it legible.
Sponsorship: You Need Advocates
Great work needs champions at the table where decisions are made.
Sponsorship isn’t about politics—it’s about leverage. Sponsors can help unlock budget, headcount, and strategic airtime.
You earn sponsors by:
- Being reliable and outcome-focused
- Making others successful
- Communicating clearly and often
Look for leaders who benefit from your success. Help them win—and they’ll help you win too.
Closing
Doing great work is the floor, not the ceiling.
If your work isn’t aligned, visible, and sponsored, you’re not on the path to lasting success—no matter how good your code, dashboard, or analysis is.
The real leadership muscle? Doing the work and getting it seen, understood, and backed.