Most people believe that if they work hard, take ownership and deliver results, a successful career will naturally follow. I believed that too — until I became a leader.
What I see now is the flaw in that thinking.
Many of the real rules of advancement inside organizations are never written down, rarely taught and almost never intentionally coached.
Early in my career, I assumed productivity alone would separate top performers from everyone else. I said yes to every project. I worked long hours. I delivered early and asked for more. From where I sat, effort felt like currency.
What I didn’t understand then — and what many employees still don’t understand today — is that while some people are heads-down executing, others are heads-up navigating the enterprise.
As leaders, this is the gap we’re responsible for closing.
Below are six unspoken rules founders and business leaders must actively coach if they want to develop future leaders rather than burn out their highest performers.
Rule 1: Hard work is the baseline, not the differentiator
In high-performing organizations, hard work is assumed. Effort gets people in the game, but it rarely determines who advances. What separates people is how clearly their work connects to what leadership actually cares about.
I learned this early in my career at Microsoft. I was surrounded by people who were just as smart and just as hardworking as I was. I said yes to everything, delivered quickly, and took pride in my output. Productivity felt like progress.
What I eventually realized was that leaders weren’t rewarding volume. They were rewarding relevance.
Peers with similar workloads were pulled into cross-functional initiatives, leadership discussions, and opportunities I didn’t even know existed. The difference wasn’t how much work they were doing — it was how they talked about their work. They framed it in terms of business impact rather than technical execution. They connected their projects to growth, efficiency, or transformation in language leaders recognized immediately.
Once I stopped describing what I built and started explaining why it mattered, everything changed. My workload didn’t increase. My visibility did.
Most employees default to reporting tasks unless leaders teach them otherwise. A simple coaching habit is to ask team members to explain their work in one sentence that ties directly to a company priority.
Rule 2: Visibility comes from alignment, not volume
Doing more work doesn’t make someone more visible. Doing the right work, in the right forums, does.
Many employees assume visibility comes from being busy or indispensable. In reality, visibility is created when work moves what matters most.
I’ve seen careers accelerate when people volunteered for enterprise initiatives or cross-functional efforts with executive sponsorship — even when those projects sat outside their formal role. These opportunities create exposure, trust and advocates that day-to-day execution rarely does.
Presence matters, too. Remote work is efficient, but visibility requires intention. Trust is built through context, proximity, and informal interaction.
If leaders don’t clarify where visibility comes from, employees either overwork or disengage. Be explicit about which initiatives matter, where leadership attention is focused, and how people can contribute beyond their immediate scope.
Rule 3: Relationships are a productivity multiplier, not a distraction
Many high performers believe relationship-building takes time away from “real work.” In reality, it removes friction from the work.
The people I’ve seen advance fastest were rarely the ones doing everything themselves. They were the ones who knew who to call, how decisions actually get made, and where resistance would show up before it did.
I learned this firsthand working across cultures and geographies early in my career. Once trust was established, decisions moved faster—not slower. Relationships created leverage.
Normalize relationship-building as a cultural expectation. Encourage structured cross-functional exposure and reward collaboration. When relationships are treated as optional, execution becomes harder than it needs to be.
Rule 4: Leaders promote capability signals, not just competence
When leaders decide who’s ready for more responsibility, they look beyond metrics.
The first signal I look for is self-awareness. Leaders want to know you understand your strengths and development areas. Self-aware people ask for help at the right moments, which builds confidence in their judgment.
Next is enterprise awareness—the ability to understand strategic priorities and frame decisions in terms leaders recognize as aligned.
Finally, people skills matter. Results are critical, but how those results are delivered matters just as much. Leaders notice who can move work forward without burning bridges.
Reward self-awareness, not false confidence. Teach employees how to frame decisions in enterprise terms and intervene early when results come at the expense of trust.
Rule 5: Managers can’t advocate for what they can’t see
Once I started participating in talent review sessions, a clear pattern emerged. People who were promoted had simple, repeatable narratives attached to them: reliable, strategic, strong cross-functional partner.
Those narratives weren’t created through last-minute self-promotion. They were built over time through consistent communication.
Teach managers and employees that structured updates enable effective advocacy. Simple weekly or biweekly updates covering progress, risks managed, and what’s next make promotion decisions more informed and more fair.
Rule 6: The system rewards patterns, not potential
When organizations promote or restructure, they reduce risk by advancing people who already look like they’re operating at the next level. How someone communicates, handles ambiguity, and makes decisions matters as much as what they deliver.
Early in my career, I benchmarked myself against people one level above me — not my peers. By practicing those behaviors early, I became a safer promotion choice when opportunities emerged. I encourage the same approach in career conversations today.
Make next-level expectations explicit. When people don’t know what “ready” looks like, promotions will always feel political.
The leadership advantage most companies miss
These rules exist in every organization, whether leaders acknowledge them or not. When founders fail to teach them, employees learn through trial, error, and burnout. When founders teach them explicitly, development accelerates and trust deepens.
The real advantage isn’t just better performance — it’s creating a culture where people understand how work is actually valued, feel empowered in their careers and are equipped to grow.
If you want a final polish for a specific outlet (LinkedIn, blog, internal memo) or a tighter executive cut, just say the word.
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