HOW DO I GET MORE VISIBILITY AS A FOUNDER OR LEADER?

HOW TO GET VISIBLE WHEN VISIBILITY FEELS IMPOSSIBLE

Liz Hamlet, Business Growth Strategist & Strategic Leadership Facilitator

Liz Hamlet (Photo Credit: Siobhan Johns Photography)

Getting more visible sounds simple until you've actually got to do it. Now, I want to unpick this because it's a topic that comes up in almost every one of my 1-1 coaching client calls, and often in leadership off-sites too.

I want to explore whether we're approaching visibility or wrong, because often we think of visibility as a marketing problem. But what if it's a leadership problem instead? And the question we're asking ourselves shouldn't be how do I get more visible? Instead it should be what am I afraid visibility will require me to become?

If you've been anywhere on social media as either a founder or a leader, you'll know that you've been told to get more visible about the benefits of personal branding visibility. But getting visible sounds simple until you actually have to do it.

We're told to post more on social media, to speak up, to share our views and put ourselves forward, share ideas. Yet for a lot of really brilliant founders and leaders, being more visible can feel surprisingly uncomfortable, because there's two sides of the coin. You can be incredibly confident in your own expertise, but still hate putting yourself in the spotlight.

And I think we're asking ourselves the wrong question. So instead of asking how do I become more visible? Instead ask what does being visible mean to me? Because we can often get visibility mixed up with attention, we've become obsessed with visibility as metrics. So more followers, more views, impressions and engagement.

But that attention isn't the same as having influence. And we can mistakenly think that we need more people looking at us. But instead, for me, visibility means having the right people understanding what you stand for, either as a founder or a leader, and what you can help them with.

Because a founder with 500 really super relevant people paying attention to them can be more visible strategically than someone with 50,000 followers.

And I've spoken about this before in a previous podcast episode. But this is the same for corporate leaders, because being the loudest person in the room isn't leadership.

You want to be someone whose perspective people seek out. Because instead of mistaking visibility for being seen by everyone, what we should really be seeking is being visible and being known for something.

And sometimes the fear comes up. I often hear people saying, I don't want to be visible. But actually what's lying behind that is a fear of being judged. And this is where I think visibility gets super interesting. Because often the resistance we have to being more visible isn't about actually being seen, it's about being evaluated, judged.

What if I put out a differing view and people disagree?

What if as a founder, someone thinks I'm arrogant for talking about how I can solve my clients problems?

Sometimes what's even worse is that fear that what if nobody even cares?

And we talk a lot often about comparisonitis and comparing ourselves to our competitors, but what if by being visible, suddenly we become responsible for living up to a version of ourselves that we've put out there?

So perhaps the challenge and the fear of being visible isn't about confidence. Perhaps it's all about our relationship with other people's opinions. And the truth of the matter is we can't actually control what other people think of us. We can't control being judged.

What we can control is whether being judged gets to make your decisions for you. And the more senior you become, whether that's in your corporate leadership career or as a founder yourself, the more important your perspective becomes.

Sometimes when we fear getting visible, it's because we fear that visibility equals self promotion.

But here's where I want to outline the difference between making yourself the centre of attention and making your thinking available. And that availability of thinking is because your team needs to know what you think. Your market needs to understand what you believe in. Your clients and prospective clients need to understand how you see their problem differently.

And the flip side of not being visible, if you've got a point of view and you're keeping it hidden, you're not being humble. What you're doing is potentially withholding something really useful to someone else. And here's where I think the important difference is between thinking visibility means look at me versus actually what it is, is... saying here's what I've noticed.

Another mistake that I see a lot of founders that come to work with me for one to one programs and coaching is that they think that visibility means you need to become an online personality, a celebrity.

And this is a big one for, for founders because you don't have to dance on LinkedIn or Instagram or TikTok. You don't need to manufacture controversy just to get likes and views. You don't need to share your breakfast or your morning gym routine or every single thought that you've had... unless you want to, of course!

You definitely don't need to turn your whole personality into a marketing strategy. And the message I always say to my clients is that...

You can be visible in a way that feels like you, that feels right for you. And that might be in a more quiet way, it might be being more intellectual or through your ideas, through conversation, through themes that you're seeing.

And the goal here isn't to perform, it's to actually become more recognisable in your views.

So maybe instead of the question of how do I get more visible, maybe the real question is actually...

What are you willing to be known for?

And this is where visibility becomes really strategic...

• What is it that you want people to associate with your name when they hear it?

• What do you have a strong opinion about?

• What problem do you want to be invited into?

• What conversations do you want to be part of?

Because once you understand that, once you understand the answer to those questions, visibility becomes less about actually just creating content and it becomes more about consistently reinforcing a point of view.

So if you take anything away from reading this, it's that visibility isn't something to fear, because it doesn't mean becoming louder or becoming different or changing your personality. It actually means getting clearer with vocalising your thinking and opinion.

And you don't need everyone to know who you are. It's just about finding the right people and helping them to know and understand what you stand for, what you see, your viewpoint and why it matters.

And perhaps the biggest visibility shift for you is to stop asking yourself, how can I get people to notice me? And instead start asking...

What would I say if I wasn't worried about whether people notice me or not?

If you found this useful, I want to introduce you to The Next Move, which is my free weekly Friday newsletter for founders and leaders, which feels like sitting down with me on a Friday morning for a quick strategic reset over a cuppa to help you think differently about how you lead your business.

The Next Move is helping you to finish the week with clarity, to know what actually matters and the underlying issues that you might be struggling struggling with that aren't always the thing that's presenting and helping you make your next move with more confidence. So every Friday, free, join hundreds of founders and leaders who are getting one strategic shift, one common mistake, one practical action, and one powerful question.

I want to leave you with one thought, which is that you don't need to be everywhere, you just need to be unmistakable in the places that matter.

Where is that for you?