Busy ≠ Valuable: How to Prioritize Work That Gets You Promoted

If your calendar is jammed and your to-do list never ends and you still like your career isn't moving forward, it's time to rethink what impact actually looks like. If you're sick of working the long hours,

giving it your all and still getting passed over, this episode of Leading Women in Tech is gonna help you figure out where to stop wasting effort and instead allow you to start focusing

on the work that actually gets you promoted. Let's talk about your daily reality. If you're like many of the women I talk to on a daily basis,

You're doing more than ever. Late nights, overflowing inbox, meetings back to back. But when you finally lift your head up from the chaos, it hits you.

You're not actually moving forward. You're producing, you're the go-to, but you're not getting promoted. You're not being pulled into higher level conversations

and your work, however excellent it is, isn't translating into real executive visibility. Here's the truth, no one tells women leaders early enough. Busyness doesn't equal value.

And being the one who gets it done won't get you promoted, not at the executive level. That's because strategic leaders don't just work harder, they choose better.

They prioritize work that moves the business forward and positions themselves for their next role. In today's episode, I'm going to help you shift out of firefighting mode and into strategic leadership.

When you're snowed under and just trying to stay afloat, How do you figure out what the work is that will make a difference to your career? We're talking about all the things you need

to be seen and taken seriously. What impactful work actually looks like, the difference between effort and executive influence, and how to start prioritizing the work

that actually gets you promoted. Because staying busy will keep you exactly where you are. So do yourself a one favor this week and take the next 30 minutes to learn the shifts

you need to make and how to implement them to unlock your next level of career, all with less stress and less burnout. It's time to lead differently

and I'm here to show you how. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Leading Women in Tech podcast, the show that celebrates women in technology leadership.

I'm your host, Toni Collis, and this podcast is the result of my passion for building better tech by diversifying the leadership of the technology sector.

Join me on this journey as I discuss all things leadership, what it takes to be innovative, breaking through the glass ceiling, be a great leader, and how to navigate the unique experiences

we face as women in tech. So sit back, grab your headphones, and get ready to be inspired to become a better leader. Let's talk about why smart capable women like you

stay stuck in this busy trap. This isn't a personality flaw. is not because you're disorganized, bad at prioritizing or don't have enough executive presence.

It's a pattern and a very, very common one. If you're a woman in tech in leadership, you're likely to have been conditioned into this. You've been told implicitly or explicitly

that being helpful is how you prove your value. I was actually told early in my career that I couldn't afford to say no. I have to say yes to everything.

That was a bit of advice given to me. One of the worst pieces of advice I've ever been given. But being that go-to person is how you don't get noticed. The work harder, taking on more, or we're saying yes,

isn't how you earn trust. You are trustworthy, you are capable, but if your performance is always rooted in volume and not visibility and strategy,

you'll eventually hit a ceiling. Maybe you're already there. Because here's the truth, Being the reliable one is a trap.

You do the work, no one else wants to. You fix the problems others ignore. You carry the team across the finish line, but instead of elevating your career,

all that output actually crowds out your strategic influence. You're too busy to think big. You're too busy to raise your head and say,

hey, there's a better way. Let me tell you about a client of mine. We'll call her Kendra. Kendra was a senior director of product

at a hyperscale startup when she came to me. She was known for getting things done. Her roadmap execution was flawless. Her team loved her,

but she kept getting passed over for promotion. Why? Well, because her calendar was wall to wall. She was in the weeds constantly.

She had this amazing team under her. She was in charge of the whole of product, but when discussions came around about product leadership, she was excluded.

And instead, Leigh Ship was given to the newly promoted VP of engineering. Oh yeah. Here's what's actually going on.

Kendra had zero time for strategic planning or cross functional influence. The exact things her boss needed to see in a VP. But her peer in engineering was making sure

they were seen this way. So he was promoted. What changed? Well, we worked together to redefine her value,

not just everything she could do, but as where her leadership had the biggest impact on the organization. She started delegating more, saying no more.

And more importantly, she started carving out time for strategic work every single week. And guess what? Six months later, she got the promotion.

I'll admit, we needed to do some strategic realignment work in the business to convince them that they should back ahead of product alongside engineering.

The fact that Kendra needed to be a peer of engineering or rather than engineering or product owning the whole lot. But by allowing herself time for strategic thinking, this became a fairly simple exercise

in advocating how the business would generate more revenue by ensuring that road mats were developed and fully owned by product. Kendra wasn't just seen as the reliable anymore.

She was seen as the strategic leader, the visionary leader and the organisation needed to promote her. Here's the real point. They can't afford to not promote her by the time we did this work.

And I think this is where so many of us fall down. We don't realise that promotion is far less about what we want and far more about what the business needs.