The Introvert Leader

How to Get Noticed By The C-Suite

• Austin Hopkins

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0:00 | 11:53

Hard work alone won’t get you noticed by the people who run the company. Promotions and big opportunities usually go to the people executives know, trust, and remember. In this episode, I’m breaking down how to get on the radar of the C-suite and what you need to do to stand out when the big opportunities appear.


Timestamps

0:54 – Storytime: The time I met the COO and made an impression.

3:04 – Every Moment Counts: Treat any interaction with the C-Suite like the Olympics.

6:57 – Get In Their Mind: When you understand how you think, you can tailor your approach. 

8:42 – Get Visible: When they don't know you, they can help you. 

10:25 – What Im Learning Right Now: A new segment where I share something I'm learning recently. Let me know what you think in the comments. 

11:08 – Challenge for Listeners: Get visible in the next two weeks. 



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SPEAKER_00

You can be the hardest working person in the company and still be completely invisible to the people who decide your future. Nobody tells you that. You keep delivering results, putting in the effort, and wondering why some people keep moving up faster than you. The reality is, moving up is rarely just about working the hardest. It's about who the executive team knows, trusts, and thinks about when the big opportunities pop up. Most folks have no idea how to get on the radar of the C-suite, and it holds them back their entire career. Today, I'm gonna help you change that. Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast. If you haven't hit the follow button yet, take 10 seconds, click it for me. It helps me grow the show and ensures you don't miss any of the value I'm dropping this year. With that, let's jump into it. So I want to start by telling you a quick story. I spent the first part of my career terrified of the C-suite. If an executive came into my office, I would find any excuse to stay quiet or be invisible. Can you say fake bathroom break? Now I'm not sure if it was the introvert in me or maybe I just didn't want all the, you know, pressure of their attention, but I watched others do the opposite. But for some reason, I couldn't figure out a way to put myself out there. Well, you don't have to be a genius to realize it didn't help my career. No one at the top knew my name, and I stayed right where I was year after year. Well, eventually something clicked, and I realized I didn't have to fear these mysterious, powerful beings. They were just people. People who truthfully held the keys to the future of my career success. So I remember one day in 2019 when I heard the COO of the Fortune 100 bank I worked at was going to be stopping by my office to tour, meet the team, and see how our new experimental business model was working out. We had heard about a week prior he'd be coming out, so I spent all morning looking out the window, waiting for him to arrive. Out of nowhere, I see a blacked out Lincoln town car pull up and outstepped our COO. He walks into our office, no posse, just him. I met him at the door, extended my hand to introduce myself. I was sweating profusely under my suit, but I knew I had to make a good impression and treat this guy like he was one of our clients. I had to be confident, I had to be helpful, and I had to be knowledgeable. So we asked for the tour and to meet the rest of the team. The whole time we walk around, he's asking me questions, and I do my best to be honest and positive about our business model, even though things weren't perfect. Twenty minutes later, he just slips out the door into his car. And then later that night, I get a text from my wife. We both work at the same company but in different orgs. She asked me if the COO had been to my office earlier in the day, and I said, yeah. She tells me she just randomly met him at a major company event, and he remembered meeting me and said he was really impressed by how my office and I showed up. I started smiling on the phone and ended that day with the most swag I had had in months. Over the next week, I got more messages and attaboys from people in the company about this visit than you could even imagine. I felt like a freaking rock star. That 20 minutes set me up for the next season of my career. And the reality is every moment you interact with the C-suite matters. So today I want to help you understand how to get noticed by the most powerful people in your company. So the first thing I want to cover is why every moment counts. Every interaction with the executive team is invaluable. They are busy people with limited bandwidth, so you don't have unlimited chances to make a lasting impression. It's your job to treat every interaction, even brief, like it's the Olympics. If you know you're going to be interacting with someone from the C-suite, you have to prepare. You got to prepare by knowing your business numbers, your metrics, your challenges, your goals. You got to prepare by knowing what the executive team has recently communicated. What's important to them right now? What's their goal for the org? What do they just mention on an all-hands call? What do they just post about on the corp website? They want to make sure that the people beneath them understand the business and can actually speak to it. Even 20 minutes of prep before a meeting and executive instantly gives you a confidence to show up to be your best and demonstrate that you actually get it. Winging it won't work. They expect substance. So you're prepared. The next thing is you got to have executive presence. The executive team expects executive presence. Shocker, I know, but you'd be surprised by how many times I saw coworkers ask inappropriate questions or act immaturely around the C-suite team. That means you better be looking and sounding put together. The easiest way to show up the right way is to watch the leaders ahead of you. How are they acting? What are they not saying? What are they saying? Never get too granular. Remember your audience and never get negative. Both of these will instantly show that you're junior. Executives want to see that you can hold yourself to a higher level. If you act the part, chances are you're more likely to get the part. The next key to maximizing every moment is to be a storyteller. The C-suite needs wins and they live for a good story. Any opportunity you have to tell a story that has stakes and a successful outcome, do it. Stories have a cool way of cutting through the noise and grabbing attention. Everyone else is sharing metrics and numbers, but if you can tell a story, they're going to remember that. Track your wins and then tie them to what the executive team has shared previously. Send an email and CC the executive team with a story that shows an amazing cross-org collab and you will instantly get on their radar. Keep it brief, non-braggy, and focused on the company's big priorities. Now, I thought it could be fun to give you two examples of C-suite interactions that you have to nail. The first one would be an employee roundtable. So let's say you get invited to an employee roundtable with some of the executives at your company. They want to figure out what's on your mind and how things are going. You may be tempted to just show up, listen, and maybe work up the courage to speak up later. Now, that's amateur stuff. You have to be better than that. This is your moment. This is the stage to show who you are and what you may bring to the table. So come to the roundtable with some realistic ideas. Share honest feedback, but with a positive outlook. Remember, no negativity. For example, let's say you think the company could get better at sharing info with people lower down in the company. You might say something like, Hey, I think our company does so many things well, but one area I think we could optimize is communication. I know how important the executive team's vision is, and I think there could be an opportunity to help our more junior teammates understand the why behind our decisions. One way to help with this could be inviting certain teammates with influence to existing senior meetings, almost as a way to have them observe the vision and then help spread it within the company. So there, I'm being realistic, I'm being honest, but I'm also offering a solution. Here's another C-suite interaction that you have to nail. So let's say one day you find yourself on an email chain with someone from the C-suite. They may be reaching out to you or someone in the org about a problem. And I've seen people mess this up badly. So let me help you avoid the mistakes. First, speed is the name of the game. If they're reaching out, they want an answer at maximum by the end of the day. Ideally, you'd respond within the hour. Second, they only want the pertinent high-level details. Save all the micro stuff for someone else. Imagine you are in their position. They have an incredibly short amount of time, so give them only what they need to know to make a decision. Here's how I'd respond: I would give context, a theme, pattern, or problem you observed, and then what solution might work. Pro tip, always use bullets and keep it very brief. So I want to switch gears a little bit and help you get into the mind of the C-suite. If you want to get noticed by the executive team, you have to understand what their motivations are. As a senior leader for more than five years, I had the opportunity to spend hundreds of hours studying what made the C-suite tick. I'm going to share with you four things that help me understand what they wanted and needed. So the first thing, they wanted solutions, not problems. The C-suite faces headwinds every week, budget constraints, market shifts, you name it. Most of their time is spent trying to get ahead of the problems all while joining endless meetings. This is why they have no time for more problems. What they value most are people that offer solutions. If you solve a problem for the C-suite, you become invaluable. Bring them more problems, and you actually hurt your rep. That doesn't mean hiding the problem. It just means you better be doing your best to solve it or at minimum do the legwork of finding a well-thought-out solution. The next insight around the C-suite is they want honesty, but never negativity. The average executive wants to know what's happening in their org, but they don't want all of that emotional complaining. Negativity shows them that you either can't handle the work that you're facing or that you can't understand that your negativity hurts the culture or in some cases their reputation as a leader. The next one is that they want supporters and advocates for their vision. Executives want to know that their ideas are being executed, right? They come up with these ideas, these initiatives, and they want to make sure that they actually happen. They want to know whether the company's problems are being taken seriously and addressed. And they need people throughout the company to bring their ideas to life. So if you show an executive that their vision is being executed, they will never forget it. And finally, the executive team is macro to a fault. As an executive, they have to think with a 30,000-foot view. That means they don't have time or energy to get into the details. So if you start getting too detailed with them, you're going to watch their eyes glaze over. Everything you share has to be condensed into themes and patterns, but always be ready to back it up with details if necessary. Okay, I want to move on and talk about how to get visible. So the more visible you are, the better you position yourself for promotions, better compensation in your career. If an exec knows you, it gives you a supporter with the most power. So the first thing to do is to pick stuff you know the executive team is going to see. So I worked at three different financial institutions during my career, and at each, I became the face of their training videos. I'd get approached to help the training team show employees the expert way to do stuff. Was I experienced with this at the beginning? Nope. Was I nervous? Yep. But did I do it anyways? Yeah. I knew the executives would see my face and associate me with expertise and value. It was an easy way to attach myself to something with high visibility and perceived quality. And guess what? Every year these videos were shown to thousands of teammates, and I still get people reaching out to me to tell me they saw my videos and love them. The bottom line is pick big stuff to attach yourself to, and you're gonna have plenty of visibility. The next way to get visible is to always raise your hand quickly when they're trying new tech or initiatives. Executives want to feel important and that their ideas matter. So show them that you're making their initiatives important. When they roll out a new routine, an expectation or technology, be the first to do it and then share success stories broadly. Always say yes, follow through and deliver. This will get you seen more than just performing in your role. They're gonna remember it. And then next time they need someone to execute something important, guess what? They're gonna come to you because they know you can deliver. I actually had a friend reach out to me this week to tell me he raised his hand to help with a new AI tool that the company is testing out. Every company right now is bringing in AI tools, and this is instantly gonna help him stand out from the crowd and get visible. What could happen if you could help the executive team bring their ideas to life? Just imagine. So we talked about why every moment matters. We talked about how to get in the mind of the C-suite, and then we talked about how to get visible. What I want to do is transition into a new section of the episode I'm gonna be trying out today. So I thought it'd be fun to share with you something I've been learning recently. I've been learning the power in failing fast. I'm reading Phil Knight's book, Shoe Dog, and the book is his memoir and the history of Nike. Now, early on in the book, you can tell Phil Knight isn't afraid of failing. He will try almost anything if he believes in it. He's rarely ready and instead just trusts his judgment and his ability to pivot if things go south. Now, the book is fantastic and has completely inspired me to be a little less precious when I try new things. You know, whether it's when I'm working on a new coaching package or a leadership course. And I think it has so many applicable insights to your career as well. You know, getting notice requires taking risks. And Phil Knight is a great example that action beats perfection. So I want to move on to a challenge. I want you to find a way to get visible in the next two weeks. Maybe it's sending a success story email or volunteering to take on a new initiative. Whatever you choose, I want you to commit, I want you to see it through, and I want you to share your wins broadly. I hope you learned a little today. I hope you figured out a little bit more about how to get noticed by the C-suite. The more you can get a solid read on what makes the executive team tick, the easier this gets. So keep observing and taking risks. And I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

Contributor

Austin Hopkins

Host