🎖️ Building Authority
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Part 1: Why Being “Helpful” Caps Your Growth
Part 2: What Authority Actually Looks Like
Part 3: The Hidden Tests Leaders Run on You
Part 4: Your First Strategic “No”
Part 5: Creating Friction That Builds Trust
Part 6: From Proving to Positioning
Part 7: Clarifying Problems Instead of Solving Them
Part 8: Becoming Someone Leaders Don’t Have to Manage
Part 9: Owning the Framing, Not Just the Answer
Part 10: Getting Invited Before Decisions Form
Part 11: Being the Name They Say First
Part 12: When People Defer to Your Judgment
👉 Part 1.
Why Being “Helpful” Caps Your Growth
The Good Soldier Trap: Why being the reliable person who says “yes” to everything silently stalls your career.
5 hard truths about how being “trusted” quietly caps your growth: Understanding the ceiling that comes with being a reliable executor.
Silent Career Killer #42: The Low-Maintenance Trap: Why being “easy to manage” can make you invisible for promotion.
You’re being praised into stagnation: How to handle managers who give you compliments but never sponsorship.
👉 Part 2.
What Authority Actually Looks Like
The 7 Questions UX Directors Ask That Senior ICs Don’t: Shifting your inquiry to match a leadership level.
Silent Career Killer #28: Being “too coachable”: Why you need to move from “learning mode” to “expert mode” to be seen as an authority.
5 Reasons You Still Don’t Feel Like a UX Leader: Internal shifts required to project external authority.
Expertise without Executive Presence: (Silent Career Killer #45) Bridging the gap between what you know and how you are perceived.
👉 Part 3.
The Hidden Tests Leaders Run on You
You’re Being Ranked in Rooms You’ll Never Enter: How leaders assess your readiness when you aren’t present.
Most “readiness” tests are theater: (Hard Truth #7) Why waiting for “evidence” is a losing game and how to design your own tests.
The Unofficial Path to UX Leadership: Navigating the unspoken rules of moving into management.
👉 Part 4.
Your First Strategic “No”
The Art of the Strategic “No”: How to push back on requests in a way that increases your authority.
Silent Career Killer #25: The Hidden Cost of “Yes”: How eagerness to please sabotages your professional standing.
Growth often requires subtraction, not addition: (Hard Truth #6) The power of saying no to stay focused on high-impact work.
👉 Part 5.
Creating Friction That Builds Trust
The Designer Who Made a CEO Cry (And Got Promoted for It): Using professional friction to build deep strategic trust.
Silent Career Killer #15: Avoiding PRODUCTIVE conflict: Why keeping the peace is often a career risk.
Is Your Team Fighting... or Innovating?: Using a 3-color system to diagnose and navigate team tension.
👉 Part 6.
From Proving to Positioning
How to Move from “High-Performing” to “Promotion-Ready”: Shifting your focus from “doing more” to “positioning well”.
Why Good Designers Stay Stuck While Mediocre Ones Get Promoted: Identifying the “X factor” beyond craft that leaders look for.
The Year I Worked Harder Than Ever… But My Level Stayed the Same: A framework for ensuring your effort translates to measurable career growth.
The Hidden Work That Gets You Promoted: Making strategic, “invisible” work visible to decision-makers.
👉 Part 7.
Clarifying Problems Instead of Solving Them
Solving the Wrong Problem Perfectly: Why the most valuable work happens before a single pixel is moved.
How a UX team lost $2M by listening to users: A lesson in clarifying business strategy over reactive feature building.
Silent Career Killer #13: Overcomplicating the Problem-Solving Process: Shifting toward strategic clarity instead of process theater.
👉 Part 8.
Becoming Someone Leaders Don’t Have to Manage
Leadership Launchpad: A 90-day toolkit for operating with high independence.
Stop being “forgettably good”: (Silent Career Killer #17) Moving from a reliable “pair of hands” to a self-directed partner.
👉 Part 9.
Owning the Framing, Not Just the Answer
You Sound Like You’re Selling Cupcakes, Not Solving Business Problems: How to frame design work in executive language.
Silent Career Killer #27: One Framing Mistake That Hurts Your Career: Reframing insights for the stakeholders who control the roadmap.
Reframing UX impact: From numbers to narratives: Moving from dry metrics to strategic stories.
👉 Part 10.
Getting Invited Before Decisions Form
The Shadow Org Chart: Mapping the informal power that determines who gets a seat early.
The Corridor Advantage (What Happens Outside the Room): Pre-meeting influence strategies.
Silent Career Killer #10: Waiting to be invited: Why waiting for permission to lead is a career bottleneck.
👉 Part 11.
Being the Name They Say First
When they think UX, do they think YOU?: Mastering “top of mind” awareness in your organization.
Silent Career Killer #29: Being “under-remembered”: How to fix low recall despite high impact.
Stop Being “FORGETTABLY GOOD” at UX: (Silent Career Killer #17) Tactics for being memorable to senior leadership.
👉 Part 12.
When People Defer to Your Judgment
Risk is the Real Language of Leadership: Earning deference by being the person who manages risk.
Your UX Skills Are Worthless (Without This): Identifying the core judgment that makes technical skills valuable.
Mistaking Strategic Fluency for Strategic Power: (Silent Career Killer #32) Why knowing the language isn’t enough; you must wield judgment.