Welcome to The Iconic Edge. The world of work is changing, and it's your greatest opportunity. Each week, I show you how to find, elevate, and monetise your iconic identity, so you turn the AI age to your advantage.
For many years, part of my job was sitting in the rooms where careers got decided. Promotion panels. Interview rooms. Talent reviews. The ‘quiet word’ before a shortlist went out.
(Two decades of lukewarm coffee and laminated competency frameworks. I've earned my opinions on this one!)
Let me tell you what actually went on behind those doors…
The woman being discussed was never in the room. But her work was there, on paper. The numbers, the ratings, the manager's write-up, all sitting in the file.
And it rarely decided things on its own. Her reputation did what the people around the table already believed about her.
Even when the work was, by the numbers, excellent, the view of her in the room won.
And more often than not, that view was less than her work deserved.
The work is the baseline. Your reputation is the edge.
We're trained to believe the work speaks for itself. Do it well, let the results do the talking, and the right people notice. It's the classy version of ambition, and most of us were raised on it.
But the work stays at your desk. Your reputation is what walks into the room.
And if you've let the work talk for you all these years, it can walk in saying far less than you would in person.
We under-rate ourselves, too. A 2019 study of over 4,000 people found women rate their own performance lower than men who did exactly as well, even with nothing to gain by holding back. And it starts young, in girls as young as 11.
So we do brilliant work, then let it go unspoken.
This matters more now than just a year ago. Good work used to be rare, and being good was enough to stand out. It isn't rare any more. AI turns out polished, professional work on demand.
Being known for your particular brand of work is what matters now.
How to start promoting yourself for future ‘rooms’
1. Translate a win from effort into result.
Take one thing you did recently and say it as an outcome, not a task. "I worked on the onboarding project" becomes "I cut new-hire ramp-up from 12 weeks to 8." Put a number on it wherever you can. Where there's no number, name the consequence: what's now possible, or what stopped going wrong, because of you.
Effort is invisible. A result is the thing that travels into the rooms you're not in.
Say it in your next update, your one-to-one, or your interview, plainly, without the softening preamble many of us add. (You know like. "It was really a team effort” )
2. Teach one thing in public.
Pick something you know cold, ideally something a colleague has thanked you for explaining, and share it where your industry can see it. A short LinkedIn post, a proper comment under the right article, five minutes at the top of a meeting.
Of all the ways to be visible, teaching is the one that builds authority: you help someone with what you know, and they remember who helped.
It keeps working for you long after you've posted it.
3. Sharpen how you introduce yourself, outside your own building.
Inside your company, your reputation already exists. It's the outside world where you start from scratch, the conference, the networking event, the industry panel, the new contact who just opened your LinkedIn profile.
That's where most of us blurt out a job title and stop. "I'm Head of Operations at [company]" names the slot you fill.
Your value is the part that’s memorable, so lead with that: "I help [these people] do [this thing]," or "I'm the one who [specific result]."
Write your version once, then use it everywhere.
The Bottom Line
Your work earns your salary. Your reputation earns your choices.
When the next opportunity gets decided in a room you're not in, your reputation is the only version of you at that table. It's worth tending to.
And the rooms are changing rapidly in this growing AI era. The promotion panel or interview is just today's version.
Tomorrow it's a client choosing who to bring onto a project, a freelance opportunity you’re perfect for, or someone passing your name on when the next ‘must have’ contract comes up.
A salary is tied to one employer. A reputation comes with you.
So this week, let one piece of your best work be heard. Say it plainly, in a room that matters. It's a small thing, and it's how a reputation starts to carry you, now and into whatever comes next.
Do that often enough and the chasing quietly stops.
Your name starts doing the work for you, in all the rooms you'll never sit in.
All my best,
Nichola
P.S. Something is building here, and it grows one woman at a time. If this spoke to you, forward it to someone who belongs in it. We rise together.