How to Showcase Your Value Without Bragging

Published July 6, 2023 · Updated April 26, 2024

There are two types of people at work—those who make a lot of noise and others who actually do the work.

Loud ones get the attention and opportunities even though they may not have the skills. Quiet ones keep adding value behind the scenes silently but never get the appreciation and recognition they deserve.

Fear of getting into the spotlight and worry that speaking about their accomplishments will make them come across as a show-off wastes their potential—their contribution gets limited to the scope of the project as they never proactively take the steps to showcase their value and strengths.

Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible. It doesn’t require being noisy or bragging about your knowledge and skills. Just the right intent and a few good practices will do the trick.

You own skills, your capabilities, your expertise, your values, your behaviors, your personal energy, your time, your loyalty. You’re the owner of this human capital, and you decide when, how, and where to invest it. You hold the key to value creation. Therefore, create value, preserve that value, and always anticipate value. The journey from success to significance begins with you.
— Benjamin Kofi Quansah

Here are the 5 practices that can help you share your knowledge and experience with others without appearing boastful:

Don’t wait for your turn

If you share your knowledge and experience only when asked, you may never get the turn. Others will not know that you had something valuable to add because you won’t be able to share your ideas and opinions.

The less you speak, the less others will know about your skills and strengths. The less they know about you, the less they will be inclined to seek your opinion.

Don’t expect others to know your worth or the value you bring to the table. If you want to be seen and want your suggestions to be heard, speak up without being asked.

But be careful. No one likes unsolicited advice or a person who acts like a know-it-all. It’s also hard to trust advice from an unknown person.

When starting out, resist the temptation to tell others what to do. Even if you know the solution or have a better idea on how to do something, don’t share it just yet. Instead, take the time to connect, build meaningful relationships and try to earn their trust. Introduce yourself, share your background and give them the necessary details to get to know you better.

Only when they seem comfortable, ask if they will be willing to hear your opinion. Seeking permission is a great way to showcase your value without appearing boastful.

For example: Let’s say you are attending a meeting on how to integrate chat into your product. If you’ve worked on a similar product before and your ideas can be valuable to the discussion, start by sharing your prior experience, learnings and knowledge. Don’t assume you know best or have all the context. Show curiosity to understand different viewpoints, encourage dissent and show flexibility to change your mind instead of being rigid about your opinion.

Others will value your thought process and appreciate your suggestions once they see that your intent is to enable better decision-making, not show off your brilliance or appear smart.

Boasting is one of those rare outfits that never looks good on you but makes you look stunning when modeled by your admirers.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway

Focus on creating value, let others brag for you.

Help others build valuable skills

You can create a meaningful impact by applying your knowledge and skills to tasks, but working within the boundaries of a project will keep your value limited.

The value you create gets multiplied only when you pass some of your skills to others. When others learn to do what you do well, your work is seen, recognized and appreciated by many. Proactively looking for ways to contribute magnifies and expands your circle of influence.

If you want to showcase your value, don’t limit your contribution to a project. Don’t refuse to share knowledge. Instead do this:

Sign up to mentor others. Mentoring others builds credibility.
Genuinely show interest in helping others.
Be part of problem solving discussions and forums in your organization.
Identify which problems will deliver the biggest impact but are getting ignored. Take initiative to solve them.
Identify your customers and stakeholders unmet needs. Find ways to address them.

Having authentic conversations is very important when engaging with others. Don’t fake knowledge you don’t possess. Don’t try to put on a show. Your value won’t be diminished by saying “I don’t know” to something you actually don’t know.

You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.
— Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime

Confidence is good, but confidence without humility turns into arrogance.

Document your learnings and make them accessible to everyone

If you’re an expert in your domain, knowledgeable in a specific field or done something that might be valuable to others, don’t leave it all in your head.

Document it.

Many people shy away from writing things down waiting for a perfect success story. They fail to share their value because they think they don’t have anything valuable to say. But good learning lessons aren’t just about your achievements, they’re also about the mistakes you made.

Make your knowledge accessible to everyone by documenting and sharing it with everyone. It could be a problem you solved, a decision you made, a project you led, tech architecture design, or just about anything.

Use your company’s blog or just send an email to your team or a relevant group within your organization. Doing this will not only help others learn, it will encourage them to do it too.

This is how to go about it:

Give background/context on the work.
Talk about the decision process. How you evaluated pros/cons, what inputs you considered, who all were involved and how was the decision made.
If it’s a design or process change, give details on the changes along with the thought process.
Share challenges and obstacles along the way. How did you overcome them? What worked? What didn’t work?
Your learnings and a key takeaway.

Do it consistently. Don’t wait for a big opportunity or a great story to share. Start small. Think about your everyday work and what in it could be useful to others. Building a knowledge repository like this is a great way to showcase your value without bragging.

Instead of providing answers, ask relevant questions

When others are blocked, don’t know how to solve a problem or they need input to make a decision, rescuing them by giving them the solution can make you a hero, but it does not lead to value creation.

Giving answers shuts down dialogue. There’s no conversation, no learning and no real connection. It also promotes dependency instead of empowerment.

Value is seen and felt when you enable others to develop critical thinking skills—when you make them think and solve problems on their own.

Asking good questions is a great way to show value because only those with relevant knowledge and experience in a field can engage in a deep conversation:

What problem are they trying to solve?
What have they tried? What worked? What didn’t work?
What other solutions are possible that they have not yet considered?
What small steps can they take to put their ideas into practice?
How can they implement a feedback loop?

Questions have a curious power to unlock new insights and positive behavior change in every part of our lives. They can get people unstuck and open new directions for progress no matter what they are struggling with.
— Hal B. Gregersen, Questions Are the Answer

Asking questions unlocks creativity and expands thinking skills. Enabling others to find their own solution leads to long term value creation for the people and the organization.

Optimize your time to do work that matters

When your calendar is packed with meetings, tasks, projects or other discussions, you may mistakenly equate “being busy” with “value creation.”

Pareto principle states “80% of outcomes come from 20% of effort.” This applies to your time too. 20% of the time spent leads to 80% value creation while the rest goes to waste.

Identifying that 20% is a big deal. Most people get sucked into the daily chaos that comes with their job responsibilities—back-to-back meetings, stakeholder expectations, putting out fires, and rush to meet deadlines. Without being intentional about where and how they spend their time, less time is spent in value creation and more is wasted on keeping busy.

Instead of working long hours or getting caught up in the busyness from doing meaningless work, prioritize spending time on activities that will make a difference:

Only attend meetings where your presence will matter and eliminate or delegate the rest.
Identify areas that will deliver the greatest results with the least effort.
Instead of being swayed by the urgency of the unimportant work, keep your sights on the future.

A free mind is essential to navigate the challenges and complexities of the work environment, to connect in meaningful ways with others and to do work that matters. Jumping from one problem to the next without a breather in between leads to poor choices and bad decisions.

It also gives you an opportunity to review, make corrections and adapt to the future—a great skill to have which is highly regarded at work, but possessed only by a few.

Value creation doesn’t happen overnight and you can’t force others to see your worth. Trying too hard to make yourself visible will only lead to disappointment, frustration and stress.

Summary

If you’re one of those people who has been adding value from behind, it’s time for you to stop hiding and take the front seat.
Stop waiting for others to ask you for guidance and advice. Others can’t know that you have something valuable to add if you never speak. Invest in building meaningful relationships and take your turn to speak up.
Instead of limiting your contribution to the project, expand your circle of influence by helping others build valuable skills. Passing your skills to others multiplies the impact you create.
There are many ways to showcase value and documentation is one of them. By sharing your expertise in writing, you enable others to apply the best practices, make better decisions and prevent them from repeating the same mistakes as you do.
Telling people how to solve a certain problem does not lead to value creation since it promotes dependency instead of empowerment. Add value by challenging others to find their own solutions instead of feeding them answers.
Don’t be misguided by ‘the busy trap.’ Being busy does not lead to value creation. Instead of working long hours, apply the Pareto principle to focus your time and energy on doing work that matters.