Diplomatic Dispatches
Why Real Influence Is the Enemy of Visible Power (And How Diplomats Solve It)
I shared a personal story on LinkedIn earlier this week about negotiating the release of a mistakenly arrested journalist overseas.
It was a significant achievement. Career-defining, even. The kind of diplomatic breakthrough that should have fast-tracked my next promotion.
But the only people who knew about it were our host nation Foreign Minister and my ambassador. Neither of whom were on the promotions panel.
The success of the negotiation depended entirely on discretion. One leaked detail could have torpedoed bilateral relations and landed the journalist back in detention. So I stayed silent while colleagues with flashier but less impactful wins overtook me on the career ladder.
That's when I learned the cruel mathematics of government service: your greatest achievements are often the ones you can never talk about.
The cruel mathematics of career advancement
Here's what they don't teach you in leadership courses: the skills that make you effective are the exact opposite of the skills that get you promoted.
Real influence happens in shadows. Building coalitions behind closed doors. Solving problems before they become headlines. Creating change so seamlessly that people forget it was ever a problem.
But conversely, career advancement requires spotlights, soundbites, and taking credit.
Adam Grant calls this the "giver's trap" - doing the work that makes everything function, but not always getting the credit. You become indispensable but invisible.
I've seen it everywhere. The civil servant who prevented a diplomatic crisis but couldn't articulate their value in a performance review. The diplomat who built trust with hostile governments but watched networkers advance past them. The policy expert whose quiet expertise shaped decisions while colleagues with PowerPoint skills claimed the wins.
It's a challenge particularly prevalent in government, where often our greatest success is what doesn't go wrong. A hugely difficult metric to quantify. The whole DOGE thing is a classic example of this - explain your worth to someone outside the system in 15 minutes or you're fired.
How do you prove the value of a war that never happened?
A crisis that never escalated?
A relationship that never broke down?
The paradox that breaks careers
This creates an impossible choice: Be effective or be promoted. Work in shadows or perform in spotlights. Build real influence or build your personal brand.
Most people pick a side and suffer for it.
The invisible experts hit a career ceiling. Their best work goes unnoticed. They watch less capable but more visible colleagues ascend while their contributions get absorbed into "team efforts."
The spotlight seekers lose credibility. They become known for performance over substance. People stop trusting them with the real work because everything becomes about their personal brand.
The diplomatic solution
But here's what I learned from watching the most effective leaders in government and beyond: you don't choose. You flex.
Invisible influence when you're building trust, coalitions, and results. Strategic visibility when you need recognition, resources, or the next role.
The secret is using your shadow coalitions strategically - the people who witnessed your invisible wins can become your advocates in visible moments. They know what you're capable of even when others don't.
That ambassador who couldn't influence my promotion? He put a quiet word in for me to get my dream posting. The invisible work had created an invisible advocate.
Think of it as a rhythm:
shadow → spotlight → shadow
The best diplomats master both modes. They know when to work behind the scenes and when to step into the light. When to let others take credit and when to claim it themselves.
History often remembers the Goliaths: the presidents, prime ministers, generals. But look closer and you’ll find the Arkhipovs, the Petrov’s, the Kennans - the people who quietly pulled the right lever, brokered the right connection, or said the one ‘no’ that saved millions. Their names rarely appear in headlines, but their fingerprints are everywhere.
Yet these same invisible influencers knew when to emerge. They strategically surfaced their contributions at moments that mattered - budget hearings, succession planning, crisis responses.
Your shadow-to-spotlight playbook
Map your invisibility portfolio: List your shadow wins. What have you accomplished that nobody knows about? These are your strategic assets, waiting for the right moment to surface.
Keep an achievements folder: Document impacts as they happen. Pick 3 high-impact achievements this year that you'll make visible. Not everything needs a spotlight — choose the most impactful that aligns with your career goals.
Practice strategic emergence: Schedule quarterly "credit conversations" with your boss or key sponsors. Share specific examples of your invisible contributions and their impact. This might feel deeply uncomfortable, but it's essential. As a leader of 100+ team members, even with the best intentions, I didn't have visibility into everyone's work. I relied on them to keep me updated — and I trusted them not to inflate.
Build before you claim: Establish real influence through shadow work first. Then use visibility to amplify that foundation, not replace it.
Control the narrative: Don't wait for others to notice your contributions. Create simple, memorable stories about your invisible wins that you can deploy strategically.
This isn't politics for the sake of politics. It's diplomacy for your own career.
The power of strategic rhythm
True power isn't choosing between the shadows and the spotlight. It's controlling when the lights go on and off.
The most effective leaders I know aren't invisible or visible. They're both - flexing in and out of the light with purpose.
They do the real work in shadows, where trust is built and problems are solved. Then they step into the light just long enough to claim credit, secure resources, and earn the next opportunity to retreat back into the shadows and do what they do best.
The shadow work gives them substance. The spotlight work gives them advancement.
So here's my question for you: if you mapped your last year, how much time did you spend in each mode? And more importantly - was it intentional?
Want to master the art of strategic influence? I work with senior leaders who need to navigate complex organizations and drive change without getting trapped in the shadows. If you're ready to build both effectiveness and advancement, let's talk.
