The Friday Update

Here’s a pattern I see in talented leaders constantly. They do excellent work, they keep their heads down, and they assume the work speaks for itself.

It doesn’t. The work doesn’t speak. You do.

Your boss isn’t withholding recognition. Most of the time, they simply don’t see the work — they’re managing their own altitude, their own pressures, their own boss. The visibility gap isn’t malice. It’s attention. And waiting to be noticed is a strategy with a one hundred percent failure rate.

Most leaders resist fixing this because they were raised on “let the work speak for itself,” and anything else feels like bragging. So they stay quiet, watch someone with a louder narrative get the project or the promotion, and then feel resentful about a gap they never closed.

Here’s the tool. It’s called the Friday Update, and it takes five minutes a week.

Every Friday, send your boss three lines. What moved forward this week. What’s stuck — and what you’re doing about it. What’s next.

That’s it. No formatting. No deck. Three lines.

What moved forward gives your work a heartbeat — progress they can see without asking for it. What’s stuck builds trust — you’re not hiding problems, you’re managing them. What’s next tells them you’re thinking ahead, not just reacting.

Do it for a month and something shifts. You stop being the person whose work surfaces twice a year in a review. You become the person whose progress shows up every week — without either of you scheduling a meeting about it.

Visibility isn’t self-promotion. It’s signal. And nobody can act on a signal you never send.

Where are you visible — and where are you invisible? The Radar Check maps it. Free, 2 minutes. therightaltitudebook.com/radar-check

The Right Altitude — available now. therightaltitudebook.com