I recently read a post from David Wee titled The Three Drivers that Deliver Career Success.

The statement Performance contributes only 10% to your career growth made me stop and think.

In the post, Wee explains this proposition and three drivers for career success as follows:

‘You need to PERFORM every day. But doing your job well will not necessarily get you promoted to big roles. Why? Only your manager knows you are good.

You need EXPOSURE with influential leaders. And if they have a positive IMAGE of you, they can help you get bigger roles.

In short, promotions are driven by three drivers – Performance, Image and Exposure.’

Wee maintains that,

Image contributes 30% to career success and Exposure contributes 60%

to career success.

Here are Wee’s recommendations to gain Exposure.

‘Engage senior leaders and let them get to know who you are, what you stand for and your contributions . . . and be real! No brown nosing, exaggeration or boasting necessary!’

Whether you agree with Wee’s career success factors and percentages or not, let me give you one way to drive your Image and Exposure.

Namely, ask senior executives tough, thought-provoking questions.

People will make judgements about you, more on the quality of your questions than your answers.

Aim to stamp yourself – in the minds of senior executives – as an incisive question asker. Aim to make them stop and think. If you do this, you’ll be included in more high profile projects, and be invited to more senior meetings, roundtables, strategy sessions etc.

You’ll want to ask questions relevant to the matters senior executives are facing.

Here are other thought provoking questions** you can adapt and ask senior executives:

1. How do you go about choosing the right questions to ask and how do you teach someone to ask the right questions?
2. If you wrote a book about leadership, what would be its title and its sub-title?
3. Do you hire for cultural fit, or cultural contribution?
4. How do you know your employees trust you?
5. What have you done, that you’re really proud of?
6. Who’s been an inspiration in your life and why?
7. Where might you have a blind spot?

Own the Conversation

What to do now:

1. Schedule a 13 minute calendar entry for quiet reflection time to consider one tough, thought provoking question you might ask a senior executive.
2. When you come up with a question log it in your smart phone for ready retrieval.
3. When an opportunity arises, ask the executive the question.