How To Advocate For Your Needs At Work

Speaking up is not selfish, it's supportive. We often expect to get noticed for our efforts. And when it doesn't happen, we grow resentful and eventually leave. Here's how to break the cycle.

The Uncommon Executive

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I had been at Thumbtack for three years. In those years, the company grew from 20 to 250. I had launched major product features for the marketplace and built functions including customer support, analytics, and user research. I coached and mentored many new director-level hires, and quietly absorbed extra scope when a team was short-staffed.

My manager noticed. I knew this because I received an ongoing stream of praise. A quick “great job on the presentation” after an important meeting. A shout-out in the team channel for mentorship. A “we couldn’t do this without you” from during a one-on-one.

And yet, nothing else changed.

No new title. No meaningful compensation increases. No formal acknowledgment that my scope had grown with the company.

Three years in, I almost quit. It would not have been a graceful exit, letting the CEO know how much I appreciated his support and why I could not pass up this opportunity. Instead, the conversation was heated, tense, and tearful. “I feel completely undervalued and invisible, and I’ve done more and more, and yet it’s still the same.” My manager was blindsided and angry.

Nobody had seen it coming. It had been silently building within me for months.

The Slow, Silent Build

Here’s what happened in the silence when I did not speak up about what I wanted and proactively advocated for my growth:

First, I rationalized. They’re busy. They’ll notice eventually. We’re a startup. It’s too early to talk about compensation philosophy. It would be awkward to bring it up. I don’t want to seem entitled.

Then I see someone get hired at a higher salary. And someone else who’s done less gets an equity refresh.

The rationalization becomes a question: Do they even see me?

I start to look for signs that they don’t value my work to validate my feelings. They didn’t give me extra resources for this new project. They didn’t seem happy about my latest strategy document.

Slowly, the question becomes a belief: They don’t actually value what I do. They don’t actually value me.

Resentment begins to build. At first, it’s barely noticeable, a fleeting thought here or there that quickly goes away. I keep showing up and delivering.

Inevitably, the resentment starts to accumulate. I start to think about it daily, and it starts to affect my work quality. The motivation fades.

By the time The Conversation finally happens, it’s no longer about dollars and titles. It is about whether my work matters. Whether I matter.

That is no longer a performance conversation.

The Deadly Silence

I see this trend across the clients I teach, often across seniority levels and experience. We don’t raise our needs for a few reasons:

• The work should speak for itself: Great work gets noticed. But in many imperfect organizations, it does not automatically translate into a promotion conversation in the timeframe you want.

• I don’t want to seem demanding or entitled: There’s a fear, particularly among women and underrepresented groups, that asking for what you need will be read as aggressive or ungrateful.

• I am waiting for certainty: We’re looking for the “right time” when we can make a bulletproof case. Perhaps a company-wide compensation review or formal compensation reevaluation.

All of these reasons are excuses that hold you back. The root of it is that it is uncomfortable and scary to ask for what you want, especially when it’s related to title and compensation.

However, these inner narratives erode the trust between you and your senior leadership. Leaders are often caught off guard by the intensity of these conversations. Most leaders in fast-moving organizations are very busy handling multiple competing priorities a day, not sitting around thinking about specific employees and whether they are valued. They assume that no news is good news. If you haven’t told them what you need and want, there’s a reasonable chance they genuinely don’t know.

How to start the conversation

Speaking up doesn’t guarantee you get what you want. But it lets the steam off the boiling pot, and keeps the conversation out of identity and values. Here are a few starting points:

• Name it early, not at the breaking point. Don’t wait until you’re already resentful to raise compensation or title. The best time to have this conversation is when things are going well, and you are also in high spirits.

• Avoid ultimatums: Adopt a collaborative tone. “I want to talk to you about my growth trajectory at the company and what I need to feel like I’m progressing.” Avoid being combative, “give me a raise or I’m leaving,” type messages.

• Get tangible and specific. Avoid vague statements like “I’d like to grow”. Instead, give them specific titles, dollar numbers, and/or timelines. “I’m targeting a Director level promotion in the next 12 months, and I’d like us to align on what that path looks like.”

Speaking up about what you need is not an act of entitlement. It is a signal of trust. It gives your manager the information they need to do their job. It keeps you from becoming a flight risk they never saw coming.

If Sarah had said, eight months earlier, “I want you to know that I’m not happy with my compensation and my title, and I’d love to have a conversation about what the path forward looks like for me here”, her manager might have gone to bat for her.

Or she might have learned that there wasn’t a clear path at her current company, which would have been useful to know before she spent another eight months building resentment that results in burning bridges in a highly networked professional world.

If this resonated, I’d love to hear where you are in this pattern. Are you the one who waited too long, the one who’s in the middle of it now, or the one who finally had the conversation and is glad they did?

That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm.

Yue