Years ago, I was working closely with a large sales organization, and there was one business book that seemed to be circulating through every corner of the team.
The book was Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard, and the concept quickly became a favorite among the sales leaders I worked with.
The idea behind the book was simple: when you create an experience that truly stands out, you don’t just earn satisfied customers—you earn advocates. People who talk about you, recommend you, and share their experience with others without being asked.
Looking back, I’ve often thought of that concept as the precursor to something most organizations measure today: Net Promoter Score. That familiar question many companies now ask their customers:
How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
But what always stood out to me about Raving Fans wasn’t the measurement itself. It was the mindset behind it. The goal wasn’t simply to satisfy customers—it was to create an experience so positive that people naturally talked about it.
You created raving fans.
I remember our sales team even turning the idea into a bit of a friendly contest. The idea stuck with them so much that some created playful posters hanging in their cubicles that looked like those old bulletin board flyers you might see in a laundromat—“Roommate Wanted” or “Guitar Lessons”—with the little tear-off phone number tabs along the bottom.
Their posters said something along the lines of Raving Fans Wanted.
It was clever and interestingly the memory resurfaced recently during a coaching conversation with a leader who was feeling frustrated in her career.
She had been passed over for promotion twice and was struggling to understand why. Her results were strong, her work was thoughtful and consistent, and she was respected by the people who worked closely with her. Yet she kept coming back to the same question:
Why wasn’t her work speaking for itself?
As we talked, it became clear that the challenge wasn’t capability or performance. It was visibility—and more specifically, how uncomfortable she felt with the idea of promoting herself. She felt awkward, almost self-serving, highlighting her accomplishments. She preferred to focus on doing great work and trusted that others would notice. At the same time, she was watching colleagues around her openly share their successes and make sure their contributions were visible ... sometimes appropriately and sometimes a little generously.
This is a tension I see often with leaders I coach, and especially with women. Many thoughtful, high-performing leaders believe that if they simply do excellent work, it will eventually be recognized. For many women, advocating for themselves can feel misaligned with how they want to lead, so reframing visibility through the lens of advocates and champions often feels far more authentic. But the reality inside most organizations is that many of the conversations that shape careers happen when you are not in the room.
In many ways, this is really a conversation about leadership visibility, how your reputation and contributions are understood and advocated for even when you’re not present.
Leadership teams regularly gather to discuss promotions, succession planning, and new opportunities. When those conversations happen, people inevitably begin talking about people, about who might be ready, who has demonstrated leadership potential, and who could step into the next opportunity.
In those moments, reputations travel through the room. And often, the most influential voice advocating for you in that conversation isn’t your own.
It’s someone else saying, “Let me tell you about her.”
That realization brought me back to the concept of Raving Fans, because the idea applies just as much to leadership as it does to customers.
Instead of asking, How do I promote myself?, a more helpful question might be:
Who are my raving fans?
Who are the people who will speak about your leadership when you are not in the room? Who has experienced your work closely enough to advocate for you? Who believes in your judgment, credibility, and the way you lead?
Those voices matter. In many cases, they carry far more influence than anything you could say about yourself. This doesn’t mean leaders should ignore visibility altogether. Part of leadership is helping others understand the impact of your work and the value you bring to the organization. But effective visibility isn’t about constant self-promotion, it's about building trust, relationships, and credibility so that others naturally talk about your leadership when the moment calls for it.
So how do you intentionally build the kind of reputation that creates these advocates?
In my experience working with leaders and teams, raving fans are rarely created through self-promotion. They are created through consistent leadership behaviors that others experience firsthand.
Deliver meaningful results that others experience.
Strong work matters, but it becomes far more powerful when people experience it directly. When colleagues or leaders work alongside you on important initiatives and see how you think, solve problems, and navigate challenges, they gain firsthand insight into your leadership.
Make your impact visible without making it about you.
One of the most effective ways to share your contributions is to frame them around outcomes and team success. When leaders communicate progress, lessons learned, and results achieved, they help others understand the value of their work without needing to center themselves in the story.
Build strong relationships across the organization.
Advocates rarely come from people who only know you through reports or occasional meetings. They come from people who have worked with you, collaborated with you, and seen how you show up in real situations.
Support and elevate others.
One of the most powerful ways to create advocates is by becoming one yourself. Leaders who notice great work, recognize others publicly, and speak positively about colleagues create a culture where advocacy becomes mutual.
Over time, these experiences build trust and credibility. They shape how others talk about your leadership when you’re not present and this is when the real power of reputation begins to show up.
There is another side to this idea that I believe is just as important.
If you’re in a leadership role today, you also have the opportunity to become someone else’s raving fan. When leaders speak up for others in the room, recognize their contributions, and advocate for their potential, they create moments that can shape careers. Some of the most meaningful moments in my own career came from leaders who did exactly that—leaders who believed in my capabilities and spoke up for me when opportunities were being discussed. Those moments matter more than we sometimes realize.
So here’s a question worth reflecting on.
If your name came up in a leadership conversation tomorrow, who would be your raving fans? Who would be the person in the room willing to say, “Let me tell you about her.” And perhaps just as importantly—whose raving fan are you becoming?
Because leadership impact doesn’t grow only through the work we do. It grows through the trust we build, the experiences we create for others, and the people who believe in the way we lead—enough to say our name when we’re not there.
If you’ve ever struggled with how to advocate for yourself without feeling like you’re self-promoting, you’re not alone. Many of the leaders I work with—especially women—are navigating how to make their impact visible in a way that still feels authentic.
Building credibility, cultivating advocates, and ensuring your work is recognized in the right rooms are leadership skills that can transform a career.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to connect.
