Tech Professionals: Tell Your Leaders Where You Want to Go

Visibility and Personal Growth Go Hand in Hand

Growth in tech isn’t just about learning new tools or collecting certifications. It’s about personal growth—the drive to learn, contribute, and expand your impact.

But here’s the part many technical professionals overlook: growth doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in partnership—with your manager, your peers, and your company.

The people around you can open doors, recommend you for projects, or connect you with mentors. Yet they can only do that if they know what you’re striving for. Visibility works both ways: your leaders can’t support your growth if they don’t know where you want to go.

When you make your aspirations clear, you create the space for collaboration, learning, and opportunity.

Goals and Aspirations: The Power of Alignment

Too often, people separate their goals and aspirations as if they’re unrelated. Goals feel tactical—earn a certification, complete a project, hit a metric. Aspirations feel personal—grow into leadership, specialize in cybersecurity, build expertise others rely on.

In reality, they’re two sides of the same coin.
Goals give your aspirations structure; aspirations give your goals purpose.

When you communicate both, you give managers a clear picture of where you’re headed and how you define success. That clarity helps them assign projects, identify mentors, and plan your professional development.

In my experience leading MSP teams, the best technical professionals didn’t just talk about what they were doing—they talked about where they were going next. Their curiosity and self-awareness set them apart long before a promotion or title change.

Aspirations drive opportunity because they reveal direction. And in any fast-paced MSP, direction is what leaders can act on.

How Aspiration Drives Opportunity

When you share what excites you—whether it’s automation, AI integration, or leadership—you create context. Leaders can align you with initiatives that fuel both your interests and the company’s needs.

It’s not about demanding change; it’s about showing initiative. When you make your ambitions known, you:

• Help your leaders see how to deploy your skills more effectively.

• Build a reputation as someone invested in growth.

• Increase your odds of being considered for stretch roles or new client projects.

People who articulate their aspirations often become the go-to professionals when opportunity arises.

Making Visibility a Habit

Career visibility isn’t a one-time conversation—it’s a consistent practice. Integrate it into your normal rhythm of work:

• Weekly: Share wins or lessons learned in team updates.

• Monthly: Reflect on what energized you most and write it down.

• Quarterly: Discuss your aspirations with your manager or a mentor.

Small, steady conversations build trust and clarity over time. They also make it easier for leaders to see your growth trajectory and connect you to the right opportunities when they appear.

What I Learned Leading an MSP

When I was running my MSP, I saw firsthand how self-advocacy changed everything.

The technical professionals who spoke up about what they wanted—to learn a new technology, take on a client-facing role, or mentor a junior teammate—made my job easier. I didn’t have to guess who was ready for more; they told me.

That transparency helped everyone.

• It gave me confidence in staffing decisions.

• It accelerated project delivery because people were engaged in work they cared about.

And it helped those employees grow faster because their goals were out in the open.
Self-advocating wasn’t self-promotion; it was partnership. The people who communicated their aspirations helped shape the business, the culture, and their own careers.

If you’re working in tech today, do what those professionals did—speak up. Your leaders want to see you succeed, but they need to know what success looks like for you.

Summing It Up

Growth in tech isn’t about waiting to be noticed. It’s about showing where you’re headed and letting others help you get there.

When technical professionals express both goals and aspirations, they make it easier for leaders to align opportunity, mentorship, and support. Visibility begins with conversation, and it’s reinforced by tools like StatSheet that verify and highlight contributions.

Your next opportunity might be one conversation away. Make sure the people around you know what you’re aiming for.

Like what you see here? Check out Why Knowing What Your Team Wants Is Just as Important as What They Can Do.