Why you shouldn’t treat career development like a guilty secret

Activities that keep you visible and connected benefit your career, such as keeping in touch with your professional network, posting about your work, speaking on panels, and mentoring. Yet in my work as an executive career coach and previously as a headhunter, it is rare I see senior leaders in corporate roles openly conducting these activities during the working day. Instead, they are scheduling them on their own time or keeping them under the radar, opting to plan them a day that their boss is off-site.  

Leaders I’ve spoken to describe feeling “selfish” for investing time in their development and career management. They experience the dichotomy of being expected to have a professional network when it will help the business, without feeling able to invest work time in developing it. This is especially true in organizations with a more traditional, internally focused culture—with bosses asking, “Where have you been?” if leaders leave the office to meet someone from their network. 

While it might not be common practice, in my experience these career management activities benefit the business and your team, as well as you. That small proportion of leaders who are visibly investing some of their work time in things other than operational work are thriving, and their teams are doing the same. Their performance is improved, and people want to work for them. 

Here are five benefits to your team and organization of modeling these activities:

1. Learning that can be applied to the role 

Lucy, a global communications director in a large technology business, has created a culture of learning in her team. Employees are encouraged to undertake a fixed number of development hours in the year. This can include external activities where they can expand their network while they learn. She focuses on this regularly in one-to-ones, and she sees a correlation between performance and investment in self-development. Individuals apply their learnings in their work and share them with the team, so the time investment is multiplied. 

Matt Freeland, people director at the white goods and electronics retailer Currys, recognizes that external events like supplier roundtables can be a source of up-to-date free development and the chance to learn from industry peers, which builds on and complements internally planned and paid-for training.

2. Employee retention 

Lucy empowers her team to invest time in themselves, encouraging them to build their profiles and reputations externally. She wants them to be recognized as the best in the market, but to choose to progress internally. If they stay, it’s because they want to, not because they have no choice. 

Ruth Cartwright, the U.K. managing director of Active International, a corporate trade and media company, creates a culture where people want to work. She takes members of her team to professional events, believing it shouldn’t be a privilege for senior leaders alone, and encourages them to attend conferences on behalf of the business on their own. She has seen a growth in confidence of individuals when they step out of the office and their comfort zone. Under her leadership Active International has achieved recognition for being a great place to work. 

3. Developing a pipeline of talent 

In a world where some senior leaders cling to their best performers, Matt Freeland at Currys creates a culture for individuals to develop and build their profile, knowing their next step may be out of his team. He champions internal mobility, encouraging people to move to different divisions within the business. This benefits the business, the teams, and the individual. It improves interdepartmental communication, helping to avoid silos. It retains a talented individual in the wider organization while broadening their professional experience. 

This can also include external talent spotting. Tetiana Hnatiuk, COO at Skylum, an imaging technology company, finds that the majority of the best passive candidates are not identified through cold LinkedIn outreach, but through attending events and meeting industry peers. Identifying and building relationships with high caliber individuals before vacancies arise is an intelligent talent strategy.

4. Creation of trusted external sounding boards and advocates 

Jim McCoy, CEO of Atlas HXM, a workforce platform, is a strong believer in moving from networking to the creation of genuine long-term relationships. He shares a meal with his contacts and gets to know them on a personal level. This has given him external sounding boards where he can bounce ideas around and avoid reinventing the wheel on everything. He recently sought advice from someone in his network that led to an introduction to a potential new customer, as well as helping him in his role. This approach has also afforded him deeper market knowledge. 

5. Improved employer brand and candidate attraction

Kerri O’Neill, chief people officer in the U.K. for Ipsos, the market research firm, is determined to have a broader impact on the HR profession than through her immediate role alone. She shares her professional learnings through public posts on LinkedIn to educate and inspire others in her field on topics including AI, sustainability, leadership, and culture change. When she posted about a job opening on LinkedIn recently, it got more than 20,000 views and many high caliber applications; people want to work for her. Ipsos was named among the Financial Times U.K.’s Best Employers of 2025; 89% of employees recommended it as a great place to work.

This kind of attraction can also bring former employees back into the fold, in a “boomerang” effect. Freeland at Currys takes a long-term view about talent and believes in keeping the door open for returners; he has worked with some individuals more than once through his career.  

How to start becoming more of a visible role model

Here are some steps you can take to make your professional development activities more visible to your team.

Reflect on the current state

Ask yourself these questions:

• What external activities are you conducting and sharing visibly with your line manager and team?  
• If you have been keeping any a secret, why is this the case? 
• Are you opening doors for your team to get more visible and connected? 

Identify allies

Look for leaders in your organization already championing this leadership approach. Learn from them about the activities they engage in and how they communicate about them and support each other in advocating for the benefits. 

Have a conversation with your boss and stakeholders

This is particularly important if an external focus isn’t the norm where you work. Initiate conversations to explain your goals and highlight the benefits to the organization.

Reframe your language and behavior

Make career development activities visible in your calendar instead of hidden, and talk about them. Start small and share the benefits. Focus on the win-win for the organization and your team rather than an individually focused “selfish” activity. Invite one of your team to a professional event, framing it as a development opportunity, and encourage them to present their learnings to the team afterwards. 

Review the role profiles of your team

Check whether these activities are included as part of your people’s roles. If not, consider explicitly adding them so people feel they have permission, moving it from a grey area to a recognized part of the work and their professional development. 

Challenge yourself and your team to schedule one new career management activity per quarter

Here are some examples:

• Attending conferences for your industry sector or professional function 
• Speaking on panels or as the keynote at events on a topic relevant to your field of expertise 
• Participating in small networking groups either for a local area or a niche topic, including getting to know competitors
• Writing articles or contributing to industry and leadership publications 
• Posting on LinkedIn and social medial platforms relevant to your field—content that educates, inspires, and benefits your employer and personal brand
• Video calls or introductory meetings with new professional contacts you met at an event, via a mutual contact, on a webinar, or similar
• Joining alumni groups and attending events, supporting their current students (e.g. MBA or business schools), and connecting with other alumni

If you work in an organization where leaders aren’t externally visible and actively investing in relationships, it may feel like a brave step to take. It is challenging to go against the status quo, to speak up for yourself and your team. But the wider long-term benefits are clear. And isn’t that a sign of being a true leader?