"Grandstanding" at work vs. Sharing a Success?

A former colleague of mine once called it "grandstanding", meaning self-promotion at work by letting the important, higher up people know of your achievements and successes.

At work, every Friday, we have a virtual social "happy hour", and our CEO and CMO join. Typically, in past company meetings, every dept head gives kudos to their team members who have shined that month, or who deserve a round of applause and shout-out for stellar team contributions.

In these virtual social hours, this has continued from most of the department heads, with the exception of my own boss and our team manager, who remain silent and closed lipped through every single social hour to date.

So, in other words -- they have given not one single shout-out to a team member's achievements that week, or a call-out regarding a nice compliment from a client that a team member may have received -- nothing from our two department leads. Not a single peep.

On top of this, my boss has been undermining my success level at work. He does not want to see me rise in position, he views me as a threat to his own job, and therefore, he downplays and neglects to mention any my successes to our CEO, the one who matters.

So yesterday, I felt compelled in our social hour to share a client success story of mine with the company and to the CEO and CMO. In my speech, I also was sure to thank all those involved in pushing through a big project for this client, a project that enabled my client to truly see success with my work. So I thanked my boss, my CEO, and other team members involved.

I do not know if I was "grandstanding" OR if I was simply sharing my excitement over the success and a very positive client call I had this week.

As a female, working in an all-male dept, I do have to fend for myself. And with my boss, who won't share my successes openly with the CEO, I have to look out for myself and stand up for myself.

I don't know if I was "grandstanding" or whether I was simply sharing my excitement over the success?

I really hope that it came across as excitement vs. self promotion.

And now I am worried that I may have sounded like I was grandstanding. To me in a way, grandstanding sounds a bit obnoxious? Like "look at me! Look at what I achieved!" and "Aren't I SO awesome??"

I truly hope that I did not come across that way.

I did say, "It's really exciting, good stuff is happening, and I just wanted to share it".

It’s not like you are doing it every single time. It’s perfectly fine to share what went well and some self promotion is perfectly fine.

Our boss says if we don’t share evidence of success and don’t make it known we might not get a credit. She always wants us let her know if we do anything special.

Now we have a person who sends mass emails every other day about some exciting accomplishment of hers. She is annoying like heck and is on everyone’s nerves. She is going overboard. But if you share your success at a reasonable rate and acknowledge everyone else’s good job, you are perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with it .

Oh dear Lord, that woman sounds so obnoxious at your work. Damn.

I don't do this often. My boss initially told me to send him my achievements, which he said he would send to my CEO and the CMO. That never happened, so I learned to inform the CEO of my achievements in side conversations.

This was the 1st time in a company meeting that I have shared one of my success stories openly. I think you're probably right. Nothing wrong with that.

Thanks, Divine!