You do your work flawlessly, and you still don't get the recognition or the rewards you've earned.
You do your work flawlessly, and you still don't get the recognition or the rewards you've earned.
I am Olga Cherkasova.
Across more than 15 years in IT I saw the same things over and over: people who lacked the competence got promoted; people who talked a lot and talked well but did little got paid more; talented people stayed unseen and discouraged.
Like a lot of people, I believed that was enough: do the work well and you'll be noticed. And when I wasn't, I was upset that people were so unfair and the world so unjust.
Watching my Fortune 500 clients, I saw how it actually runs. Decisions are made by the people with more power. Competence and data are far from the main thing.
On the LEAD leadership program at Stanford I took Building Power to Lead with professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. He gave a scientific account of what I had been seeing: how power and advancement actually work inside organizations.
Good work doesn't convert into power on its own. You have to learn to translate it. And no one teaches that.
I started applying what I was learning before the program even ended. In under two months my circle of clients inside a Fortune 500 company moved from line managers to vice presidents. My projects grew from routine operations into strategic, transformational ones. My compensation changed too.
I shared what I knew with my followers on Instagram, and in 2022 I ran my own hands-on course, Power, for the first time. My students got results as strong as mine: salaries and titles climbed, and access opened to people and decisions that had been out of reach. They started managing how their work reached the people who make the decisions, and that moved them toward their goals faster than any amount of extra hours.
Across more than 15 years in IT I saw the same things over and over: people who lacked the competence got promoted; people who talked a lot and talked well but did little got paid more; talented people stayed unseen and discouraged.
Like a lot of people, I believed that was enough: do the work well and you'll be noticed. And when I wasn't, I was upset that people were so unfair and the world so unjust.
Watching my Fortune 500 clients, I saw how it actually runs. Decisions are made by the people with more power. Competence and data are far from the main thing.
On the LEAD leadership program at Stanford I took Building Power to Lead with professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. He gave a scientific account of what I had been seeing: how power and advancement actually work inside organizations.
Good work doesn't convert into power on its own. You have to learn to translate it. And no one teaches that.
I started applying what I was learning before the program even ended. In under two months my circle of clients inside a Fortune 500 company moved from line managers to vice presidents. My projects grew from routine operations into strategic, transformational ones. My compensation changed too.
I shared what I knew with my followers on Instagram, and in 2022 I ran my own hands-on course, Power, for the first time. My students got results as strong as mine: salaries and titles climbed, and access opened to people and decisions that had been out of reach. They started managing how their work reached the people who make the decisions, and that moved them toward their goals faster than any amount of extra hours.
Why I built this
Why I built this
This site is about how to turn your competence into power, and into a real ability to influence your own money, your growth, and the decisions made in your company and in society.
In my articles I break down the small moments at work that quietly decide everything: a meeting, an email, the moment someone talks over you, the moment your idea gets repeated by someone else and they get the thanks for it. How much power you hold is built out of moments like these.
Power is a tool, and it can change the world. So as many good people as possible should know how to use it well.
If you do strong work and you're tired of waiting for the results to speak for themselves, start with Power Score. In a couple of minutes it shows you where your power is leaking and where to begin.
In my articles I break down the small moments at work that quietly decide everything: a meeting, an email, the moment someone talks over you, the moment your idea gets repeated by someone else and they get the thanks for it. How much power you hold is built out of moments like these.
Power is a tool, and it can change the world. So as many good people as possible should know how to use it well.
If you do strong work and you're tired of waiting for the results to speak for themselves, start with Power Score. In a couple of minutes it shows you where your power is leaking and where to begin.