Nataliey BitatureEmpowering Africa's Next Generation: Leadership, Innovation, and Impact with Dr Nataliey.

How To Advocate For Yourself

25 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, manager Nataliey Bitature explains how employees can effectively advocate for themselves at work without appearing boastful. She stresses the need for courage and confidence to consistently speak up, invite interaction, and demonstrate awareness of the work being done. By actively participating in meetings, asking questions, and showing that they have read reports and emails, employees make their contributions visible to decision‑makers. Bitature illustrates this with a scenario where she calls out inconsistent data to prove she follows the communications, thereby earning credibility. The overall message is that self‑advocacy is about clear, honest communication and ensuring that those with power recognize the hard work being done.

Chapters

You have to have the courage and the confidence to keep speaking up in different ways. It doesn't have to be braggy and gross. You don't need to be cringe. You just have to make sure that the people who have the power to give you opportunities are aware of all the hard work you're putting in. You can't sit and say, you know, I spent 5 hours on this report and no one has told me thank you, that it's good, or you didn't even reply my email. Now you're becoming a nuisance in the office, right? What you have to do is invite people to interact with what you're doing, with what you're saying. Speak up in meetings, ask questions, show that you read the thing. Something I I do as a manager is I have so much stuff to read sometimes before meetings, and I feel like you have to make sure people know that you are aware. Because if your staff think you don't read any of the reports or you don't read any of the information, they start to take it for granted and do what they want. I'll be like, on Thursday you said it increased by 4%, and then on Friday you said it was 7%. Which one was it? And then they're like, whoop, she read all the emails, she read all the reports. I have to be more careful. I have to make sure things are clear and I'm honest and I'm sure of what I'm saying.