I recently had a meeting with a mentor type figure where he told me that displaying my accomplishments in my office might be perceived poorly to my team.
Context - I 35f have worked very hard to get where I am. I have a degree in chemistry (first gen college student and only college grad in my family), work as a team lead at a local utility (male driven industry), starting my MBA in a month, plan and host local events to get empower young girls interest in STEM subjects, volunteer teaching spin/pilates at my local YMCA, etc. I don’t have kids so I am very dedicated to empowerment of girls/women in my community. Due to this over the last year I have been recognized by my company (winning a company award) as well as by my local newspaper winning 20 under 40. I am very proud of this and would want anyone to be proud of their accomplishments. I was recently told having these accomplishments displayed in my office might be perceived poorly. I could understand the point, so I took one down. Kept the company one displayed. Then it got brought up again in another leadership program I’m in. In a call with two others I asked what they thought and they both said when you become a leader you shouldn’t display or celebrate your own accomplishments anymore, it should only be about your team and mentioned taking the company one down too.
I have mixed feelings about this. For me personally, it’s whatever I can take them all down and it’s not a big deal. However, I think it begs a bigger question of should we as women, who are always taught to shrink ourselves, ever stop celebrating our accomplishments? In addition, how is it any different than displaying degrees (the initial person who made the comment had all of his degrees displayed)
Curious what other women’s thoughts are?
Edit to add- I was nominated for these things by two separate people outside of my department and was not a leader when I got nominated but was at the time of acceptance
Second edit- ugh, I love this community so much! It’s like having a big group of girlfriends in your corner. Thank you for all your comments and support!!