From Behind the Scenes to a Voice of Influence
From Technical Skills to Influence: Building a Career of Purpose and Impact in Higher Education
For much of my career, my work has happened behind the scenes. I have spent years working with academic records, transcripts, transfer credit, policies, procedures, and the countless details that help students move forward in their education. I have learned that influence is not always attached to the most visible person in the room. Sometimes, it belongs to the person others trust to know the answer, recognize the problem, ask the right question, and find a solution. Today, as a Coordinator of Transcript Services, I am beginning to look at my career differently. I no longer see my experience simply as a collection of tasks I have learned to perform. I see it as expertise I have built and, more importantly, expertise I can use to make a greater impact.
Working with academic records teaches you very quickly that details are important. A course number, credit hour, institutional policy, accreditation status, or transfer decision may look like a small detail on paper. To a student, however, that detail can affect graduation, financial decisions, transfer opportunities, and future plans. That responsibility has taught me to be thorough. It has taught me not to assume that the obvious answer is always the correct one. It has also taught me to research, compare information, document decisions, and be willing to say, “Let me look into that.”
Earlier in my career, I might have considered those simply technical skills. Now I recognize them as leadership skills. Good leaders do not have to know everything. They need to know how to ask good questions, evaluate information, make sound decisions, and recognize when something deserves a closer look.
One of the most valuable lessons of my career has been that expertise rarely arrives all at once. It develops through repetition, curiosity, difficult situations, mistakes, research, conversations with colleagues, and thousands of questions asked over time. The longer I work in higher education, the more I appreciate the complexity behind decisions that may appear simple from the outside. Evaluating academic work often means understanding not only what a course is called today, but what it was called years ago, what an institution intended the course to accomplish, and how educational standards have changed. That has strengthened something I believe is essential for anyone who wants to become influential: curiosity. Influential people do not stop learning once they become knowledgeable. Their knowledge makes them even more curious.
I have come to believe that authority is assigned, but influence is earned. Influence grows from consistency. People begin coming to you because you have demonstrated that you are dependable, knowledgeable, approachable, and willing to help. That realization has changed the way I think about the next chapter of my career.
My goal now is not simply to become better at my job. I want to become more intentional about sharing what I have learned. Influential women share what they have learned, and this means moving from simply knowing to contributing. I can contribute by mentoring coworkers, documenting knowledge, improving processes, participating in professional conversations, developing stronger technology skills, and continuing to learn about the larger issues affecting higher education. It also means becoming more comfortable using my voice.
For women especially, it can be easy to believe we need another credential, another year of experience, or a little more expertise before we are qualified to speak. I am learning to challenge that thinking. I can continue learning while also recognizing the value of what I already know. There is room for both humility and confidence. I can say, “I don't know yet,” when I genuinely don't know something. But I can also say, “I know this subject, and I have something valuable to contribute.”
Becoming an influential woman is not important to me because I want recognition for its own sake. I want influence because influence creates opportunities to make things better. In higher education, that might mean improving a process for students. It might mean advocating for a colleague. It could mean helping someone understand a complicated policy, mentoring someone beginning their career, or questioning a practice simply because “that's the way we've always done it.” I particularly want my influence to help other women recognize the value of their own professional experience. Not every career follows a perfectly planned path. Sometimes we discover our strengths gradually. We take on responsibilities, solve problems, become the person people call when something unusual happens, and one day realize that somewhere along the way, we became experts. There is power in recognizing that.
I have learned that influence does not always come with a title, an invitation to the table, or a moment when someone officially declares that you are an expert. Often, it is built quietly through years of showing up, learning, solving problems, helping others, and being willing to speak when your experience tells you something can be better. My career may not have followed a path I could have predicted when I first entered higher education, but every position along the way has prepared me for the one that came next and shaped the professional I am today. Perhaps becoming an influential woman is not about being the most powerful voice in the room. It is about learning the value of your own voice and then using it to make a difference for someone else. And that is the kind of influential woman I hope to become.
