"If your management and peers trust your judgment and you deliver on your promises, you are 80 percent there," says O'Bryan. "The rest is relationships. Make time to get out of your office, use the phone or travel to network with the other people in the company. It is important to build relationships with all levels. Be the person with the answer."

Show Progress

It's one thing to achieve or exceed your goals — but you won't move ahead unless others notice the accomplishment.

Personal ambition aside, it's important to communicate what you and your team have done, especially given IT's tendencies toward invisibility to the rest of the enterprise. Nor is the challenge to find effective communication methods unique to gender, points out O'Bryan. "[At] a financial company, the key was 'speaking the language of the business.' This is the current buzz phrase in our industry, but it worked long before it became popular to say."

And that provides a major advantage to women (and men) trying to move ahead personally. While it may be — or at least feel — rude to toot one's own horn, publicizing the accomplishments of your department supports your team and helps the business learn what you're doing for the enterprise. One not-so-subtle result is that the Powers That Be notice who's leading such successful teams and give its manager (that would be you) more opportunities. Think of it this way: You gain visibility by giving it to others.

Powell-Meeks has made specific efforts in this regard and has created her own "branding." She regularly distributes products to communicate to her customers, such as an annual report to key stakeholders to show what the IT department accomplished — with tangible milestones, not just pie-in-the-sky stuff — and to summarize and remind people about the benefits IT can provide. "IT can be underground," she says, "like a utility or telephone."

The reports may need to be distributed more often, depending on your job. O'Bryan's department provides quarterly IT financial reports for the CFOs of each office worldwide, as well as quarterly peer comparison spending reports, an annual IT report and quarterly newsletters to promote the benefit of IT to the business.

These summaries promote the work, Powell-Meeks says. "Not me as a person, but the team." Yet savvy women know this is also a self-promotion and leadership opportunity. Says O'Bryan, "I have an opening statement in both [publications] that includes my picture. As our company grows, not everyone may know who I am — and I think it is important that they do."