Hard work alone is not enough to advance into senior leadership, and the insurance professionals who assume otherwise could be stalling their own careers, according to Helen Cosburn (pictured right), chief of sales, banking and emerging segments at Allianz Global Assistance Canada, and Renata Bezerra (pictured centre), senior director of strategy and growth at CIBC Insurance.
Bezerra said she spent years believing that strong results would be self-evident. That changed after she led a high-impact initiative and discovered that most of the new leadership team did not know she was behind it.
"To work hard is essential but not sufficient," Bezerra said. She said she has kept her "workhorse grit" but has started cultivating what she calls a "showhorse mentality" – understanding what decision-makers are looking for and ensuring her impact is visible to those in a position to support her career.
Cosburn said she went through a similar shift. Early in her career she equated visibility with self-promotion and held back.
"I thought that visibility was about having an ego," Cosburn said. She said it took time to recognise her work was not always speaking for itself, and that visibility is less about being boastful than about creating the conditions for sponsorship.
She said proximity matters as much as performance. While working on a global project led by a European team, Cosburn started matching their early-morning schedule to get face time that did not exist during the regular workday. A five-minute hallway conversation turned into coffee, then lunch, then one-on-ones – and eventually a job offer in Paris.
"Creating those opportunities and relationships for yourself is really important for visibility," she said.
Both said the shift required confronting feedback that had once held them back. Cosburn was told she was "too emotional" after pressing senior colleagues on gaps in a restructuring plan. She said the reaction had more to do with the discomfort her questions created than with how she delivered them, but she learned to reframe her approach around curiosity rather than challenge.
Bezerra was passed over for a role because she came across as "too intense." Rather than softening her directness, she started calibrating when to push and when to pause.
"People feel the same energy differently," Bezerra said. "I don't have to be everyone's perfect fit, but I do need to be aware of how I'm coming across."
She said the distinction between intent and impact is one most professionals underestimate, and that closing the gap does not require becoming less authentic. "I don't feel that I've become less Renata," she said. "You're still authentic, you're just evolving."
Bezerra said she keeps a sticker on her monitor and her mirror that reads "I choose courage over comfort." She said the discomfort of stepping forward or adjusting her approach is not a sign that something is wrong. "Feeling uncomfortable doesn't mean that things are bad," she said. "It usually means that you're growing."
Bezerra also pushed back on the standard framing of imposter syndrome. She described the familiar scenario of a woman making a point in a meeting, being overlooked, and then hearing a male colleague repeat it to agreement.
"When we frame imposter syndrome as one more thing that women have to fix, I push back on that," she said. The better question, she argued, is how organisations can make leadership spaces more welcoming to women rather than asking women to manage their self-doubt.
Cosburn said leadership presence is built in routine interactions, not high-profile moments. She said professionals should be deliberate about what they are known for in everyday meetings and calls, because those micro-impressions accumulate into a professional brand – and the wrong ones are hard to shake.
Bezerra said the same logic applies to credibility. "Brand isn't what you say about yourself," she said. "It's what others are saying about you when you're not in the room."
