This article was originally published on ComeRecommended.com.

Throughout your career, you need to constantly shape and groom your influence at work. The challenges don’t just stop once you’ve landed a job. You need to continue working hard to get noticed and promoted. The best way to move forward in your career is to become an influencer.

A workplace influencer exerts leadership and earns the trust of coworkers. If you work hard, you can take the following steps to boost your own influence at work:

Be reliable.

The first step to becoming an influencer in your career is to do your job well. Be someone your managers can rely on to get your work done efficiently and effectively. Do what is asked of you, work hard, and help out your coworkers. It’s difficult to explain all the ways you can be a more reliable worker, but once you figure it out, you’ll earn the trust of your coworkers.

Build stronger relationships.

The next step in boosting your influence at work is to build stronger relationships with your coworkers and managers. Especially in large workplaces, it’s easy to skate by unnoticed. Make an effort to avoid this. Your goal is to be the person these people rely on to accomplish something, so it’s important to get to know them on a professional level. Take the time to make conversation with various people in your workplace. If you have a few minutes, chat with your leader about the success of a recent project. Be personable. The idea is to make them remember you and what you do.

Make suggestions.

Once you’ve started to establish relationships with your managers, it’s time to step it up a notch. Make a list of ideas you think could improve efficiency, productivity, safety, or anything else about the day-to-day operations at work. They don’t need to be big changes.

Determine your best ideas and make it your mission to mention one of them to your supervisor. Don’t just come to your manager with your list; this will make you seem overbearing. Instead, put the list away so you can remember the ideas in the future. If your manager likes your suggestions, they’ll remember you. It’s a subtle way to stay on your manager’s radar come time for a promotion.

Take on a leadership role.

Now you’ve showed your managers you’re reliable and innovative. The final step is to ask for more responsibility. Depending on your company, there will be a few times throughout the year when management is looking for new people to take on leadership roles. Be one of those people. This can mean anything from training new employees to a full-on promotion.

Express your interest in leadership with your managers. Hopefully, the influence you’ve established in the workplace will be enough to get you on the short list. From there, you just have to nail the interview and beat out the competition. Once you land the new role, your influence at work boosts automatically.

There are lots of ways to boost your influence at work. No matter how you go about it, your influence is essential to keep your career moving forward.

How do you boost your influence in your career?