What it usually means
It sounds like a request to talk more. It is usually a report about distance: your work is reaching the people who decide about you second-hand, late, or not at all.
The person saying it has often noticed the gap without knowing what closes it — so you get the adjective, not the instruction.
What else it can mean
- The work is invisible upstream. Your manager sees it. The room above your manager does not, and your manager is not carrying it there.
- The credit is travelling without your name. The work is seen, and remembered as someone else’s.
- It came straight after a quiet meeting. Then it is about the live minutes, not the record — that is a different door.
What to find out first
Who, specifically, cannot see the work. A name or a meeting — not "leadership". Until there is a name, there is nothing to make visible to.
What the research says, and where it stops
In a randomised trial at a Chinese travel company, employees who worked from home were promoted at roughly half the rate of office colleagues with the same performance. The authors’ first explanation was out of sight, out of mind.
Bloom, Liang, Roberts & Ying 2015, Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(1). Limit: One firm, call-centre roles, 40 promotions. The unconditional difference was not significant, and it is about physical distance from a manager, not a head office in another time zone.
Among 448 employees, network position predicted salary and promotions — through sponsorship and through access to information.
Seibert, Kraimer & Liden 2001, Academy of Management Journal 44(2). Limit: Correlational.
Which door
This is The Record — “I did the work. Someone else got the credit.”