What does this mean?

[Ooooooooy]

I might be overthinking this but not sure. A few people at work have called me a “networker” and my manager said I’m “popular”. It isn’t necessarily in context of me doing a good job or getting a compliment, more meant as an observation. I’m a senior manager and my manager only interacts with me over teams, we’re based in different countries. In a wider sense too, my manager is barely involved with me. So I’m wondering what is it that I’m doing to get these comments? What traits are they seeing?

Do you name drop a lot?

I don’t think so.

I work in a massive government department, the majority of colleagues I interact with aren’t of status to “name drop”. Eg a level colleague in a different department - I’ll refer to them as “policy”, “HR”, “Finance” etc if in a conversation with someone who doesn’t know them to relay their advice.

I do interact with senior staff as part of my day job but I wouldn’t say I name drop Eg “I had a meeting with X today” or “I am visiting Y next week.” I def don’t aim to impress as it’s part of my job to speak to them, it’s not going out of my way if that makes sense.