alt Hacker NewsThere's also a corollary to this: if the organization does not recognize some work as needed or useful, you could well be actively wasting your time putting effort into it. There might be a good reason the company doesn't care that you just don't see, and leadership could be (at best) confused about why you would spend time on it.
Given enough soft skills, you can persuade your boss that what you are doing is important, and help him/her represent the department as uncovering and proactively addressing an important issue. Ideally it should align well with the boss's boss agenda.