107: How Black Introvert Women Can Manage Year-End Leadership Stress

The calendar is packed, the inbox is loud, and the economy won’t stop buzzing in the background—so how do you lead well without losing yourself? We dig into the real weight of year-end: performance reviews, budgets, strategy cycles, mandatory training, and the family and community expectations that stack on top. This episode leaves you with tools to protect your energy, lead with steadiness, and stay ready for whatever comes next, without sacrificing your career growth or your peace. 

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Transcript

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Hi Lady Leader. Listen, if you are already feeling exhausted, just thinking about the next two months, this episode is for you. Because between now and the end of the year, you've got performance reviews to write, budgets to finalize, next year's strategy to plan, and you're still expected to show up for every family gathering and holiday event. Oh, and did I mention the economy is stressing you out too? Yeah, I see you. Let's talk about how to get through this season without losing yourself in the process. Today we're going to name all the stress you're carrying right now because acknowledging it is the first step. We're going to talk about how stress might be showing up in your body and your mind in ways you might not even realize. And we're going to also talk about and give you three powerful strategies to manage it all responsibly without sacrificing your career or your sanity. And I'm going to tell you why you need to ignore most of the stress management advice out there. Yep, you heard me correctly. Let's get real about what's on your plate right now as a mid-career leader. At work, you're responsible for conducting performance reviews for your team, making merit increase and promotion recommendations, planning your department's budget for next year, setting the strategic calendar and priorities for 2026, completing your mandatory year-end training, and still handling your day-to-day responsibility. Nothing stops just because it's November and December. But wait, there's more because your family expects you at holiday dinners, gatherings, and events. And maybe you're even hosting this year or helping to plan or being asked to bring dishes. People want your time, your energy, and your presence. And then there's the layer that nobody talks about. The economy is shaky. You're watching companies announce layoff after layoff. You're wondering if your own job is secure despite what's being said and maybe what's not being said at work. You're seeing cost-cutting measures and trying to figure out what that means for you and your team. And the political climate has you worried about what's coming next with the new administration, ICE, and policies that could impact you, your family, and your colleagues. You're carrying stress that goes beyond just your own personal situation. And as an introvert, all of this, the meetings, the decision making, the emotional labor of leading your team through uncertainty, the holiday social obligations, it's all draining your battery faster than usual. Here's what's happening in your body. Your nervous system is in constant overdrive. When you're juggling this many responsibilities plus uncertainty, your brain interprets it as a threat. It shifts into survival mode, which is why everything feels so much harder right now. This isn't weakness, it's biology. Stress doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it shows up in sneaky ways. Let me ask you if you're experiencing any of these. Are you skipping meals because you're too busy? Or are you stress eating more than usual? Have you noticed weight changes, either losing or gaining significant amounts of weight without trying? Do you have headaches that won't quit? Maybe tension in your jaw, your neck, or your shoulders? Do you have sleep problems? Either you can't fall asleep, or you're waking up at 3 a.m. with your mind racing about work? Do you feel tired all the time, even after a full night's sleep? Are you ruminating, like replaying that conversation with your boss over and over, worrying about what-if scenarios? Does every decision feel exhausting, even small ones like what to eat for dinner? Are you snapping at your team or your family over very little things? Do you feel numb or disconnected, like you're just going through the motions? Are you procrastinating on important tasks because you can't even think about them? And do you have brain fog? You read the same email three or four times and you still don't know what it says. Here's what I want you to understand. This isn't you being weak. This isn't you failing. This is your body trying to protect you. It's saying, hey, we are maxed out here. And the smartest thing you can do as a leader, both at home and at work, is to listen to it. The truth is, you can't think your way out of stress. Trust me, I have tried. You can't just be stronger or push through. You have to actually address it. And that's what we're going to do today. All right, let's get into what you can actually do about this. I'm giving you three strategies that are practical, responsible, and won't jeopardize your career or your home life. Strategy number one. First, we need to talk about energy triage. You can't do everything with the same level of intensity. So we're going to categorize your tasks. This is how it works. You're going to have three categories must-do, should do, and nice to do. In the must-do category, these are your non-negotiables that directly impact your teen, your budget, and your performance. Performance reviews, for example, those are must-d's. Budget planning, that's another must-do. Strategic planning for next year, a third must-do. Should do, this category are for important things, but you have some flexibility around them. Maybe that training can be completed in early January versus having it to be done before the end of the year. Or maybe the report that's being waited on, it can be simplified. Or perhaps that meeting that you have to go to or you have to facilitate, it can be shortened. Then the third category of nice to do. These are all the things that would be great, but honestly, they can wait. That new process you wanted to implement, that's January. That extra project, push it down the line. The controversial truth I need you to hear is that some things can actually wait. And choosing to delay them isn't laziness. You're protecting your energy and your team's energy for what truly matters. And not to mention that we plan for things. And when you plan so tightly, when you have everything is in the must-do bucket, that means that other things that come down the pike that you have no control over and you know it's going to happen because it happens year after year after year. When those things come down the pike, your team will be stretched beyond compare, right? There will be literally no wiggle room. And if you are thinking like a strategic leader, you will build in some wiggle room for what you know ultimately is going to happen, which is some other team is going to need your support on their priorities, or some other team is going to pitch over the fence something that they can't do, but they need you to do. So you might as well make room or build room into your last two years of the month to accommodate that now. Now that's just work. At home, you also have must-do, should do's, and nice-to-do's. A must-do at home might be for you showing up for the main family dinner. A should do might be you attending one or two other gatherings. And a nice to do would be every single holiday event, party, or get together. You're there. Give yourself permission because you don't have to do it all. And you don't have to feel guilty about it either. Here's one action step you can take this week. Sit down and write out your own list of must-do, should do, and nice-to-do's. Be honest, then communicate adjusted timelines where needed, both at work and at home. Okay, the second strategy is the body first approach. Here's the thing about stress: you can't always control what's happening around you. You can't control if your company is going to have layoffs. You can't control the political climate. You can't even control your family's expectations. But you can control how you and your body respond to stress. When you're stressed, your body releases cortisol. That's the stress hormone. Too much cortisol messes with your sleep, messes with your appetite, messes with your mood, and everything. But here's the good news: you can interrupt that stress response with simple practices. Now, nope, this is not woo-woo. This is actual neuroscience. Here are three body first practices that I want you to listen to and determine whether they might work for you. The first is box breathing, and you can use this for rumination and anxiety. When your mind is racing or you're ruminating about whether you'll have a job next year, try this. Breathe in for four counts, hold it for four counts, and breathe out for four counts. Then hold that for four counts and repeat that four times. When you do this, it sends a signal to your nervous system that you're safe. It literally calms your stress response. You can do this before performance review conversations, before bed, anytime you feel overwhelmed. The second body first practice that I want you to think about is get 10 to 15 minutes of natural sunlight within an hour of waking up. Go outside, even if it's cold. This regulates your circadian rhythm and helps you sleep better at night. Better sleep equals better decision making, and that equals better leadership. The third body first practice is getting protein at breakfast. And when you do that, it stabilizes your energy. So many of us skip breakfast because we've been told that's what we should be doing, right? If we want to lose weight, or you know, if we're trying to look different in our clothes. But skipping breakfast is detrimental. When you skip breakfast or you eat something sugary that spikes your cortisol even more, start with protein. Eat some eggs, some Greek yogurt, a protein shake. Doing this stabilizes your blood sugar and gives you steady energy instead of the crash and crave cycle. Movement as stress release. Now, I'm not talking about punishing workouts. I'm talking about moving your body to release tension. A 10-minute walk could is just as easily done as dancing to one song in your living room or in your office. You can stretch for five minutes, right? Your body holds stress, so movement releases it. Sidebar, with my last teen, we used to do dancing. We used to open up our meetings with dancing because I love music, I love to dance, and I happened to have at the time a predominantly female group, female team of about 40 people. But the good news is even the guys on our team used to like to dance. And so we would open up our large team meetings with music and with dancing. And it made such a difference. Now, the grounding technique, it's another it's another technique you can actually use for rumination. So when you catch yourself ruminating, like we're replaying things in your mind over and over and over again. It could be you're replaying a conversation, particularly us as introverts, we tend to replay conversations to think about and come up with new ways of responding of how we might respond in that conversation. So you could be replaying a conversation that happened a day or two ago. You could be replaying a meeting, um, you could be replaying anything. But when you are replaying it, that is you ruminating. You might want to use the five, four, three, two, one technique when you find yourself ruminating. Here's what that is. Name five things that you can see, four things that you can touch, three things that you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. When you do this, it brings you back to the present moment instead of spiraling about the future or spiraling about the past. So, what I want you to do is I want you to pick one of these body first practices and commit to it for the next two weeks. Just one. Master that, and then you can go back and you can add another. Okay, strategy number three that will help you manage all of the stress that you're dealing with without losing yourself. This is about managing stress that you can't control, right? When you are feeling stressed about things that you cannot control, that's like the economy or potential layoffs or political instability. And that uncertainty, it kind of eats you up from the inside. What I want you to do is think about the framework of what you can control versus what you can't. So, what you can't control, those are things like your company's, if your company's laying off, you're likely not making that decision. That is a much bigger, much broader decision, and that's happening at a different pay grade. You can't control what's happening in the economy. You cannot control the politics, the decisions that's happening in the United States or in Europe or any other country. And what your leadership decides about budgets and restructuring, you can't control that either. But what you can control, you can control your performance and visibility in your current role. You can control your professional network, you can control your skill set and your expertise, and you can control what your plan B is, other options for you. Here's the shift that I want you to make. Instead of spending your energy worrying about the what-ifs, spend that energy preparing. Preparation isn't pessimism, it's empowerment. Build your plan B quietly so that you can have a peace of mind. And what that might look like is you might not have any intention of leaving your job, leaving your company. But if you take steps to ensure that if something happened that was out of your control, you could land on your feet more readily and sooner, that's a type of plan B that could help you. So that might mean that you update your resume this month, not because you're leaving, but because it gives you a sense of power, a sense of security. Or that you work on building your network, like you reach out to some former colleagues, have coffee with people, um, have a video chat, right, with others in your industry, just staying connected so that you can keep your air to the ground and understand what's happening, what the dynamics are. Or it might mean that you keep track of your wins, like the projects that you led, the money that you've saved or generated on behalf of the company, the improvements you made in your department. Document it. And if you have the bandwidth, explore what else is out there just to know your options. One of the things that I tell my clients all the time is you should actually know and understand what and how marketable your skills are at any given moment in your career. Again, it doesn't mean that you're actively looking, but it might be helpful for you to keep an eye, for example, on LinkedIn for or equitable jobs. If you're an AVP of financial planning right now, do you know what other companies out there are looking for AVPs of financial planning, what they pay, those types of things? That's an easy, quick span of LinkedIn, maybe once a week, once every two weeks, just to kind of see what's out there. That could be part of your plan B. When you know you have options, the uncertainty feels less terrifying. My clients, I am telling them this all the time, and I support them in doing this. Knowing when you have options, everything feels better. And despite what might come down the pipe that you did not anticipate, when you have options, you can quickly adjust and get into problem solving mode or next steps mode without being caught off guard. You're not trapped. When you are planning your plan B, you are informed and you're prepared. Here's your best job security. Be undeniably good at what you do. Show up fully for those performance reviews, present that budget with confidence, lead your team through this uncertainty with steadiness, make yourself valuable. But also know that even if you do everything right, things might still happen that are out of your control. And if that does happen, you will be ready. So this weekend, what I want you to do is spend two hours on your plan B. Update your LinkedIn profile, put together your resume, reach out to three people in your network, give yourself the gift of options. Now, before we wrap up, I need to tell you something important. Ignore most of the stress management advice you're hearing right now. Why? Because stress management is deeply personal. What works for someone else likely is not going to work for you. And as an introvert, your needs are different from what the extroverts are prescribing. Maybe everyone is telling you to go out more or talk to people when what you actually need is more alone time. Maybe they're saying just meditate, but that makes you even more anxious because your mind won't stop racing. Your approach to managing stress should be customized to you, to your desires, to your strengths, and to your personality. As an introvert, maybe your stress relief is a quiet Saturday at home with a book. I know mine is, right? Maybe it's saying no to that holiday party and taking a bath instead. Maybe it's a solo walk where nobody needs anything from you. Or maybe your stress relief is journaling or cooking or watching your favorite TV show. There is no one size fits all. The three strategies I gave you today: the energy triage, the body first approach, and the uncertainty management framework, these are all tools. Just take what resonates with you. You don't have to do all three. You don't have to do two. Take what resonates for you and adapt what doesn't. Create your own system. The goal isn't perfection. The goal is to get through the next two months without losing yourself, without burning out, and without sacrificing your career advancement or your peace. You are going to make it through this time of year. You're going to lead your team well, you're going to fulfill your responsibilities. You're going to show up for your family, and you're going to protect your energy. It might not look pretty, right? You might have to disappoint some people. You might have to let some things go, but you are going to make it. And not only are you going to make it, you're going to thrive through it. And when January comes, you'll be one of the few leaders who's rested, strategic, and ready to dominate the new year while everyone else is recovering from burnout. Okay, lady leader, that is it for today's episode. I hope this gave you some practical tools and more importantly, some permission to take care of yourself during this intense season. If this resonated with you, share it with another black introvert woman leader who needs to hear this. Send her the link. Let her know that she's not alone and feeling overwhelmed. Remember, your rest is strategic. Your boundaries are leadership, and you do not have to do it all to be enough. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, keep leading your introvert way.