Leading Her Introvert Way: Conversations about executive leadership, career growth, business and mindset for mid-life Black women.

110: Stop Winging Your Year-End Review: How Black Introverted Leaders Should Position for Promotion

• Nicole Bryan • Episode 110

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This episode gives you the words, the structure, and the mindset to use your year-end performance review to position yourself for your next leadership promotion.

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SPEAKER_00:

Okay, lady leader. So over the last couple of weeks, you have literally spent hours, like 40 to 60 hours, preparing performance reviews for your team, your direct reports. You've been gathering examples, writing feedback, planning development conversations. You want to make sure you talk to each one of your members in a way that, frankly, they understand what you're saying, that they don't get on a defensive. So you've been really, really strategic and really intentional about what you're going to say, how you're going to say it. But when it comes to your own performance review, the one that you're going to have with your boss, you're completely winning it. Either because you're so tired of looking at those stupid review forms, or because you weren't proactive over the last year or so. And so you didn't necessarily keep track of all the things that you did, or because you don't think that your conversation with your boss is going to go well. There's a variety of reasons. Or it might be just that you run out of time. But you definitely know that you have not prepared for your performance review half as much or half as well as you have for the reviews that you're going to give to your team. Listen, we prioritize everybody else. That's what we do as leaders. That's what we do as black women. However, this is costing you when you don't take the time to prepare for your performance conversation, when you don't leverage that moment to actually say the things that need to be said, it's costing you promotions, it's costing you the raise that you want, it's costing you a portion of your bonus, and it's costing you future opportunities. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So historically, every year I around this. So historically, every year around this time, I will do some type of either live event or podcast episode around how you as a leader should be preparing for your performance review. But this year I was going to skip it. However, I got to talking to a couple of my clients inside the Elite Leader Experience program, my coaching program, and it was clear that they needed to hear what I normally talk about. And so I decided to just bring it back to the podcast. Because if they are experiencing it and they're downplaying the importance of their review conversation, their annual review conversation with their boss, then it is likely that you who are listening to this podcast are doing the same thing. So I want to emphasize three important points that you as a leader of people should be thinking about and doing when you are in your annual performance review conversation with your boss. And I want to tell you a story about one of my clients who was making some classic errors and classic mistakes when it came to how she was approaching her annual review. And for some of us, our fiscal year starts from July to June. So right now, we're not having our annual review conversations, but we're having our mid-year conversations. Either way, whether the December-January period brings your annual review or the December-January period brings your mid-year conversation. Either way, what we're going to talk about today applies. The main thing is that I want you as a leader to not approach it the same way you used to do it when you were an individual contributor. And I want you to approach it thinking about what you want and need to get out of that conversation and what you need and want from your boss and from your organization for 2026 and 2027. Okay, so let me tell you about one of my clients. It's a perfect lesson for all of us to see and understand and take away from. So my client actually went into her performance review with a list of 47 accomplishments. Now that number sticks out to me because I asked her what her boss's feedback was. And her boss called out that she had 47 accomplishments. And then when I saw the document that she leveraged with her boss, I saw that indeed she had literally numbered each one of her accomplishments, and there were 47 of them. I asked how her boss received it, and she said that she felt like her boss kind of disconnected. She felt like she was talking and explaining and reviewing all of her accomplishments, but her boss stopped paying attention and wasn't participating in the conversation. That her boss's eyes literally glazed over by the time she reached the fifth or the sixth accomplishment that she was sharing. We stop and think about this. Of course, that makes sense. If your direct report came to you and had a list of 47 accomplishments and felt the need to go one by one through all of those accomplishments, yes, you would block half of that out as well. So no wonder her boss stopped engaging at some point during the discussion because it stopped being a discussion and started more being a checklist. You as a leader, whether you're a manager, a senior manager, director, vice president, you are responsible for a team or a department. So when you go into a conversation with your boss and you list everything that you think that you've accomplished for the year, it makes your impact seem smaller, not bigger. It makes you seem less competent, not having a significant amount of executive or leadership presence. Because the difference between talking, making a list of 47 things and talking about your all the accomplishments that you can even think about that you can recall from January through December, that is all about activity. And you as a leader who wants to move your career forward, whether getting promoted, finding a new role, or having a larger team, deeper responsibilities. If that's you, you don't want to be seen as a person who is doing a lot of activity. You don't want busy work. What you want is for your boss and the organization to understand and reward your impact, not the bunch of activities that you do, but the impact you're making. And what executives actually care about is impact, not your to-do list. The mistake that my client made is that she went in thinking that, hey, if I can demonstrate all the things that I actually did, all the accomplishments that I made, the more the better. And that is a very key mistake that many of us make. We think the more full our list is, the better we show up. And it's actually not true. So what I want to talk to you today is about how you, as a leader of people, leader of a team, leader of a department, how you can, even during your performance review, even when your boss should know everything that you've done and everything that you've accomplished throughout the year, how you can show up in that meeting, still positioning yourself, positioning yourself for everything that you want and you need in the future for the relationship with your boss and from the company. I will tell you this till I'm blue in the face, but so many of us take our strategic thinking skills and we apply it to the job. We apply it to what we do for the organization that we are part of. But what we don't do is apply those same strategic thinking skills, strategic planning skills, strategic positioning skills to our career and what we want and what we need for us and the team we're responsible for. And that is the mind shift as you go into your year-end conversation or your mid-year conversation now that I want you to grab a hold of. So we're gonna talk about three different ways in which you can approach your upcoming performance conversation. I know it's gonna be different from what you've done in the past, but that is the point. And what I will say is this is not about the performance management system that your company subscribes to. It's not about the forms that you have to fill out. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't fill those forms out. Of course, comply with the process. But there's a difference between the process that you have to participate in because that is what your company expects, and the conversation you're gonna have with your boss around your performance. Two different things. They should be related, but they are in fact two different things. Okay. All right. So here's what I want to talk about. The first thing is don't go in with a list of 50 things. Even if you have to complete a self-evaluation form, don't try to cram everything that you did over the past 12 months into that form. First of all, it's impossible to do. And second of all, it's not gonna get you anything. What I want you to do instead is I want you to narrow down your work to three things you did in the past 12 months that had the most impact. And you're probably like, okay, that's virtually impossible. How do I cram 12 months of work into three things? Well, like everything else, you want to determine what is most important to your organization. What things were you responsible for that aligned with the strategy of the company? Or if not the strategy of the company that your boss prioritized? What were the things in terms of you making an impact that really counted, that you know had downstream effects and are still having downstream effects? You can measure your impact in a couple of ways. It could be by time. What did you do that saved time or accelerated timelines for the organization? It could be in terms of dollars. What did you do that either saved the company money or made the company money, or even reduced costs? Or it could be what you worked on made an impact in terms of people. What did you do that impacted either client satisfaction or team retention or employee development? Or the impact that you made could be all about strategy. What did you do that shifted the organization's direction or organizational capability? So an example of this might be instead of you uh putting on your checklist that you led 15 projects, if you're thinking about it from making an impact standpoint, you would cover it by saying, I led the X initiative that reduced processing time by 40%, saving the organization$2 million last year. You see the difference? One is a task, I led 15 projects, right? That is it's just that is an accomplishment. I led 15 projects. But when you talk about the impact that you made, you led the initiative and it reduced processing time by 40% and it saved the organization$2 million. That is like, okay, wow, let me sit up and listen to this woman because she's actually making a difference here. How to quantify your impact, even when you don't have the exact numbers, is that you could literally talk through what you did, the impact it had, and why it mattered to the business. Sometimes you don't have the exact data, but you do have a sense of the difference that it made and the long-term implications. And so you can talk to that. So again, when you're thinking about what you want to bring to the conversation with your boss that showcases you and your talents and what you can do for the organization and even what you can do for the organization in the future, you want to focus on your top impact, not a laundry list of everything that you and your team were able to accomplish the last year. Okay, let's move forward. So, the first thing that you're gonna be doing differently is you are going to be focusing on being more strategic about your approach and your conversation with your boss, and you're focusing on three top impacts. The second thing I want you to think about prior to meeting with your boss, so as you're preparing, I want you to think about what you're going to ask for. I will say this until I am glued in the face, particularly if you are a high performer. There should never be a time where you're walking into your performance review conversation and not asking for something in return. So many of us walk into our performance review conversations and our direct reports do the same thing. And all we're focusing on is talking about the past. All we're focusing on is okay, how do I actually serve up what I've already done for the company? And that's that a part of the performance discussion should focus on that, of course. But you, because you are someone who is also looking to grow, you, because you are someone who knows the value that you bring to that company, you, because you know that you need your boss to recognize all that you can do and have been doing, you should be thinking about what else you need. Because so many of us, most of us, are not going to be able to keep churning out these stellar results and being able to do all the things that we have been doing for the organization without getting something else, not just the salary increase or the bonus potential. More than that, sometimes we need more resources to get the work done. We're doing three jobs in one, and that's not sustainable. So should you be asking for another resource? Or do you need access to external organizations so that you can stay abreast on what's happening in the industry? It doesn't always have to be about money. It doesn't always have to be about people resources, but there are a ton of other resources. Do you need to upgrade your technology to be able to continue to do the work that you have on deck for 2026 and 2027? It could be a variety of different things that you ask for, but you gotta make the ask. Why this is important is many of us will also wait for our boss or someone else to make us an offer or to tell us what we need. No, because we are the ones doing the work. You are the one managing the team, you're managing the projects. You know exactly what you need and what would make your life easier, what would make the results better. Make the ask. So, what you would need to think about is what do you need to keep delivering for the organization? What do you need to grow your career? So, some examples give of the ask could be I want to be considered for the VP role when it opens in 2Q. One of my clients that I was speaking to yesterday inside the Elite Leader Experience program was we talked about, hey, she could literally ask for a coach because they have a coaching program inside her organization. She's never talked to her boss about that and it's never been offered to her. Why not ask for another coach? The other thing we talked about was that she literally is running a program inside her company that's getting international recognition. And it is the prime time for her to say, hey, we're getting international recognition. I want to continue to take this program even further, but I can't do it with the current team that I have. I need to expand the team. Can I have one more resource who can literally take care of the participants in the program and nurture them and that be their sole responsibility? Because right now, I, she, as the leader of the program, is having to do that off the side of her desk. So that was another ask that we talked about. That's another example. Or for you, you might say, you know what, I want to lead the new strategic initiative launching next year. Or if you're someone who's looking to grow your career inside that company and you want to get an executive sponsor next year, you literally could say to your boss, hey, I would like to have more visibility with the C-suite. Can you include me in the quarterly business reviews that you conduct with them? Don't just limit your asks to salary increases or title changes or expanded scope. Ask for the things that you want and that you need, and that will help you continue to grow and be successful. So many of us as Black introverted women, we struggle with the ads. Your mind might be blown right now saying, you know what? I never thought to ask for the things that I actually want and need, because you're thinking about the performance review process as a company protocol, something that's required by the company, instead of thinking about it in terms of how you can leverage it for you, not something that you just have to go through. And so much, so many of us as Black introverted women, we never ask for anything for ourselves. So that's playing a role here as well. But when you do that, when you frame your ask as a business conversation, it's not about necessarily begging for something. It's not about asking for help per se, but it is about being very clear about what you need and what you want in order to continue the exchange in delivering good results for your organization. Right? So if you want a magic phrase that you can use, or if you're wondering, like, what can I say? How would I even bring this up? You could say something like, to continue delivering at this level and expand my impact, I need X, Y, and Z. It's as simple as that. So those are two things we've talked about. Two different ways you're gonna leverage your performance review discussion this year. The first is you're gonna approach it strategically. And the way you approach it strategically is you're gonna talk about the top three impacts, not the laundry list of everything you accomplished in the past year. The second thing that you're gonna do differently is you're gonna make an ask. You're going to, before you sit down with your boss, you're going to think about what it is you want or what it is that you need to either grow your career or keep delivering for your organization. And you're going to incorporate that as part of your conversation to your boss. Now, if you've got a great boss, they're going to ask you, what can I do to continue to support you as we move forward? But those are only great bosses. And many of us don't have great bosses. So you need to be prepared to make the ask. The third thing that you should be planning to do as part of your performance conversation as a leader is you should be working on your relationship with your boss, even in the performance discussion. Because your review isn't just about your performance. It's also about the relationship and what you need from them, right? So you literally could be asking your boss to say, Hey, I need more strategic feedback in real time, not just at year end. Or you can say to your boss, I need you to advocate for me in succession planning conversations. Or you could say to your boss, I need more visibility to projects outside my current scope. You want to leverage your performance review, particularly in how you approach it. You want to leverage it to do something positive for the relationship that you already have with your boss. You might already have a very positive relationship. That is great. You might not even like your boss. And you know how I feel about that. I don't care if you like your boss. You don't have to like your boss to be able to work productively with your boss. So you might have a black and white relationship with your boss. Or you might have something in the middle. If it doesn't really matter what the current state of your relationship is with your boss, you should still be leveraging your performance conversation year-end or mid-year to more solidify that relationship. You can ask for what you need from them, but then also you should be thanking them for whatever it is they have already done. At some point during this year, your boss did something for you that helped you and your team, whether they advocated for more resources, whether they gave you tough feedback, but it was spot on, whether they, you know, gave you exposure to something else, whether they gave you advice and counsel, whether they served as a sounding board for you when you were trying to make a tough decision, whether they, you know, took something on or took something off your plate when you were you were drowning. They did something at some point during this year that helped you out. And you should use your time with them to actually call that moment and thank them for it. And you're doing that for a couple of reasons. One is you want them to know that you remember that they helped you and supported you. And when you thank them, you're calling them out on it and you are letting them know that it didn't go unnoticed, number one, and you're setting yourself up so that they continue to support you in that way because you're reinforcing their behavior essentially. And then the third reason you want to call it out is because being able to talk about those moments helps you to build a better communication with your boss. So you can say something specifically like, I appreciate how you insert your example right there. I appreciate how you've supported me and the team with showing up to our offsites this past year. That really made a difference for me. Could be as simple as that. But you see how you're being very specific about what they did and what you appreciated, and you're telling them that it really meant something. Okay, so those are the three ways that you're going to approach your year-end conversation differently this year. Now, you're probably thinking, okay, this feels like a lot of work. It really doesn't have to be at all. You already got to document whatever you need to document for their self-appraisal and the actual performance management system that you leverage. This is just sitting back and thinking a little bit more about how you're gonna approach it. So this is not a totally separate part piece of that work, it's an add-on to it. And if you want like a checklist, because I know how some of you like checklists, if you want a set checklist to what you need to do before your review, I would say you can do these six or seven things. The first is create your top three impacts, right? Just write that down on a Word document or pull it from the checklist that you've already created, but expand on it. Because the difference between your checklist and the three impacts is that you're going to talk about the actual impact that your work made in terms of time, in terms of uh people, in terms of money, in terms of clients, in terms of strategy. So the first thing you do is create your top three impacts. The second is you want to quantify everything that you can. And then the third is you want to write out your ask clearly. And I would say don't go oh, don't go overboard. One, two, maybe three asks, but be very specific about what they are. The fourth thing that you're gonna do to prep is you're gonna identify what you need from the relationship with your boss. The fifth thing that you're gonna do as you prep is you're gonna practice saying these things out loud. Like if you're already uncomfortable, if you don't know what words you're gonna use, practice saying it out loud. Get in the mirror, use your voice notes on your phone, but practice saying it out loud so that when you do get in front of your boss, it comes out much smoother. The sixth thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna prepare for pushback. Or maybe your boss might say, Let me think about it. So you might have to state the business case or the career development case for why you need something. For example, my client that I mentioned earlier, she's gonna ask for a coach. Her company doesn't readily provide coaches for directors at what she is. They usually provide for VPs and above. And so when she asks, I'm sure her boss is gonna say, Well, why do you need a coach? We normally don't provide directors, coaches. Why would we make you the exception? She's gonna need to talk about and point to all of the notoriety that she has brought that company over the past month with the program she manages. She's gonna also need to talk about the fact that they expect her to expand that program. And so that's going to bring additional pull on her time and her energy. She's gonna need to talk about the fact that she's now representing the company in a lot of different conferences and forms more than she did prior. So, all of these are reasons why they would want her to show up at as her best and would truly consider giving her an executive coach to make sure that she does that. And so your boss may push back, or they may say, Let me think about it. And you would just need to be prepared to explain your reasoning. And then the final thing I would encourage you to do as you prepare for your review is to have your own development plan ready. Many of our organizations tend to be somewhat lazy when it comes to development planning, and they expect you to put your own development plan together. Okay, if that's the case and that's your situation, then let's put a development plan together. Have your own plan and specifically what you want. Want to develop, how you want to develop it, and what resource you're going to use to actually get the outcome that you're seeking. I am very, very big on this. Now it's probably because that I've owned performance management for large companies like T Row Price, Citibank, Met Star Health. I've owned performance management. Even in the nonprofits that I've worked in, I've been the person who's responsible for identifying the system, designing the process, working with external vendors, training leaders and managers. But I also know that systems are only as good as the people who leverage them, both from a leader standpoint and from an employee standpoint. And so even when the system is great, how you approach the conversations can make or break the outcomes you either get or don't get from it. So I'm really passionate about it. And I do not like when we as leaders underestimate and underutilize this resource because it can literally reconfigure your outlook in your company moving forward. Okay. So as we wrap today's conversation up, remember your performance review is your opportunity to position yourself. So stop showing up unprepared. Stop discounting it, right? Stop recounting 50 million tasks that you and your team did in the past 12 months. And start focusing on the impact that you're making and start focusing on making clear asks from your boss and from the organization. This, my friend, is how you get promoted. Not by hoping that they notice you, but by positioning yourself strategically. Okay, lady leader. So if you want help preparing for your upcoming performance review and for positioning yourself so that you are set up for success in the coming year and the years after, then send me a direct message on LinkedIn and we can talk about how I can guide you through that process. And in the meantime, keep leading your introvert way.