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

112: From Hard Worker To In-Demand Leader: The Career Shift Black Women Need for Executive Roles

• Nicole Bryan

Share episode

In this episode, Dr. Nicole breaks down the difference between hard workers and in-demand leaders, explains the psychology behind the overachiever trap for Black women, and shares the strategic positioning approach that gets you promoted in 3- 6 months instead of staying stuck for years. Learn how to shift from performance burden to positioning power, from chasing opportunities to being sought after for executive roles. Essential listening for Black women who want to become executive leaders. 


_________

LET’S CONNECT!

* Work with me 1:1 to land your executive promotion, increase your impact, hone your executive presence and increase your salary by $50-100k. Book your call here to get your Elite Executive Experience.


**Leave the podcast a 5-star review and help other introverted women find us and join our community.

SPEAKER_00:

You work harder than everybody around you. You exceed every goal, you're the first one into the office and the last one out. And you're still not getting the promotion that you want. In this episode, I'm breaking down why being the hard worker is actually preventing you from moving forward, the difference between performance and positioning, and why this pattern is so so hard for us as black introverted women to break. Now, if you've ever wondered, how does she actually know what I'm going through? This episode is for you because I've been there, my clients have been there, but the good news is there is a way forward. Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan, and I help ambitious black introverted women leaders solve three critical problems. The first is getting promoted to executive leadership in six months or less, even if you've been stuck in your role for years. The second is closing the director to executive skill gap so you can lead with confidence, executive presence, and strategic thinking at that next level. And the third is successfully leading your team or department from establishing credibility to building high-performing teams that deliver results. Okay, so let's dive into today's topic. You're probably nodding along to this already, aren't you? Because you are that hard worker. You're the reliable one, the one who never says no. Yet you are exhausted and you're feeling stuck. In this episode, I am going to hold up a mirror so you can see what's really happening. And I'm not doing that to judge you, but to help you see the pattern as clearly as possible. Because once you see it, you can change it. So let me describe someone and tell me if this sounds familiar to you. You arrive early, you stay late. Your calendar is packed, backed to back with meetings, meetings, and work. When someone needs something done right, they come to you. Now you've exceeded expectations on every performance review that you've had for the last 10 years or so. You take on projects that everybody else says no to. And yet, when that VP and senior VP promotion came up, they gave it to somebody else. Someone who's been there less time, someone who works less hours, someone who you've literally had to clean up after. If that's you, then stay with me because I need you to understand something. This isn't happening because you're not good enough. It's happening because you're too good at being a hard worker. And there is a big difference between being a hard worker and being an in-demand leader. So here's what's really happening. This is something that Dr. Claude Steele studied, right? When you're aware of negative stereotypes about your group, you overperform to counteract them. So as a black introverted woman in corporate spaces, we have already learned that we have to work twice, hell, three times as hard to be seen as half as good. This isn't in your head, it is real. I know we all work in our corporate spaces, we work in nonprofit, we work in startup organizations. If you are working in any organization, company where you are not the majority, then this is not in your head. It's very, very real. Now, there's another thing called the prove it again bias. This was developed by Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield. She documented this. And it is the phenomenon that black women face constant scrutiny, requiring two times the performance. Like so, what your white colleagues do once, you have to do repeatedly to prove your competence. In other words, the bar that has been set, it keeps moving up, keeps moving, keeps moving so that you are feeling like it's never enough. So, what has happened? You've developed a survival strategy to deal with the prove it again bias and the stereotype threat that's very, very real. You have over time developed your own survival strategy. And your survival strategy has become: I am going to be the hardest worker. I'm gonna show them by being the hardest worker. If I'm excellent, that they cannot deny me what I am entitled to. If I work harder than everybody else, they can't question my authority or my credibility. If I make myself indispensable, they ain't gonna let me go. But here's the trap: being indispensable in your current role makes you unpromotable to the next role because you're too valuable where you are, and they can't afford to move you. The other way it becomes a trap is that some people see how great you are, they're threatened by you, and they're not trying to let you navigate to the next level. They are in fact trying to do things to block you from moving to the next level. That's the trap. A client once told me, I worked 70-hour weeks for five years. I never missed a deadline, I exceeded every metric, and I still got passed over for vice president three times. And then when she asked why, her boss said, She's too critical in her current role. We can't lose her as a director. Translation, your hard work made you stuck. Now let me paint some other pictures and you can tell me which one is you. So this is scenario one, the project collector. You're in a meeting, someone mentions a complex project with no clear owner, everyone's eyes shift to you, you feel that familiar pull, like, okay, if I don't do it, it's not gonna get done right. So you say yes, even though you are already maxed out. Is that you? Are you the project collector? Scenario number two, the proof machine. You're presenting in a leadership meeting. You are over prepared, meaning you have spent weeks preparing for and getting ready for this meeting. You have backup slides for your backup slides. Now, your white male colleague presents next. You can already tell he's he was half prepared, if that much, but he gets the same response. You notice, you notice that you worked for weeks, if not months, and you were stellar. Nobody could tell you nothing about how you presented. And then your white colleague comes up, he presents, and it's clear that he did not do what was needed to come well prepared. But you both get the same level of appreciation, you both get the same level of kudos, and you notice and it stings. Is that you? Have you been in that scenario before? Scenario number three, the ghost. You did exceptional work on a major, major strategic initiative. The vice president presents it to the executive team, your name isn't even mentioned. Or if it's mentioned, it's mentioned in passing. And you tell yourself, well, you know what? It doesn't matter because the work speaks for itself. But six months later, that vice president gets promoted and you're still waiting. Has that happened to you? Has there been a time where someone else who may be more senior than you takes credit for your work? You don't say anything because you are very confident that you know what, the people around here knows who really did most of the work. People around here know who actually puts everything together. But then six months later, their credit or their role or their kudos takes them to the next level or opens doors for another opportunity for them while you're still in the same place. Is that you? Scenario three, the ghost. The fourth scenario that I want to talk about is the burnout cycle. And this is probably really, really familiar to you. You are completely exhausted all of the time. It doesn't matter how much sleep you get or how little sleep you get, you're just tired and you constantly fantasize about quitting, not just once a day, not just twice a day, but multiple times a day, that thought crosses your mind. But you're afraid that if you slow down, you will lose ground. If you saw yourself in any of these four scenarios, the project collector, the proof machine, the ghost, and the burnout cycle, then you are operating on performance, not positioning. And that, dear lady leader, is the problem. Let me break down what I mean by performance versus positioning, because you may have heard the term positioning before, but not truly understood what it actually means, particularly when we compare it to performance, because it is a shift. It's a shift to move from performance to positioning. So let's talk about performance, which should be familiar to you and to all of us. Performance is about what you deliver, the projects that you complete, the metrics that you hit, the goals you exceed, the work you produce, how many hours you log. Performance answers the question: can she do the job? And listen, you've already answered that question multiple times with multiple receipts. Your performance is not the problem. Now let's talk about positioning. Positioning is about where you've positioned yourself in the organizational ecosystem. So it's about who knows you and what they know you for, how you're perceived by decision makers, what conversations you're included in, or what conversations you're excluded from, what opportunities come to you without you having to chase them, and where you sit in the network of influence and power in your company, in your team, in the industry. Positioning answers the question: is she ready for executive leadership? And here's what most people don't understand. At the executive level, everyone can perform. Everybody, because performance is table stakes. What separates those who get promoted is positioning. So let me show you the difference. I want to show you the difference between being a hard worker, which you are likely right now, versus being an in-demand leader, where people are attracted to you, where opportunities are attracted to you. You don't have to chase them, they come to you. Where resources are given to you. You don't have to go ask and beat down the door and change up your budget to not do one thing so you can get another, but resources are amply given to you. That's the difference between the hard worker and the in-demand leader. But let's define them. The hard worker focuses on getting things done, exceeding expectations, proving capability. Hard worker believes if I just work harder and deliver more, they will promote me, they will reward me. A hard worker operates on performance, which means what I deliver. The hard worker is known for being reliable, executing well, getting results. And the hard worker's opportunities, you have to chase them when you're a hard worker. You have to apply for them. You have to prove that you deserve them. And the result of all of those things is that you get stuck carrying the performance burden. You get stuck as known by the dependable one. You get stuck as Mikey. I don't know if you guys remember if you remember Mikey from the uh life commercial back in the day. I might be dating myself. So, like in the late 70s, maybe early 80s, there was a life cereal was very popular, and there was a commercial where they would say, you know, give it to Mikey, he'll eat it. Because Mikey just he would eat anything essentially. That's kind of what the hard worker epitome is, where it doesn't matter what the project is, doesn't matter how intense the project is, doesn't even matter sometimes what discipline the project is in, the company knows that you are the person that they're gonna give it to you, or they're gonna ask to take it on, or that you will even volunteer because that's just what you do. No matter nothing is too big, nothing is too small, you are the hard worker. And and when you have that persona, when you adopt that persona, when you embody that persona, what ultimately happens is that you get that reputation for being the dependable one. But instead of it being beneficial to you, it keeps you stuck carrying the performance burden for the organization, for the team, for your boss. That is the hard worker. Now let's talk about what the in-demand leader looks like. The in-demand leader focuses on having a strategic impact, being visible with decision makers, demonstrating executive thinking. The in-demand leader believes that if I position myself strategically and the right people know my value, opportunities will come to me. The in-demand leader operates on positioning, where you are positioned, who knows you, and how you are perceived. And the in-demand leader is known for strategic thinking, executive presence, business acumen. For the in-demand leader, opportunities come to you. You are recruited, you are sought after, you are the first person that is called. Now, the result of all of this is that you are wielding positioning power. Here's the clearest way I can say it and to point out the difference between the two. Hard workers chase promotions. In-demand leaders are recruited for promotions. And here's what's also hard to accept: the people getting promoted to vice president, to senior vice president, to executive vice president aren't necessarily better performers than you are, but they're better positioned than you. They have figured out that at a certain level in your career, a certain time in your career, a certain level in the organization, it's no longer about how hard you work. It is about how strategically you've been positioned. So if you are a manager, if you are a director, um, helps for some of us, if we are VPs, performance matters most at that middle level of the organization, the middle tier of the organization, and mid-career. Performance matters most. Work hard, deliver results, you move up. You've already proven that, I've proven that when you know the first 10, maybe even 15 years of our careers. But when you are trying to move into the executive level, that could be a VP in most organizations, it's senior VP, executive VP, chief. When you're trying to get one of those roles, positioning matters most, not performance. Who knows you, how you're perceived, where you're connected. So what got you to the director level, what got you your manager role, what got you your senior director, senior manager role, all of those will not get you to the executive level. You can't performance your way into executive leadership. Why? Because everybody who's trying to get into executive leadership has performance their way to that point, right? Like you are competing against other strong people. You are competing against other people who have worked hard. You're competing against other people who have demonstrated their value by overperforming. What you need to do is distinguish yourself from everybody else who's at that level, who's at your current level. You have to position your way there, not performance your way there. And that requires a completely different strategy. And it's not about working less, it's about working differently. It's about shifting from proving you can do the work to demonstrating that you think like an executive. It's moving from being known as someone who executes to being known as someone who leads. And it's moving from chasing opportunities to being sought out for them. Now, if you're sitting here and you're listening to my voice or you're watching this and you're thinking, that's me. I'm the hard worker, I'm the hard worker, I'm the one that everybody depends on. Everybody knows they can count on me and that I will do everything in my power to make sure that I get it done. If that's you, I see you. Hell, I've been you. And some of my clients have been you as well. And here's what I want you to know this is fixable. It's not about working harder. You already work hard enough. It's not about being more confident, because confidence isn't your problem. It's about making a strategic shift from performance to positioning, from hard worker to interest. Demand leader. Now, next week I'm going to be breaking down the five stages black introverted women move through on the way to executive leadership and where you are stuck right now. Because understanding where you are is the first step to moving forward. And then in January, just to give you a little preview, I'm doing something special. Actually, on January 14th, I'm hosting a live training where I'm going to walk you through exactly how to make this shift. I'll be sharing some of the frameworks I use with my clients who get promoted within 5 to 12 months and who are able to increase their income by$50 to$100,000. So mark your calendar and stay tuned for the registration details. For now, what I want you to do is I want you to look at your work this week. And as you're looking at your work, I want you to ask yourself am I operating on performance or on positioning? Just notice. Just use the definitions that we talked about today and just notice. And that's enough for now. Until next time, lady leader, I'm Dr. Nicole, and I'm reminding you that the future of leadership is introverted, black, and female. So keep leading your introvert way.