If you receive performance feedback that sounds something like this, make sure to update your resume and increase your networking.
1. “You aren’t strategic enough.”
2. “You need to manage upward better and be more strategic.”
3. “You don’t have the executive presence needed to be considered for a promotion.”
4. “You need to work on your executive presence.”
After hearing this, most people will ask their manager what behaviors they need to change. “Specifically, tell me what I am doing or not doing that needs to change.”
You write what they say word for word and then ask more questions. Your manager keeps saying the same thing over and over and yet it is never specific enough for you to determine which of your behaviors needs to change to meet or exceed expectations.
First, the definition of “strategic” and “executive presence” varies. There isn’t one definition for those terms that we all agree on.
Second, often I’ve found that these terms are used in performance feedback to build a case in writing that you are not meeting performance standards so you can be laid off or fired.
Then, you may even start thinking about your employer’s focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. The words describing the DEIB initiatives say one thing, but in practice the actions of the leaders you work for are not aligned consistently.
If you are not strategic like your peers or demonstrating executive presence like your peers, you are deficient. You don’t fit in and that isn’t acceptable.
To believe that your performance review is fair:
1. It is being provided by someone I trust and that wants me to be successful.
2. I am being evaluated against a clear set of performance standards. And those were communicated effectively at the beginning of the performance period.
3. The person who is evaluating my performance saw me perform. They based the review on facts.
With those three criteria in mind, be sure to think about and determine if you are being gaslit.
What are gaslighting behaviors? To gaslight someone means to manipulate another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences or understanding of events.
There are a lot of things broken in performance feedback processes across employers.
Pay for performance is a great goal. But if your assessment of performance is not accurate or fair, then you will have pay inequities (or perceived pay inequities). And pay transparency will shine a light on things that make you uncomfortable.
#pay #payequity #paytransparency #compensation #strategic #executivepresence #hr #humanresources #deib #dei #rewards
(Source: Talent Strategy Group, American Psychological Association)