What’s confidence got to do with it? Everything

“Lisa comes across as young and overly enthusiastic at times. She should seek to have more gravitas.” 

That was the feedback Lisa Sun got in her first performance review as a 22-year-old junior analyst at McKinsey & Company. Was it code for: You don’t have what it takes to be taken seriously in the corporate arena? Was it a frank way of telling her: You'd be doing yourself a favor if you developed more confidence? At the time, Sun didn’t even know what gravitas meant. So she looked it up and decided to figure out how to develop her own. She spent the next two decades uncovering what it takes for each of us, as women, to identify and cultivate our own brands of confidence. Her journey led her to launch a women’s lifestyle brand called, you guessed it, Gravitas. And this fall, she released Gravitas: The 8 Strengths That Redefine Confidence. The book is about helping women figure out how to define and amplify what makes each of us us, so that we can build on our true strengths. It includes a quiz to help women find their confidence language because Sun wants us to see confidence as an individual mindset that drives behavior, rather than a conventional set of behaviors that we associate with confidence (or, sometimes, with a more male-oriented paradigm).

But we don’t live in individual bubbles; we are constantly sorting through and interpreting other people’s thoughts and ideas about our actions. Of course, how we process and internalize feedback is largely determined by how confident we feel. And we all know that, a.) women are more likely to internalize negative feedback; b.) confidence matters as much as competence; and c.) confidence can be weaponized against women. 

With the season of annual performance reviews upon us, I’ve been thinking about how feedback like the kind Sun received can either be motivating or debilitating. Companies have made great progress in improving how they assess employees, particularly around gendered feedback (which, by the way, can be delivered by either gender). But, in terms of how people—in particular women—process feedback, confidence is key. Here’s how to approach performance evaluations as invaluable to career advancement and to helping you build your own brand of confidence—not undermine it:

• Act like an observer. When you’re going into your performance review, imagine you are a sociologist taking in the information as a third party. If you were looking at someone other than yourself, how might you go about understanding your review? Take notes. And if you aren’t sure about how to react in the moment, give yourself time. A follow-up conversation is always a good idea.

• Be specific. This holds true for people on both sides of a performance review. If you’re being evaluated and not getting concrete guidance, ask for it. If you feel defensive, recognize that as a signal that you should take a breath, then ask for clarity. If you’re evaluating someone, be direct and avoid talking about how people feel or what impression they may have. Focus on specific metrics and give actionable feedback.

• Take out the outliers. If you’re the subject of a 360 review, focus on the core feedback. There may be one or two extreme opinions—either positive or negative—but they generally don’t represent the reality of how most people view someone. Also, make sure the evaluators are a heterogeneous group. Different people see different things.

• Think long term. We need more women in leadership, and it’s never too early to think two or three steps ahead. How do you envision your career in five years? What steps do you need to get there? Allow time at the end of your year-end conversation to talk about professional goals. Think expansively about the future. Seek out extracurricular professional opportunities that can expand your network or skill set. 

How will you make sure you get the most out of your review this year and then run with it?

#tothetop