Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, received a 3 out of 5 on his annual review at Xerox. It contributed to his decision to leave and ultimately start a coffee empire.
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination and having no good ideas.”
Oprah was demoted from her role as a news anchor because she was “unfit for television.”
Whatever rating you receive, and whatever rationale is shared to justify it, remember: that’s just one person’s opinion. It is NOT inarguable fact.
While a negative rating could be true, there are many possible reasons for a negative rating that have nothing to do with you.
There may be political and power issues happening behind the scenes. Your boss may want to suppress your talent (the first law of power - never outshine the master). Maybe your boss is a poor judge of ability, or they don’t know how to develop capabilities in others.
Don’t let a negative rating define you.
We’re coming up on performance review season for many companies, so this topic was top of mind for me! We’re all about growth at The Catalyst, and I would hate for your growth trajectory to be disrupted by one person’s opinion in a performance review.
If you’re in the same boat as Howard Schultz, Walt Disney, and Oprah Winfrey and have had a negative performance rating, I’d love to hear about it. What was the assessment? What did you learn from the experience? Email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
A Quote
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As you move into larger roles, you’ll need to start considering challenges from the perspectives of more teams and people. In this sense, treating your peers as your first team allows you to begin practicing your manager’s job, without having to get promoted into the role first.
— Will Larson in "An Elegant Puzzle"
Three Things
1 - 🥃 Infuse Your Tequila - If you put a solid thing into a liquid thing, the liquid thing tastes like the solid thing! Long ago, inspired by a habanero-infused margarita in California called “Feel the Bern,” I tried my own infusions. Usually I would just put jalapeños in tequila to get it spicy. Recently, I put jalapeños, cilantro, and cucumbers. Put tequila and your solids into a mason jar and wait a week or so. Done!
2 - 🕵️♀️ Perplexity AI for Search - This is my default search engine. It takes your query, searches the Internet, then summarizes the results, and links to the pages where it found that information. It does really well where you just need to know something (try asking it, “how to infuse tequila”). If you’re trying to find a specific site, it’s less helpful, but still doable. No subscription required.
3 - 😬 What if everyone on Earth jumped at once? - Randall Munroe, author of the xkcd comics and the What if? books, has a new-ish Youtube channel that explores interesting questions in interesting ways. The link to this item is four minutes exploring what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at once; the answer is straightforward, but it takes a weird turn.
Deeper Dive on Leadership Buoyancy
Every level of promotion in your company will come at a cost. You will likely reach a point where the cost of the next level promotion is more than you care to - or maybe can - give.
Where a leader sits in their org. structure is something I call “Leadership Buoyancy.” It’s a mental model that you can use to navigate promotions.
It’s very similar to submarines in deep water. Not all submarines can go to the ocean floor. Some have to stay above 800 feet, others are 1300 feet, and some can go to 2000 feet.
To navigate Leadership Buoyancy, you need to know the game you’re playing. Are you playing a balanced game? One where you want to avoid being promoted to your level of incompetence? One where you avoid the personal costs being too high?
Or maybe you’re playing a full-steam-ahead, no-cost-too-high, promote-at-all-costs game. That’s just fine, too.
What’s important is that you’re aware of what you want, what you don’t want, and how promotions affect those things.
We’ll dive into the factors that drive Leadership Buoyancy, how to increase resilience, and more in today’s newsletter.
Leadership buoyancy is the level in an organization a leader is fit to, or chooses to, be.
Some leaders spend their entire careers as a front line manager. Great. That’s where they want to be.
Some leaders seek, and thrive, in ever increasing amounts of pressure. They want to be the CEO of a very large public company.
The pressure at different levels of leadership is not bad or good, it just is.
Like carbon that can turn into a diamond with enough pressure over time, a leader can emerge as their best self from this pressure.
Or, like the submarine that ventures below their operating depth, they can implode.
What’s important is to be aware of the mental model, and use it to be conscious of how you navigate promotions in your career.
What affects buoyancy?
There are many factors that affect what level in your company you’d like to stay. A few of them are: staff size, your game, hours per week, travel, accountability vs. compassion, expectations of responsiveness, and the leaders you report into.
All of these items exist on a spectrum, so it’s a sliding scale. A front line manager might have zero travel and a 42 hour week. A CEO might spend more nights away from home than at home. Think about your personal thresholds/answers for each of these factors.
Staff Size
In last week’s newsletter about the inverted pyramid, one thing I didn’t mention was that there’s a lot of pressure in being the CEO at the bottom of that pyramid! The weight of all the employees and customers are on the shoulders of that leader.
Every leader bears the burden of the staff and customers they’re responsible for. The size of the org. is a factor that influences the pressure.
You’re the escalation path for everyone who reports into you. Often you’re also a reviewer or source of input; people want to know what you think.
You’ve got a lot of people’s livelihoods in your hands. If you mess up, it doesn’t just affect you; it affects everyone reporting into you.
The more people in your org, the more pressure you can feel.
This leader is responsible for all the people in his organization.
Your Game
Be clear on the game you’re playing in life. If you’re trying to be a good parent, a good friend, or have interests outside of work, then that will affect your ability to take on the next promotion.
The demands on your time can get so high they don’t leave room for much else. Even if you’re not at work, you’re thinking about work.
Don’t accidentally say yes to a promotion only to realize a few years later that the cost was too high on other aspects of your life.
Hours per Week
Most leadership roles, at least in the US, are nowhere near 40 hours per week. They’re much higher.
This is due in part to a never-ending amount of work. Boundaries erode and you find yourself working at night just to finally start on your to-do list. Your day was full of meetings.
Look at the calendar of leaders in your company. You’ll often find a wall of meetings. It’s not uncommon for a 10-12 hour day filled with back to back meetings.
The weekends get full, too. There may be an incident running that requires you to be present. Or maybe the weekend is when you find time to think, or write. Many leaders of large organizations spend their Sundays getting ready for the week ahead.
The number of hours your expected to work each week is a huge factor in Leadership Buoyancy.
Travel
Right before Covid I traveled 12 times in one year. Once a month I was somewhere other than with my family, for up to nine days at a time.
Flying is really hard on the body, and typically the higher you go in the org. the greater the expectation that you’ll be traveling frequently.
Think about the public company CEO who does quarterly earnings calls. The market does not care what was going on in their life; they have to hit those numbers or be punished.
No investor is going to ask how the CEO is feeling, or if they’re getting enough sleep. They want to know how the CEO is going to address challenges.
Because the accountability is so high, managers take less time off than non-managers (one Pew Research study). Anecdotally, I’ve seen this trend continue as you get further into the org, meaning the more senior the leader, the less time off they take on average.
Expectations of Responsiveness
Higher levels of leadership often come with higher expectations of responsiveness. If your boss is accountable for something, they’re going to want to get in touch with you - right now.
You can’t be not available. Sleeping? Wake up. In a meeting? Jump out.
Bosses often expect you to respond quickly to their emails or Slack messages.
The highly on-call nature of larger leadership roles is a huge source of pressure.
The Leaders You Report Into
Look further up your management chain to the leaders your leaders report into. How a leader acts is how they expect their teams to act. If the leader further up the org. works long hours, travels, expects high responsiveness, and is highly accountable - guess what? That expectation will remain as long as they’re there.
These factors are not consistent and permanently assigned to a given title.
You might look at the Vice Presidents at your company and decide that layer isn’t for you, but that doesn’t mean all Vice President roles are not for you. Different companies operate differently, which affects your Leadership Buoyancy.
Leadership Buoyancy at different companies
Since the factors driving pressure will change at different companies, that means your buoyancy will change.
If you’ll let me torture the fluid analogy a little more, think of each company as being made of a different fluid. One fluid might be so dense that you can’t get very deep. Another fluid might be so clear and light that you can swim nearly to the bottom before the pressure gets to you.
So if you find yourself stuck, or resistant to getting to the next level in your current company, just know that the water might be different somewhere else.
A leader's buoyancy is different at different companies.
Increasing your ability to handle increasing promotions
There are many ways to grow, not just through promotion.
But, the pressure that comes from the next level of leadership can be a great way to develop yourself.
If you decide that you want to equip yourself to handle promotions, there are things you can work on to increase your chances of being a diamond rather than an imploding submarine.
Essentially, anything that increases your ability to handle, or prevent, stress is helpful. A short list follows.
Exercise
Consistent physical exercise does wonders for the human body. As one of my coaches has told me, “stimulate, don’t annihilate.” You don’t have to go hard every time, you just have to move, consistently. It helps your body, it helps your brain. It’s the first thing I think of when it comes to stress management.
If you want to improve stress tolerance for higher levels of leadership, exercise.
Setting Boundaries
I used to tell myself a story that I had high stress tolerance, but looking back, I just had poor boundaries. I wasn’t willing to say no to the hours, or the travel, or extra work.
“No” is an option when you’re asked to do something.
There might be consequences to the “no,” of course. And there’s definitely grace in how you say “no,” but it is an option.
I suggest using a “yes, if” response instead of a “no.” For example, if a new project would exceed the hours per week you want to spend, instead of straight up declining it, say “yes, if” and then list out any conditions (like a different project being put on the back burner or assigned to someone else).
Constraint drives creativity, so setting boundaries is actually a great way to figure out creative solutions instead of just throwing more effort at something.
External Support
Find a good external support network. These are the people who can help you work through problems, provide feedback, highlight eroding boundaries, and just be there to listen.
You don’t have to do this alone. Curate a team of people who support you, and who you can support in turn.
The Capability of Your Team
Your team can either increase, or alleviate, stress. If you’re dealing with a lot of internal friction, diagnose what’s going on.
I like to start with systems. How is your system of work making it hard for people to solve problems? Can you move authority to information?
Also assess your people. Maybe someone isn’t a good fit for the role they’re in. If you don’t have great people, it’s going to be difficult to scale.
If you’re thinking about preparing for a promotion, work hard to ensure your team has great systems and great people.
Bringing it all together
Every level of promotion in your company will come at a cost. You will likely reach a point where the cost of the next level promotion is more than you care to - or maybe can - give.
Where a leader sits in their org. structure is something I call “Leadership Buoyancy.” This is the level in an organization a leader is fit to, or chooses to, be.
There are many factors that affect what level in your company you’d like to stay. A few of them are: staff size, your game, hours per week, travel, accountability vs. compassion, expectations of responsiveness, and the leaders you report into.
Because these factors are different at different companies, your level of Leadership Buoyancy isn’t tied to a title; VP at one company will have different levels of pressure than VP at another company.
Promotions aren’t the only way to grow, but the pressure that comes from the next level of leadership can be a great way to develop yourself.
If you decide that you want to equip yourself to handle promotions, work on things that increase your ability to handle, or prevent, stress: exercise, setting boundaries, getting external support, or increasing the capability of your team.
Call to action
I invite you to think about your level of Leadership Buoyancy in your current org.
Have you gone too far, and you’re not enjoying your current position? Maybe the hours are too high, or you’re burning out from the expectations of responsiveness and travel.
If you haven’t gone too far, take a look at some of the higher level leadership roles. How do they rate on the factors that affect Leadership Buoyancy? Is there a particular level where you finally say, “No. Uh uh. I don’t want that!”
That’s good information to have as you’re designing your career.
I’d love to know what you think about Leadership Buoyancy! Are you too far, just right, or not yet where you intend to be? I’d love to hear your story; email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
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