Performance Review Season: The Leadership Growth Worth Documenting
Tree rings Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash
Performance review season has arrived. You're staring at blank forms asking you to summarize a year of growth—yours, your team's, your cross-functional partner’s, your manager's expectations of you. The cursor blinks. Where do you even start?
Here's an idea: use the insights we explored throughout 2025 as your roadmap. Not to craft the perfect review, but to reflect honestly on the evolution that happened when you may not have been looking.
From Knowing to Leading Yourself
Back in February, we explored the difference between self-awareness and self-leadership. Self-awareness asks "What's happening within me?" Self-leadership asks "How do I intentionally direct it?"
As you approach reviews, this deeply matters. You can list accomplishments, but can you articulate how you’ve paused, noticed, and discerned key insights about your leadership style? Can you share how you’ve taken action, experimented, and implemented those same insights into your growth as a leader?
Self-leadership is the bridge between knowing and becoming.
For your self-review: Identify one pattern you recognized and one specific way you changed your tendency from reactive to responsive and the outcomes from your experiment. That's leadership growth worth documenting.
The Work You Stopped Apologizing For
In July, we named the leadership guilt—believing that focusing on people dynamics instead of "strategic work" makes you less effective. We called it what it is: the most sophisticated work leaders do.
How much of your real impact lives in moments you've been hesitant to claim? The conflict you navigated that preserved trust. The difficult conversation that shifted culture. The energy you managed that kept projects moving.
For you and your team’s review: Acknowledge the human work alongside your team’s deliverables. What are instances where you (and your direct reports) built trust, managed through conflict, and maintained psychological safety—elevating collaboration and co-creating unique solutions?
The Difficult Conversations You Finally Had
November focused on those conversations living rent-free in our minds. The rehearsing. The avoiding.
So, did you have that hard conversation? What was the gift you'd been withholding? What did you learn from the experience?
Remember the majority of your employees appreciate feedback, whether positive or negative. They're not fragile. They're waiting and trusting you. Go ahead—stop rehearsing and deliver the truth with care.
For delivering feedback:
Specificity Matters. Name exactly what needs to be discussed. Vagueness breeds avoidance; clarity creates action.
You Care. Let them know their growth and success matters to you. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t share.
Delivery Matters. Will the feedback land better as preparation for their next interaction or as a skill-building conversation? The gift of feedback matters, and so does its wrapping.
Stop Hoping Your Manager Will Connect the Dots
December's truth: hope isn't a strategy. Yet how many times this year did you provide data, research, and carefully worded updates while crossing your fingers that your boss would read between the lines?
The performance review conversation is your structured opportunity to practice direct advocacy. If you need resources, support, or clarity on priorities, this is the moment to stop hoping.
And if October's question has been on your mind—whether this role still fits who you're becoming—the review conversation is where you can address it directly. Not by hinting at career development opportunities, but by naming what you need to grow into your emerging leadership.
For your review conversation: Name what you need explicitly. State your perspective directly. Your senior leadership needs your clarity more than your diplomacy.
Document What Matters
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
Performance reviews aren't about perfection. They're about honest assessment of where growth happened—and where it needs to happen next.
Before you write another word, ask: What did I learn about leading myself this year? That's the bridge to everything else. The team building. The difficult conversations. The managing up. The authentic presence.
Leading yourself well creates the conditions for leading others well.
So as you draft those reviews—for yourself, your team, and your manager—tell the truth about the evolution. Claim the people work. Name what you need directly. Document the moments you chose differently, even when old patterns pulled you toward avoidance or control.
That's the growth that actually matters.