Hi Lady Leader, and welcome to this week's episode of Leading Her Introvert Way. This is a podcast for Black introverted women who are senior managers, directors, and vice presidents in their organizations and who are done being overlooked and ready to lead on their own terms. If you're new here, welcome. And if you are a returning OG, welcome back. My name is Dr. Nicole Bryan, and I am an executive leadership strategist and a work addiction psychologist. I am a C-suite executive. And I am here to tell you the truth about what it actually takes for you to take your career all the way to the top without burning out and without selling out. I help you solve three problems. The first is getting promoted to senior leadership or executive leadership inside your organization. The second is once you land that role, closing the leadership skill gap that you may be challenged with. And then the third is setting the strategy for your team and your department. Okay, let's get into it.
So today I want to talk about the invisible contributor. And I'm saying invisible, not individual, right? Because we've all heard of individual contributors. Individual contributors are people who work inside an established organization, but they do not have responsibility for leading a team or leading a department. They only have responsibility for leading themselves, right? So I'm not talking about that person. That's an individual contributor. I'm talking about an invisible contributor. So that's also not the underperformer. That's not who we're talking about here. And we're not talking about the person who just coasts, comes in, clocks in every day, does the bare minimum, and then leaves, right? They're only there for the paycheck. Not talking about that person either. When I say the invisible contributor, I'm talking about the woman who is overperforming in her role, and yet she still is not reaching the goals that she has for her career, whether that be promotion, whether that be gaining more income, whether that be increasing her credibility, increasing her influence, none of that is happening, even though she is showing up every day and doing 150%. Now, what's interesting about this is there's about 60% of Black introverted women in leadership roles who are stuck in the stage of being an invisible contributor right now. 60%. And here's what defines that. Here's what defines being stuck. Let me know if this sounds familiar to you.
You are getting exceptional performance ratings every year, every cycle, right? Every mid-year eval, every end-of-year eval, you're getting either exceeds expectations or you know, one of the top two ratings. But even though you're getting those great ratings, you are otherwise getting very minimal recognition in terms of the work that you do. You're you have minimal visibility inside the organization. So your direct reports, your team, people who you work with on a day-to-day basis, they may know and understand what you do. But outside of that, no one does, right? And so as a result, there's not a clear path for career growth for you. And what's also happening is you are experiencing this increasing resentment that you won't actually say out loud because you have been taught that being angry makes you difficult. Being vocal, speaking up, and saying that you have an issue makes you seem like you're the problem. So as a result, you stay quiet. And as a result of saying quiet, you actually stay stuck. You don't solve or address the issues that I just mentioned. Now, here's the belief
that's underneath all of that. The one that's costing you years of your career and hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income. You keep thinking, if I just keep delivering, they will notice me. If I keep just doing the work, which I love, I enjoy the work, I will get my just due. But let me just be very clear about something. They already know. And when I say they, I'm talking about your company, your boss, the decision makers in your organization. They already noticed you, right? They noticed you'll do the work without the title. They noticed that you'll stay late without the pay raise, without the bonus. They have noticed that you won't ask for credit and you won't push back and you won't make any type of noise. And they've decided whether consciously or unconsciously, whether directly or indirectly, that you are actually more valuable right where you are. Now I know what you're probably thinking. You're like, yeah, that's the man, you know, that's the man that that's against us as black females, or that's a conspiracy theory. And I'm telling you, it's not a conspiracy theory. It is how organizations work. Organizations exist and survive by optimizing for efficiency. And you staying in your lane and continuing to overdeliver and not demanding more, that is extremely efficient for the organization. So here's the part that's going to be hard for you to hear. Your performance, the thing that you have taken such pride in year after year after year, getting that very top performance rating in all of your reviews, your performance, all it does is get you in the room. All it does is help you collect your weekly, monthly paycheck. But what it doesn't do for you is it doesn't get you the seat that you want. It doesn't get you the promotion that you're after. And nobody's willing to tell you that. Nobody has told you that. And that's not your fault. But staying in the dark about it, continuing to do the things that you have been doing, even though you've proven that it doesn't work, that part is definitely on you. Because working harder, burying yourself in the work, that is not the answer. All you're doing is distracting yourself from the goals that you ultimately want to achieve.
Now, let's go deeper because this really is not about how organizations work or corporate politics. This is really about psychology. And this is where what I studied when I was pursuing my PhD, this is where that actually matters. Because you got to think about why we, as high-achieving black women, why do we always default to overworking as a strategy? That's not random. We didn't pull that out of the air. It's actually a learned response that's rooted in a very real truth. That we have to be twice as good to get half as far. That's what our parents have told us. That's what their parents told us. That is what our experience has been to this point, whether it's in school, different roles that we've had before now. So that belief is not paranoia. It was earned. You have lived it and you have the receipts to prove it. And it worked for a while. You did exactly that. You worked hard. And when you couldn't get something done, you worked even harder. And when that wasn't enough, you leaned in even more. So it has worked for you up until this point. It got you your first promotion, maybe even your second promotion. It got you noticed early in your career. Working hard has got you the reputation as someone who actually delivers and can be dependent upon. But what nobody has told you is that the strategy that got you to this level where you are right now as senior manager or director, that won't get you to the vice president level. And the strategy that got you to the vice president level will not get you to the C-suite because performance and promotability, they are not the same thing. Performance is what you deliver on a day-to-day basis. Promotability is how you are perceived, how you are positioned, and how you are sponsored. These are completely different skill sets. And unfortunately, most of us as black introverted women, we have mastered one and been given no roadmap for the other. So let me break this down even further, okay?
Because there's an introvert dimension here at play as well. Introverted women, especially us as black introverted women, are less likely to self-promote. It's just not in our DNA. Most of us do not enjoy the limelight. Most of us prefer to work by ourselves or in small teams. We don't need, nor do we want most times, any type of public accolades, right? So we're less likely to claim credit publicly and more likely to assume that the work that we've done will speak for itself. But it doesn't. The work does not speak for itself. So when the work doesn't speak for itself, that means somebody has to speak for it. And that somebody is normally going to be you because if you don't speak for it, you are the person who actually did it. You know all the ins and outs of it about it. You can't rely on anybody else to speak on the work that you've done. You've got to be able to speak on it yourself. And as a black introverted woman, you haven't been taught how to do that in a way that feels authentic to who you are. So you default back to what you already know, which is deliver more, work harder, prove it again. Now there's also a racial dimension to all of this, right? Because we as Black women, we carry an additional tax in corporate spaces. The pressure to be palatable, the pressure to not be perceived as aggressive or difficult or too much, the pressure to make everybody else in the room, everybody else on the team, everybody else in the department comfortable, even when the room is not making space for us. The room is not making us comfortable. We feel the need to make everybody else comfortable. That tax, that black tax, and it's actually a black female tax because our brothers don't really have to deal with that as much. But that black female tax in work settings is very, very real.
And naming it is not a complaint, it's a diagnosis. Now, here's the part where I'm going to challenge you. Because yes, the system is rigged. We all know that already. The system is rigged, and particularly for us when we have three things that we're challenged with just by existing: introversion, being a female, and being black, right? That's three things. So, yes, the rules are different for us. Yes, you have been working in an environment, in a structure, in a system that was not created with you in mind. All of that is absolutely true. And also, also, you have been complicit in your own invisibility. Going back to how we started this conversation, right? The invisible contributor. That's you. So you have already been complicit in your own invisibility. Not because you're weak and not because you don't know better, but because you have mistaken silence for professionalism. You have mistaken over-delivering for strategy. You have mistaken not asking for what you want and what you deserve for humility. But it's not humility. It's not. It is self-abandonment dressed up as loyalty. And frankly, the organization, your company, your team that you're being loyal to is not always being loyal back. So let me just ask you a question. How many more years are you willing to give to a place, to a team, to a boss that sees you as useful but not promotable? That sees you as competent, yes, but not see sweet material. And at
what cost are you willing to stay there? At what cost are you willing to continue to be loyal? Here's the good news. The invisible contributor stage is not a life sentence, it's just a starting point. There are five stages for black introverted women on the way to the executive suite between where you are right now and that senior executive role that you want. Five distinct stages. And each one requires a different leadership identity, different sets of skills, and different ways of showing up. Most of us get stuck at stage one. And we stay there because we confuse loyalty with strategy, we confuse visibility with performance, and we confuse waiting to be chosen with leadership. But the women who actually make it to the executive level, the women who make it to the C-suite, the ones who get vice president, senior vice president, executive vice president, and beyond, they don't wait. They don't wait. They don't hope that someone is going to notice. They learn how to position themselves, not how to perform. Most of us got that down. Not how to perform.
They learn how to position themselves, how to build strategic relationships, how to communicate their value in rooms that they weren't in at first, how to stop being the best kept secret in the building. And they do this without having to fake it, without having to overextend themselves, without having to code switch, right? Because all of that goes against who we are as introverted women. They also do it without having to sacrifice their integrity or their identity, both of which I am extremely, extremely big on. That is what's possible. Not someday, not if you get lucky, not if someone finally decides to sponsor you, but that's what's available to you right now. That's what's possible for you right now. If you're willing and only if you're willing to stop working harder and start leading yourself smarter. Now, next week, I'm releasing something I've been building for a long time. It's been over a year that I've been actually working on this thing. And it's a tool that will tell you exactly where you are on this five-stage journey to executive leadership for Black introverted women. Not only will it tell you where you are, it will also help you diagnose and determine what you actually have to work on to be able to move your career forward. I want you to be the first to use it because the women who are going to make it to the top in the next year, two years, they're not waiting for permission anymore. And neither should you. Okay, let me give you one thing this week to walk away with and think about. I want you to identify the next high visibility project that's about to come across your desk. The one that everyone's
gonna ask you to take on because one, they know you probably are the best person to do it. And two, because you always say yes, because you're reliable and because you always deliver. This time, however, before you say yes, I want you to ask three questions. I want you to ask yourself three questions. The first is, what's in this for me? Not for the team or not for the boss, but for you. What is in it for me? That's the question I want you to ask yourself. Will my name be on it publicly? Will it position me for the next level? Will it get me in front of decision makers who don't know me yet? That's question number one. What is in it for you? The second question that I want you to ask yourself before you take on yet another large initiative is what am I giving up to take this on? Am I going to be giving up time with my family? Am I going to be giving up time to work out? Am I going to be giving up portions of my health? Am I giving up another project that actually moves my career forward? What is it that you are literally going to have to give up to take on this additional work? And then the third thing I want you to ask yourself before you say yes, is I want you to ask yourself, if I say no, what happens? Really? What happens? Because I promise you, the cost of saying no one time is nowhere near the cost of staying invisible for another year. This is to help you start making conscious decisions about what additional work you take on. This is a method to help you stop volunteering for work that doesn't advance you. Right? And don't get me wrong, it's perfectly fine for you to take on additional work, but you have to know what you're getting out of it. Don't take on additional work that's not going to help you get to your goals. There's been times where I've taken on additional work, for example, where
the project may not necessarily help move me toward my goals, but doing the favor of taking that on has gotten me someone who is willing to give me an IOU, someone who I know I'm gonna need something from later that's going to move my career forward, and they are gonna owe me one. That's cool too. But you gotta be consciously thinking about if I'm piling more work on what is the exchange? What am I getting for giving? So stop volunteering for work that doesn't advance you. Be very clear. At this stage of your career, you got to be very clear about what you're saying yes to and what the consequences of that yes is gonna be, as well as what the benefits of that yes is gonna be. That is where we start.
Okay, lady leader. Now, if this episode made you a little uncomfortable, good. That means it landed. And what I want you to do is share it with one black woman in your network who you know needs to hear this, and she knows who she is as well. Follow the show because next week I'm giving you something you're gonna want to take immediately. Once again, I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan. This is Leading Her Introvert Way. Your quiet power is your real power, but only if you stop hiding it. I'll see you next week, and in the meantime, keep leading. Your introvert way.