Leading Her Introvert Way: Conversations about executive leadership, career growth, business and mindset for mid-life Black women.

73: Breaking Down Executive Promotions: The Truth About What’s Blocking Black Introverted Women

• Nicole Bryan • Episode 73

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Revolutionary transformation awaits Black introverted women who've been stuck in the cycle of vague feedback and missed promotions. What my clients are discovering upends everything we've been taught about career advancement.

The uncomfortable truth? Most Black introverted women are caught in a system designed to keep us exactly where we are – producing exceptional results without executive compensation or decision-making power. Despite our qualifications, we're evaluated on proven results while others advance based on perceived potential. No amount of additional certifications, workshops, or style consultations can overcome this fundamental disadvantage because we're solving the wrong problem.

The solution isn't working harder or waiting longer – it's revolutionizing your approach through the three Ps: positioning, perception, and power.


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Speaker 1:

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the Leading Her Introvert Way podcast. This podcast is for Black introverted women who want to be the best leaders that they can possibly be, both at home and at work, and who want to take their career all the way to the top and become a senior leader and executive. Before we get started today, I want to make a special announcement. It has been quite a while since I have hosted a webinar and, with all the conversations that we've been having over the past several weeks here on the podcast, I have decided to host a webinar in April. It will be on April 12th and it will be focused on revolutionary leadership. We've been talking about revolutionary leadership for the past couple of weeks. I'm going to talk about it again today, but if you are a black, introverted woman who is ready to proactively pursue her senior leadership and or executive role, then you are definitely going to want to sign up for this. More information about the webinar in the next couple of weeks, but I just want you to hold and save that date April 12th, from 10 to 12 Eastern Standard Time. Okay, so, with that said, let's go ahead and jump into today's topic, and I'm going to say up front, going beyond polite career advice. Today, okay, we're exposing uncomfortable truths about why black, introverted women remain so underrepresented in executive leadership and exactly how to change that in the next five months of your career.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we do that, I need to start with a story. So a client came to me. I'm going to call her Maya, just to protect her identity. Maya came to me after being passed over for promotion three times. Each time, the feedback she received was maddeningly vague. They told her that she was not strategic enough. They also said she needs more executive presence and that she should build more relationships.

Speaker 1:

Maya had an MBA. He consistently exceeded her targets and had glowing reviews from all of the members on her team. He had tried everything. He had done executive coaching. He'd attended multiple communication workshops. He even was working with a style consultant because she thought that the way she was physically dressing may have been portraying an image that she did not want to portray, but none of that worked because she was fixing the wrong problems. The real issue wasn't Maya's qualifications or her presence, or even the relationships that she had. It was that the entire executive promotion process was designed and is designed to maintain the status quo, not to disrupt it. So today I'm breaking down exactly how this system works against black, introverted women like you and like me, and the revolutionary approach that helps my clients accomplish in three months what it takes others to accomplish in years. This is not about being patient. It's about strategy.

Speaker 1:

Let's start with the most pervasive lie in corporate America that promotions are based on merit. You and I know that the data tells a totally different story. According to research, black women are promoted based on proven results, while their counterparts are promoted based on perceived potential. This creates a fundamental disadvantage you are held to a higher standard and required to demonstrate skills at your current level before being promoted, while others are promoted with the assumption they'll grow into the world. This is not accidental, my friend. Organizations benefit from keeping high performers exactly where they are. Why? Because you, as a high performer, are producing exceptional results without executive compensation or decision-making authority.

Speaker 1:

What my clients discover in their first 30 days of revolutionary leadership is that excellence alone will never get them promoted. Performance is necessary, but it's insufficient. It's not the only thing. The missing pieces are the three Ps positioning, perception and power these three elements that are rarely discussed openly with black women in corporate environments. Now there is good news. The good news is, once you understand this reality, you can stop exhausting yourself trying to be better and start focusing on being more strategic.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now let's talk about timing. There's a persistent belief that executive advancement takes years or even decades, but for black women especially, there's an expectation of paying your dues that never, ever seems to end. This is another myth that serves the status quo. My clients are proving that the timeline can be dramatically compressed using what I call the acceleration quo. My clients are proving that the timeline can be dramatically compressed using what I call the acceleration formula. So the acceleration formula goes like this First, you create clarity, because clarity creates speed.

Speaker 1:

Most women take a passive approach to career advancement, waiting to be tapped for their opportunities. Revolutionary leaders, however, identify exactly what role they want next and build a strategic plan specifically for that position. In the first week we all work together. Clients select their target executive role Not a vague aspiration, but a specific position with clear responsibilities, because when you know exactly where you're trying to go, you can map the exact steps that you need to take to get there. Second, concentration creates momentum. Conventional advice will tell you to develop a broad set of skills and experiences. This creates diffusion of effort and it extends your timeline unnecessarily.

Speaker 1:

Revolutionary leaders take a different approach. They focus intensely on high leverage activities that create disproportionate impact. My clients identified the 20% of actions that will create 80% of the perception shift needed for promotion. Third part of the acceleration formula is about connection, because connection creates opportunities. People will have us believe as introverts that we don't know how to connect, and we know that's bullshit. Of course we know how to connect right. It's just that the way in which we connect may look different from our extroverted connect right. It's just that the way in which we connect may look different from our extroverted counterparts right. So connection creates opportunities and, despite what you've been told networking events and general relationship building they are low return activities. Revolutionary leaders build strategic relationships with three types of people. Leaders build strategic relationships with three types of people Decision makers for their target role. Influential leaders who interact with those decision makers. And potential sponsors who can advocate in rooms they don't have access to. This formula allows my clients to accomplish in three months what it would take years using conventional approaches. It's not about working harder, it's about working differently.

Speaker 1:

Now the most critical phase of executive transformation happens in the first 30 days. I know I am going to blow your mind with this one, but it does. It happens in the first 30 days and this isn't about gradually building confidence. It's about fundamentally rewiring how you view yourself in relation to your organization. Now here's what happens in those first crucial 30 days. First, you identify and reject the unwritten rules that have been holding you back. These include myths like your work will speak for itself, or good things come to those who wait, or even you need to check every box before applying for a position. The second thing that happens in the first crucial 30 days is you recognize that your introversion isn't a liability. Now, I know you know that intellectually, but your behavior likely is not supporting what you actually know intellectually. So when I say recognize that your introversion isn't a liability, it is making the connection between what you know in your mind to the actions that you are taking or the actions that you're not taking. So when your introversion isn't a liability, you then recognize that it's a leadership advantage that organizations desperately need but they very rarely value correctly, at least at the outset.

Speaker 1:

My clients stop trying to become more extroverted and they stop hiding themselves and start positioning their introvert strengths as executive qualities. The third thing that happens is that you shift from seeing yourself as an employee seeking advancement to a solution provider addressing executive level problems. You literally become the executive, whether you hold the title or not. You become a senior leader wherever you fit or don't fit on an org chart currently, because it's in the becoming that you embody the transformation. Right, this perspective change transforms how you approach every interaction within your organization, every project that you lead for the team and every opportunity that comes your way. One of my clients actually described this mindset shift as taking off glasses that had been distorting her view for her entire career. She stopped asking permission and started creating evidence of her executive capability. The reaction she got from senior leadership was immediate and dramatic, not because she changed who she was, but because she had changed how she positioned who she was.

Speaker 1:

Now the final piece of the executive transformation is what I call the inevitable campaign. This isn't about announcing your ambition or demanding recognition. Right, that's old school, that is an outdated approach. When I talk about your inevitable campaign, it's about methodically creating conditions where your promotion becomes the obvious next step, not just to you, but to everyone around you. This campaign has three components. The first is documentation Revolutionary leaders create tangible evidence of their executive level thinking and impact. This isn't a brag sheet. It's a strategic portfolio of contributions, insights and results that directly align with the requirements of your target role. Second is distribution. Rather than hoping that the right people notice their work, my clients ensure their contributions are visible to key decision makers. This happens through strategic project selection, targeted communication and calculated involvement in high visibility initiatives. And the third is demonstration. In carefully chosen moments, revolutionary leaders display executive qualities that cannot be denied Making decisions that other people avoid, asking questions that shift other people's perspectives and connecting the dots that other people miss. When executed correctly, this campaign creates a perception of inevitability around your promotion.

Speaker 1:

As one client put it, they didn't give me the executive role. They finally recognized the executive I had already become. If you've been frustrated by vague feedback, unclear paths to promotion or watching less qualified colleagues advance ahead of you, know this. The problem isn't your capability. You are already capable. The problem is your strategy or lack of strategy.

Speaker 1:

Revolutionary leadership isn't about changing who you are.

Speaker 1:

It's about changing how you position who you are in a system that was not designed with you or me in mind. The five-month transformation I've outlined today isn't theoretical. It's the same approach I took to get my executive roles, is the same approach that helped my client, maya, and it is the same approach that has helped dozens of other clients that I've been able to work with. If you are ready to stop playing by rules that don't serve you and start creating your own path to executive leadership, then make sure you join my free webinar on April 12th. Join me on LinkedIn for more information about the webinar, or come back next week for the next episode, and we'll be sharing all the details then as well. And if this episode resonated with you, please be sure to share it with another black, introverted woman who deserves to be valued at the highest levels of leadership, because what we are about here is we are about creating community and we are about lifting each other up. Right, because if we don't have each other's back, then who the hell going to have it?