Lucy Gernon (00:05.294)
If you want to save yourself a lot of time when completing your year end performance review, this is the podcast episode for you. In this episode of the show, I am going to walk on you through the step by step process that I taught recently at my 360 leadership summit in Spa. And I thought, why not just be really generous since it’s nearly Christmas and give you the exact steps that my clients are taking right now to ensure that they are able to advocate for themselves at the end of the year.
So stay tuned, this is an episode you absolutely do not want to miss. I hope you enjoy.
Lucy Gernon (00:51.63)
Hello there lovely lady and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. Today’s episode is going to be a good one. Even if you’ve already done your year -end self -assessment, if you haven’t actually submitted it yet or you can still make changes, I definitely recommend that you take a pen and paper for this episode because we are going deep. All companies do these review cycles at totally different times. So I really hope that you get some value from today. Well, I know you will. So please take out a notepad if you can or
take out a word doc and just take some notes because I’m going to be giving you some really, really powerful stuff. So in this week’s episode of the show, we are going to be talking about all things year end appraisals. Now, I came from the corporate world, so I understand that it can be something that you can find challenging, right? And I know I often used to have the attitude of, well, if I just do the work, they’re going to know what I did. Right. But actually, it’s so wrong.
You have one opportunity. There is this big limiting narrative that I know swarms around that, they’ve already made the decision. There’s no need for me to spend time on this. And that’s actually BS. That is actually BS. I know I used to read all of my team’s assessments and I know that you do too. So why would your boss be any different? So today we’re going to be breaking down some steps that you can take to ensure that you are putting your best foot forward.
So let’s just jump into it. So before I do, though, can I ask you one little favor? Because we’re friends, we’re podcast pals. Could you please rate and review this show for me? Because my team and I put so much effort into the show. Every week I show up, even though I’m sick right now, to try to give you some valuable content. And if you could just literally click that little five star rating and tell all your friends about it, it will really help us to spread the message to more women. I would really appreciate it and love you forever. OK.
Now, onto the main part of the episode, I’m just going to get into it. We are going to talk about you owning your achievements. You work your ass off all year long. You keep the show on the road. You solve problems. You show up day in, day out. Even if you’ve got your period or you’re feeling hormonal like I am, I’m menopausal at the moment. You still show up for your company, for your organization and for your team. And…
Lucy Gernon (03:19.264)
What I really don’t want you to do is feel tired at the end of the year and just go, I couldn’t be bothered because you’ve got to bother. OK, the boys are bothering and we’re going to bother as well. So the first thing that I invite you to do to make this super simple is to reflect on three to five wins that you have achieved and your team under your leadership. And what I would love you to do is to include both qualitative and
quantitative results that link to the company goals. Now, what I mean by that is what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to get really intentional and strategic with your language that you’re using, how your contribution and your leadership directly impacted the company bottom line, the company strategic direction, or whatever the big initiatives are that you are working on in your site or in your region.
And what’s more important than that, that might be easy for you to list out tangible wins, is the how behind you did it. I remember when I worked in the corporate world, I was sharing this recently at my event. I think I had one person who left my team in eight years. Now, I didn’t think that was an achievement because it was just how I rolled, you know, but it was afterwards when I…
When I left, I got some feedback that they really, really missed me. People started to use the phrase dropping like flies. And I know now as I look back that there was a lot of strategy in how I led my team. There was a lot of things that I did in terms of the how, like I would have been very flexible with them before flexibility was allowed. I did a lot of things under my own discretion because I was always so focused on results.
but also taking care of my team. So I was less of a clock watcher than some other people. But as a result, like my team were really high performing. We had green KPIs like all of the time for years and years and years. And again, I didn’t own it. I just thought, well, everyone does this, but everyone didn’t do that. So that’s my invitation for you is that if you’re doing really good work.
Lucy Gernon (05:38.382)
And there’s something that you can show tangibly like green metrics for a period of time. You want to show how under your leadership you made that happen. OK. And you would say things like through working with my team and through developing and coaching and mentoring my team, give powerful examples of a specific team member maybe that you supported. And that will really, really help you to stand out as a leader and then also show your own contribution. OK, so.
three to five top wins and make them tangible. The second thing then that I invite you to look at is right, you’re gonna have a look at the actual three to five wins that link to the company goals in the bottom line. The next thing as a leader is you are responsible for developing your team. So if you’re a people leader and I know most of you are, you are responsible for leading and developing your team.
I invite you to reflect on how you’ve developed your team members over the past year and what skills have they gained? How have they grown? And how can you link that to employee satisfaction and strategic retention? So again, it’s all about you getting really intentional and strategic about this. And I know you want to be more strategic and this is strategy, okay? Your strategy here is to show how your results and your leadership
have directly linked to a specific metric that’s important for your company, because it is, right? We just don’t always make that link. So let’s say you have a pulse survey or you have some sort of an internal survey where you can see that your particular area has performed maybe better than another one. Leverage that, ask for the results. Pull your team members yourself and try and have some sort of a, you know, employee satisfaction way of measuring that.
And then also look at retention. Let’s say, for example, you prevented somebody from leaving who’s actually top talent due to a strategic measure that you took in terms of coaching, mentoring, developing them. Call that out because that’s exactly what’s expected of senior leaders, okay? And if you just see this as part of your day job and you don’t actually talk about it or promote the how behind it, no one’s gonna know.
Lucy Gernon (07:59.896)
The third thing then that I invite you to reflect on is innovation and problem solving. All great leaders innovate, they create, they solve problems, and they’re constantly being agile as the market changes and the business landscape changes, which it is all of the time. Think about moments where your leadership led to innovative solutions or improved processes. And then directly talk about innovation.
especially like review your company values, your company mission statement, pull out phrases that your organization use. Like if there’s key phrases that you guys use, make sure that you’re pulling them in when you’re doing your end of year appraisal as well, because it’s all about talking their language. So think about the innovation. What problem did you solve? What techniques did you use? Did you have a tool that really helped you share it? Share all of the detail. So, so powerful.
And then I invite you to think about key moments. Think back over the last year to key challenges, initiatives or events where you were front and center. Was there a really big customer or supplier issue that you were front and center at and you were able to resolve with the team? Was there a really important board visit where you presented to the board and maybe as a result, your
company got extra investment. Think about those things where you were a key player and write them down. And then think about what specific skills or strengths did you use to shine? And again, as women, we’re not great at saying about our skills and our strengths, but actually you’ve got to.
That’s why you’ll hear me all the time saying things like, I’m a multi award winning executive coach. I’m triple certified. I have over 750 coaching and training hours. You’ll hear me use numbers like that because if I don’t share my credibility and my authority and say things like I’ve been featured in Forbes, I’ve been sought out by big publications, I’ve been coaching Fortune 10 company executives. If I don’t say things like that to you, you don’t know.
Lucy Gernon (10:22.958)
It’s exactly the same thing for you. What’s your authority? What’s your credibility? What strengths are you using in your organization? List them out. And then finally, to kind of summarize it all, like, you know, when you have to kind of do your summary at the start, you would say something like, have like a two or three sentence statement that highlights your leadership impact and your personal growth over the past year.
and really emphasize how your team’s success is as a direct result of your leadership. And it’s really important to like, you know, when I did my summit, I gave the girls some self -advocacy power phrases, which they are absolutely loving. And I know they’re going to convert really well for them, that they’re going to really get the recognition they deserve. But I’m just going to give you one of them. We had about seven or eight of them. I’m just going to give you one of them today, which is how you kind of start your
summary at the start of your end of year review. You could say something like, and you can write this down if you like, is this year, my team and I have achieved significant milestones. I’m proud to share how my leadership has directly contributed to these successes. So that’s a really nice way of setting the tone for how you start it. And obviously, when you work with me, I will give you all of the other ones and give you all of the templates as well.
So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. And if you are interested in working with me guys in 2025, please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram or on LinkedIn. know, leadership in life does not have to be as difficult as we make it. It doesn’t have to be stressful. It doesn’t have to mean overthinking and worrying and doubting yourself and bringing work home. Like you can just come to me, okay? So reach out to me on Instagram or on LinkedIn if you’re interested in learning more about working together.
Now, let me do a little recap. So the things that I invite you to do is number one, to reflect on your top three to five wins and use qualitative and quantitative results, so linking to your company goals. Number two is to look at your team development, reflect on how you’ve developed your team members over the last year and how can you link that to some metric or something tangible. Number three is to consider innovation and problem solving.
Lucy Gernon (12:45.624)
So identifying those moments where you really shone and you were able to improve processes or come up with new innovative solutions. Number four is key moments. So think back on those key big problems or really high visibility meetings that happened over the year where you were able to shine and create a result. Absolutely jot them down. And then finally, to come up with like your kind of summary of way of introducing it, you would say something like.
This year, my team and I have achieved significant milestones and I’m proud to share how my leadership has directly contributed to these successes. So there you have it. I hope, I know you find this valuable. I hope you’ve taken some notes. Comment, let me know. I love, love, love when I hear you guys send me LinkedIn or DMs on Instagram. Literally just send me a voice note and be like, Lucy, I listened to the show. I got a lot of value from it. Come and tell me because the more I hear from you, the more I understand.
what kind of content you want to hear in the show so I can keep showing up for you every single week here on Wednesdays. And finally, can you please do me a favor and just send this episode to your female leader colleagues. If you have a women’s network at work, if you have a group of female leaders that you’re in, if you want to share on LinkedIn, please help me to share this message with other women in leadership because…
You guys know I care a lot. I want you guys to get all the recognition that you deserve in the world. And yeah, I can’t do that without you. So thank you very much in advance. So that’s it for this week’s episode. Remember, success, balance and happiness are possible. You can have it all. I’ll see you again. Same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
