Why You’re Overperforming But Not Advancing

Hey, I'm Jill Griffin, your host of the Career Refresh. And today we're talking about a common issue I see with leaders who are overperforming in areas but not feeling like they're making the impact or advancing the way they want to be. It's not a people problem. It's not a team problem.

You may not even have a workload problem in this, but I'm seeing that it's a thinking problem. And we end up creating the same result over and over. And that ends up being exhausting and probably the reasons why you're not advancing. So let's dig in.

I'm gonna give you a scenario that I see all the time. This one uh is a particular client. She's given me permission to share about it anonymously, but she is a senior leader, a high performer. She is very trusted.

She is the one that people rely on, and she's co-leading a very high visibility project. She's capable, she's proven, she's done this before, right? But in this particular situation, something is starting to feel off, and it's with her peer. So when they're supposed to be co-leading the work or partnering on the work, the work ends up being inconsistent.

Why? Because the peer misses the details, drops things. When she shows up, the peer is also a female. When the peer shows up, things sort of feel half done or the person feels half in.

And then she's noticing that she, meaning my client, is picking up the slack. So she's driving the thinking, she's carrying the weight. It's really starting to get to her. Now, two things often happen at this point.

One is you start to get resentful and you become a heat-seeking missile of resentment and you're in the almost like a passive-aggressive way, or you become the human doer where you're just like, fine, I'll just get it done. It's better if I get it done, and you're just like this machine that keeps operating. And where it gets interesting is that in this particular situation, what happened recently is that they were in a working session, and midway in the session, the peer just stopped and took a phone call.

And you know, they're like in it. They're like in the trenches. There was no context, there was no acknowledgement. They just got up and left.

Now, we all understand that sometimes phone calls come in, but I think when you're in partnership with someone, right? I'm not coaching the other person, but the other person could have said, listen, I'm expecting a really important phone call or I need to take this, I'll be right back. But there was nothing. There was no context, anything.

They just left the room. So they're gone, right? So that's the situation that's happening. And this happens, and what happens next is what matters, right?

My client started moving into like this is so unprofessional. Like she's not taking this seriously. I'm the one that's left holding everything. Um, I care more about this than she does, right?

And then she's in this place where she's feeling frustrated, she's feeling irritated, she's feeling um angry. And from all of those feelings is an action and a reaction. So let me break it down, right? A thought is a sentence that we continue to repeat until it becomes a belief, and then we believe that.

And then when we keep believing the belief or keep repeating the belief, it becomes a behavior and it impacts the way we operate, the way we move through life, the way we uh, you know, partner with this individual that she's working with, right? So that thought, well, in this case, she had a few thoughts, but like she's not taking this seriously. I'm the one that's holding together, I care more than she does, is generating these feelings of frustration and irritation and disrespect and like a little bit of like an F you in this, right?

So everything she's doing then is coming from that energy. And that's the point that it's really important to pause, to pull back and to really think what's happening here and why I am so triggered. That's the work. I'm not saying the other person's behavior is acceptable.

It's not. We're separating that right now. We're talking about you, or in this case, we're talking about my client, because at this point, leadership is a lifestyle choice. It is also a mindset game.

So when you have the ability to not react to the situation, is when you can start interpreting what's happening and then deciding what you want to do and how you want to move forward as a result. So it's not really about the peer in this case, it's about what it's costing you when you like lose your shit or you're stuck in the thought loop around frustration, reaction, resentment. Here we go again. She always does this, right?

You start losing the access to your best thinking. You cannot be in the limbric brain, right? You cannot be in the feeling emotion center of your brain and also be in the prefrontal cortex, right? It's evolutionary biology.

One is working while the other one is not, and it's vice versa. You can't have them both at the same time. So you cannot be in the intense feeling and then also be strategic. So what you need to do is you need to make sure that you get back to the access to your best thinking.

And that's making sure that you can think strategically and clearly so that you're not exhausted and in that loop. So you can't go in these situations, you can't go from, you know what, this is totally frustrating and I'm annoyed at her, to like, this is a great opportunity for me to manage my mind. That's complete BS and it doesn't work that way. And I'll tell you, your brain doesn't believe you either.

So what you have to do is you have to think about it, is that you can't go. The analogy that I like to make is that I, my first car that I ever drove was a standard. And if anybody's driven a standard or a stick shift, you know that you cannot go from first gear to fifth gear without passing through neutral. You will blow the clutch.

You have to work through that, or if you're in a sob, it's the other way. Although, do they even make sobs anymore? Anyway. So you have to pass through neutral.

So you need to neutralize your thought. So instead of coming at something that is so intense, like she's not taking this seriously, I want you to pause and find a way to like sort of neutralize that and like separate the signal from the noise, right? Oof, I am noticing that I am having a reaction to this instead of being in the place of like, I'm all the only one who's carrying this. What's possible here if I approach this differently, right?

So that you're not dripping yourself with like positive reinforcements. It's not forced. You're just starting to get neutral so that we can calm down again, that primitive brain, we can get into the pause and then decide strategically where we want to go from there. And that's what's going to create the space for your better thinking.

Because this is where most leaders, it's not about competency at this point. You have the expertise, you have the competency, you have the tenure, the experience, the wisdom. It is understanding that at leadership at this level is really understanding how to manage your brain and how to manage it so that you're not popping off in a meeting and that you're not becoming the heat-seeking missile of resentment. So, what I'm gonna tell you to do is really pause.

And instead of trying to fix the peer that they need to do something differently or they need to behave differently, I want you to stay in a place where you're focusing on, you know what? I want to be clear, I want to be steady, I want to lead this conversation, I don't want to react to it. And in this scenario, because the the partner, the peer popped out of the room, she also popped out of the room and, you know, went to the restroom, took a walk, went to the micro kitchen, got some coffee, came back, right?

It gave her time to also decompress. So the key here is when we're so close to this resentment or burnout, we can get into like what I call the IDKs, the I don't know's or I don't cares. And it's a level of like, I just I can't, I can't take the same where I don't care, right? That's what I mean by the I don't care.

And there's a difference between I don't care and detachment. I don't care, you do care. And there's still an energy for it because you're like pushing away from something and you're reactive to it. Whereas detachment, in the true Buddhist sense of the word, right?

You know, so so above as below, right? There's an equanimity here. The detachment is clean. So detachment is noticing, but not having a reaction to it.

The I don't care is still keeping you reactive and energetically charged to the situation. So detachment might sound like this is happening, and I'm gonna choose how I want to move forward from this. That's where you start to create that calm leadership where you can also then impact your influence. So, what I want you to take away from this is when something is happening, and I'm not excusing the behavior, I'm saying how do you want to perform when insanity and chaos is going on around you?

Notice how you're performing. Notice what is keeping you in the reaction and therefore getting the same result over and over as in this scenario with these two colleagues that are always in this situation. And you're not jumping to the positive, like I'm gonna polyannic this or positive toxic being toxic with your positivity. Like what that's not what we're doing.

We're moving to neutral. So deciding what's the result in advance. Okay, I'm meeting with this person, typically in the in the past, this is how it goes. How do I want to handle this thing?

If they step away, if they're not engaged, if they're not done, start asking them questions, but through a lens of neutrality. Not, I didn't really appreciate that you left the room. Well, they already know that, right? They can already sense the tension, even if you're not saying it.

It's really pausing and saying, like, is everything okay? All right, can we agree in the future that if we need to step out, um, we kind of make it known that there's a certain call that's coming in? So that we're setting the groundwork for what you're expecting in advance. And you're not actually making the person wrong.

You're saying, moving forward, here are the ground rules and here's the shared principles that we want to take on this project. And then I also want you to think about how important is it, right? Asking yourself in the moment when you're feeling triggered, how important is this going to be in two hours, two minutes, two days, two weeks can really help guide your response, right? If it's something super urgent, yeah, it might be it might be really important in the next two minutes or the next two hours.

But if it's not going to be that important in two weeks or two years or two months, you know what? Maybe we can just let it go because it's going to steal your peace. So this is the work. It is not about doing more.

When we when I say you need to expand your capacity, it doesn't mean your effort to do more work, to take on more work. It's expanding your capacity and your mindset and in your leadership and in who you want to be as a leadership and who you identify with as a leader and really thinking through when I go into this situation, how do I want to be? What is the outcome I want? And you're thinking through that.

And then if a trigger comes up, or if someone's behavior is not as expected and you find yourself triggered, really separating and starting to watch that trigger and deciding how you want to respond. All right, friends, if you're navigating dynamics like this, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you're going through. I want to hear how you're navigating in this and how the takeaways in this episode helped you.

You can always send me an email to hello at JillGriffincoaching.com. And as always, be intentional. Really think through who you want to be as a leader when you go through your day and when you go through your room.

And as always, be kind. All right. I'll see you soon.