That's Not a Strategy, That's an Anecdote
I'll devour a good leadership memoir. Currently can't put down We Will Be Jaguars. There's something genuinely valuable about sitting with someone else's hard-won lessons - the moments that shaped them, the calls they made under pressure, the things they'd do differently.
But there's a problem with building a development strategy around it.
What worked for that person, in that company, in that culture, under those specific circumstances, was shaped by thousands of variables you don't share. Different industry. Different culture. Different team dynamics. Different version of "the problem." Different leader (YOU!). So while it's inspiring and worth learning from, it's not a roadmap. It's one data point.
Science gives us something different: the ability to look across hundreds or thousands of organizations, leaders, and contexts and ask what generally tends to work? That's a much sturdier foundation.
But here's where it gets even more interesting. And something I bumped into recently while working on a post for IG.
You've probably heard the common wisdom that women receive vaguer feedback than men. It makes intuitive sense, right? There's even a popular fix floating around: if you're a woman, ask for more specific feedback.
Except... when you actually dig into the research, that's not what we find.
Women don't receive meaningfully different feedback in terms of specificity. What the research does show is that when evaluators knew they were giving feedback to a woman, they rated her higher than they privately believed she deserved. The feedback wasn't less specific. It was less honest.*
And it goes further. In a study analyzing 208 real performance reviews at a Fortune 500 tech company, researchers found that women and men were described using the same assertive, results-driven language at equal rates. But for men, that language predicted the highest ratings. For women doing the exact same things, it knocked them down a full rating level.**
She wasn't described differently. She was valued differently.
So the popular belief points us toward one solution (ask for clearer feedback) when the actual problems are something else entirely: the feedback women receive may not reflect a true assessment of her performance, and even when the words are identical, they don't carry the same weight.
If we try to solve the wrong problem, we're just spinning our wheels. And we'd never know that without looking at what the data actually say.
That's the case for a science-informed approach.
It checks our gut.
It keeps us honest about where the real levers are.
And that's also where coaching comes in! Because once we know what the evidence says tends to work, the next job is figuring out what that means for you, in your context, with your specific challenges.
The science gives us the map.
Coaching helps us navigate it.
Let's go girls!
xoxo
Kelsey
This Week's Thing:
The Leadership Belief Audit
Pick one thing you genuinely believe about being a good leader. Something you'd give as advice. Something you've maybe never questioned.
Ask yourself three things:
Where did I learn this?
Is it from a book, a mentor, a vibe I picked up somewhere?
What does the evidence actually say?
Do a little digging. You might be surprised. Sometimes the research backs you up completely. Sometimes it's... more complicated than you thought.
And if you find something interesting or something that genuinely surprises you, just hit reply. I'd love to hear what comes up.
A Girl's Gotta Cite Her Sources:
*Jampol, L. & Zayas, V. (2021). Gendered white lies: Women are given inflated performance feedback compared with men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
**Correll, S. J., Weisshaar, K. R., Wynn, A. Y., & Wehner, J. D. (2020). Inside the black box of organizational life: The gendered language of performance assessment. American Sociological Review.