Nearly without realizing it, I’ve entered the sunset phase of my current career. As a woman in tech, I’ve witnessed more women entering leadership roles, which has been great. We’ve got a huge way to go in terms of representation at all levels of leadership and, more importantly, creating a healthy culture. This was brought home to me in a poignant and painful experience I had this week as my manager delivered my performance evaluation which was, without question, the absolute worst evaluation of my entire career.

In an instant, my brain exploded. How could this happen? I’m at the top of my game. I’m highly regarded by my team, my partners, my stakeholders. In fact, my work delivery was considered very good by anyone’s standards. These were the thoughts that spun, instantly, as my manager not only delivered her remarks but also detailed the financial impact of the rating I received.

Shocked, stunned, angry, defeated, confused, I tried to breathe and gauged my words carefully. She assured me that she thought I had achieved the work goals last year and that I was on the right track, which further confused me. I thanked her for her time, and we closed the call as there was much for me to process.

I spent the next hour doing the one thing I resist doing most of all — feeling my feelings. When I was drinking, that’s the last thing I would have allowed myself to do. I would have gone immediately to a bar or a club, getting hammered and character assassinating my manager to anyone who would listen, feeling indignant, self-righteous, wronged, and victimized. Anything to avoid feeling angry, upset, humiliated, confused, and very much like a failure.

Seeking counsel from a senior leader in my organization about how to proceed — also a woman — I was advised this: “You shine so brightly. To survive working with this manager, you need to dim your light. The best thing to do in working with [my manager’s name] is to remain very still and small, and try not to threaten her.”

This advice shocked me more than my performance evaluation. Here it is, 2024, and women are still telling each other to dim their lights, to make themselves small. How can this be? Haven’t we been told this for centuries?

Thanking my advisor for her thoughts, I took a breath, and considered my core values. Forgiveness. Faith. Love. I realized that my manager has a perspective of me based on some conflicts we had last year, some friction our fledgling leadership team is still working through today as we tried to form a vision and sense of purpose. She is new in her role, and is most likely feeling overwhelmed. We don’t share the same framework for people management and business strategy, and so much of what I bring to the table is simply outside of her field of vision. We don’t share much in the way of vocabulary, and so communication has been a challenge for both of us. Her options for managing leaders is limited, and she doesn’t have the capacity to navigate nuances. Thinking about her experience and her perspective helped take a bit of the pain out of what felt like a hammer being dropped on me. I realized the performance evaluation really was more of a reflection of where she is in her development, and not as much about me.

Taking a bigger step back, I then considered the feedback she gave. Was there any truth in what she said? Any real takeaways, anything actionable? I had to admit there was a place she highlighted where I could up-level my performance, in the area of handling my own frustration. Knowing I was completely burned out last year, which covered the time where my performance was evaluated, there were times when I failed to contain my frustration at resourcing issues, work-life balance, and so forth. While I thought I was speaking courageously and assumed psychological safety, there’s much I can do to better know my audience and adjust my communication to meet their needs more effectively.

Emotional work has a huge physical impact, and this was an extra large slice of humble pie to work through. After I’d processed as much as I could, I went to bed super early that night, knowing that I was scheduled to hold performance evaluation conversations with my direct reports the next day. After a whopping 10 hours of sleep, I woke feeling grateful that I have a job still, that I work with the most stellar group of colleagues one could hope for, and that there’s clear work I can do to help influence our culture and help grow healthy leaders. In speaking with my individual direct reports, I was able to stay completely present and felt so joyful and grateful for their partnership; truly appreciative of their efforts, and thankful to have this opportunity to work with them. I delighted in sharing their financial rewards, and had absolutely no residue from my experience the day before. What a miracle! What a freaking gift to be able to right-size my own emotions, issues I run into, uncomfortable situations, and to let them go.

How will I move forward with my manager? I honestly don’t know right now. But I do know that I can engage with mindfulness, remain very present with her, and ask for clarity around expectations. It feels too that my work life will be changing and that’s ok, too. Things will evolve in their own time and in the right ways, if I continue to show up each day and do the next right thing. I don’t need to figure everything out right in this moment. But there’s one thing I do know, and it’s that it’s not healthy for me or anyone, I think, to dim my light. I’m going to shine on.