Latest / Women at Work: Career, Leadership & Modern Work / The Allyship Trap Why Performance Reviews Hurt Women More
Transcript
- Lucas: If we've helped you think through a career move or a tough conversation at work, there's a simple way to keep these episodes coming — and it costs about the same as a coffee. We keep the show ad-free, and listener support on Buy Me a Coffee is a big part of that. It's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's genuinely a small thing that makes a real difference. Every contribution helps us keep digging into these topics. Lucas: All right — let's talk about performance reviews and why they might be quietly working against women. There's a 2024 study I want to walk through, based on 15,000 reviews at a Fortune 500 tech company. The finding is stark: women received two and a half times more negative feedback on 'teamwork' than equally rated male peers, even though their actual productivity metrics were identical. Luna: That's a huge gap. And teamwork is one of those traits that sounds positive but can become a weapon in a review — 'she's great at helping others, but is she a leader?' I've seen that framing before. Lucas: Exactly. The researchers call this the 'allyship trap.' Managers think they're being supportive by praising collaboration, but the subtext is that the woman is a helper, not a driver. And when promotions are on the line, that distinction matters. Luna: So the very language meant to show support ends up reinforcing a stereotype. Let's talk about what the data actually shows. Lucas: The study controlled for role, tenure, and raw output — the women in the sample were delivering at the same level as men. But in the narrative section of the review, words like 'collaborative,' 'team player,' and 'supportive' appeared far more often for women. For men, the same section used words like 'analytical,' 'strategic,' and 'decisive.' Luna: It's a classic double bind — if you're collaborative, you're not seen as a leader. But if you're assertive, you're penalized for being aggressive. Lucas: Right. And there's a 2025 meta-analysis from Harvard Business Review covering 80,000 employees across dozens of companies that shows the format of the review itself matters. Systems that rely heavily on open-ended narrative comments produce about 40 percent wider gender gaps in ratings than purely numerical or rubric-based systems. Luna: Forty percent is enormous. That suggests the problem isn't just biased managers — it's the structure of the review itself. Lucas: That's the argument. When you leave room for subjective language, unconscious bias has a place to land. A numerical scale from 1 to 5 on 'delivers on time' leaves less room for the reviewer to write a paragraph about how the person is 'great with everyone.' Luna: But I want to push back a little. Some women I've spoken to actually want that qualitative feedback — they find numerical ratings cold and unhelpful for development. So throwing out narrative entirely feels like a loss. Lucas: Fair point. The research doesn't say remove narrative entirely. It says structure it. One company in the study switched to a rubric where managers had to pick from predefined phrases tied to specific behaviors — 'proactively shares information' versus 'is a team player.' The latter is vague. The former is concrete. Luna: So the fix isn't less feedback — it's better-framed feedback. Anchored to actions, not labels. Lucas: Exactly. And there's another mechanism that some companies are adopting: anonymous calibration committees. After managers write reviews, a panel of senior leaders reviews all the narratives — with names removed — and flags any language that seems gendered or inconsistent across teams. Luna: That sounds promising, but it's also resource-intensive. A small company isn't going to have a calibration committee. What's the one thing an individual manager could do tomorrow? Lucas: The simplest shift I've seen is what one executive I interviewed calls 'the two-question review.' Instead of categories like 'communication' or 'teamwork,' ask: 'What did the person deliver?' and 'What did the person enable others to deliver?' That second question captures collaboration without the baggage of 'team player' stereotypes. Luna: I like that — it focuses on output and impact, not personality. And it's harder to write 'she's nice' when the question is specifically about enabling others. Lucas: Right. And it gives women credit for the invisible work they're often doing — mentoring junior colleagues, fixing processes, smoothing over conflicts. That work is real value. It just doesn't show up in the metrics. Luna: So the two-question review surfaces that value and makes it part of the formal record. That seems like a win for everyone. Lucas: I think so. There's a 2023 study from the University of California that tracked 2,000 employees over three years at a firm that adopted this format. The gender gap in promotion rates narrowed by 27 percent in that period. Luna: That's a meaningful change. And it didn't require a massive HR overhaul — just a shift in how the question was framed. Lucas: That's the encouraging takeaway. Small structural changes can have outsized effects. But it does require leadership to actually look at the data from their own reviews and ask: 'Are we using the same language for men and women? Are our ratings consistent across teams?' Luna: And that's the part that usually doesn't happen. Most companies never audit their review language. Lucas: They don't. But the tools to do it are getting cheaper. There are now several text-analysis platforms that can scan a batch of reviews and flag gendered language in minutes. One I saw costs about $200 a month for a company of 500 people. Luna: So the barrier is no longer cost — it's willingness. A leader has to want to see the pattern. Lucas: And that's the real challenge. But for listeners who are in a position to influence their own review process — whether you're a manager or an individual contributor — you can start by looking at your own last review. Count the adjectives. Are they about what you did or who you are? If you see vague personality language, that's a red flag. Luna: And if you're on the receiving end, you can also push back. Ask your manager: 'Can you give me a specific example of that?' Make them anchor it in behavior. Lucas: That's a great move. It forces the reviewer to be concrete, and it gives you actionable data instead of a label. Luna: So to sum up: performance reviews are not a neutral instrument. They carry hidden biases, especially in narrative sections. But small changes — structured rubrics, calibration, the two-question format — can make a real difference. Lucas: And the goal isn't to eliminate feedback. It's to make feedback fairer. Because the person who gets labeled 'collaborative' today could be the leader you need tomorrow. Luna: I think that's the right note to end on. Thanks for digging into this with me. Lucas: Always a pleasure. Catch you next time.