Before You Review the Team, Review Yourself

It’s that time of year again. Performance reviews are on the calendar, goals are being dusted off, and leaders everywhere are busy evaluating team performance dashboards. 

Here’s a question we don’t ask enough or even at all: Have you reviewed yourself yet?

I’m not talking about the draft performance evaluation you’ll hand in to your boss. It’s not the metrics and numbers you’ll highlight in a year-end presentation. I’m talking about a personal leadership check-in that starts with one honest question: Am I proud of how I showed up this year?

This isn’t about ego. It’s about noticing where your energy went, whether your actions matched your values, and whether you’re building a career (and a life) you actually want.

Why Self-Review is a Leadership Skill

I work with professionals who are technically excellent and deeply committed. But when it comes to their own leadership patterns, many go blank. They’ve never been taught to reflect on themselves; they’ve only been trained on how to report to others. It’s similar to how we forget to step away from working “in the business” vs. making time to work “on the business.” 

But as leaders, isn’t one of our most important assets ourselves? Our ability to ask, listen, understand, ideate, manage, and vision? All of that takes a tremendous amount of output,  so making sure our internal landscape is strong and clear is mission-critical.

That’s the idea behind a personal QBR (Quarterly Business Review) or ABR (Annual Business Review). It’s not a journal prompt, meditation ritual, or retreat. It’s a strategic audit specifically designed to assess your self-management, other-management, and business outcomes. And like any good audit, it reveals gaps, patterns, and opportunities.

YOU are the Difference

A personal ABR focuses on who you are, not just what you did. It examines how you view yourself, not just what others see (or what you hope they see). It can also tell a more holistic story of highs and lows that account for your personal life. It can refine your understanding of your Why and motivators, highlight what you’ve learned apart from formal professional development, and identify areas you should probably work on or let go of.

You’re probably used to reviewing performance through a company lens: What moved the needle? What do the numbers say? Instead, ask yourself what kind of year did you have? Not just as a professional, but as a whole person.

If you don’t give yourself the space to notice patterns - what drained you, what fueled you - you’ll likely just rinse and repeat the same rhythms next year. And maybe those rhythms aren’t serving you anymore. If you value intentionality, that is the opposite of what you want.

How to Get Started

We start small, simple. We look back with curiosity, not judgment. And we begin to notice where growth is already happening and where a recalibration might be overdue. THIS is the strategic, boss move you need to do every year.

Simple Ways to Start Your Personal QBR

You don’t need a complicated framework to get started. You just need an hour, a quiet space, and a willingness to tell yourself the truth.

Here are a few starting points:

1. The Calendar Review: Open your calendar from the past year and scroll month by month. Skim through the meetings, deadlines, events, and client moments. What do you notice?

   
   

   • Where did your energy spike or plummet?

   • What do you wish you’d said no to sooner?

   • What brought you a quiet sense of pride?

Your calendar doesn’t lie. It tells the story of what you prioritized, not just what you intended. Because no one ever has enough time. No one. But we make time for what we decide matters most.

2. Big Highs and Lows in Comicbook Style Windows: Take a sheet of paper and make some boxes (4-8 are ideal). In each box, jot down or draw one of the major high points or low points of the year. Resist the urge to polish the hard parts. The goal isn’t to make meaning out of everything. The goal is to notice. Even a few scribbled words or a rough stick-figure sketch counts. What you take the effort to document, you can work with in a significantly different way than simply thinking about things in your head.  It puts events into a format where you can be an observer, which is a powerful perspective and skill.

   
   

3. One Giant Question: You can try a bold, single-question format. For example, “Am I happy with the direction I’m heading?” Not just in terms of progress, but in how it feels to be you right now. Is your work energizing or exhausting? Are your goals still yours, or have they quietly become someone else’s?

   
   

None of this needs to be formal. Write it down in a notebook. Speak it into a voice memo. Doodle it on a whiteboard. Take a walk and let the thoughts rise. Talk it out with someone you trust.

Reclaiming Reflection as Strategy

It’s a little ironic: the more senior you get, the fewer people will offer you honest feedback. That means your ability to self-reflect becomes not just helpful, but essential. When you review yourself with clarity and compassion, you’re not just preparing for next year’s goals. You’re practicing the kind of leadership that isn’t driven by ego or optics, but by alignment. You’re leading from within, and that changes everything. The “juice” that comes from this strategic annual reflection is definitely “worth the squeeze.”

And if you already do some version of this, I'd love to hear it. How do you review your own year? What’s worked? What’s surprised you? Reply or comment. Let’s build a culture of leadership that starts from the inside out.