Appraisal season is here: How to be seen without showing off

IT IS that time of year again. Annual performance appraisals beckon, and employees everywhere are preparing to explain what they have accomplished over the past 12 months.

For some, it is an exercise in honest reflection.

For others, an opportunity to transform modest contributions into extraordinary achievements, with the help of carefully chosen adjectives.

A project completed becomes a “strategic transformation”. Attending meetings becomes “driving stakeholder engagement”. Helping colleagues becomes “demonstrating enterprise-wide leadership”.

Welcome to the annual corporate exercise in creative writing.

When modesty becomes a liability

There was a time when the advice was simple: Keep your head down, do good work and let your results speak for themselves.

It was an admirable philosophy, rooted in humility, diligence and the belief that merit would eventually be recognised.

But good work does not always speak. Sometimes it needs an interpreter.

In large organisations, managers cannot see everything. Contributions made quietly, problems prevented rather than solved, and colleagues helped without fanfare can easily escape notice.

Meanwhile, those more accomplished at narrating their achievements may receive disproportionate recognition.

Social media has compounded this imbalance. We inhabit a culture where almost every milestone merits an announcement, every experience yields a lesson in leadership, and every setback becomes a story of resilience.

The danger is not merely exaggeration. It is that we gradually confuse the ability to communicate value with the value itself.

Visibility without vanity

Should employees therefore become better self-promoters?

Perhaps. But there is an important distinction between making one’s work visible and making oneself the centre of attention.

A good appraisal should resemble an honest account of stewardship, not an advertising campaign.

It should explain what was achieved, why it mattered, what others contributed and what could have been done better.

There is no virtue in understating genuine accomplishments. Equally, there is little integrity in claiming collective achievements as personal triumphs.

Indeed, the most credible leaders I have encountered were often those who could articulate their contributions confidently while generously acknowledging the people who made them possible.

They understood that humility is not the denial of one’s abilities. It is an accurate understanding of them.

A useful discipline is to keep a record throughout the year: decisions taken, outcomes achieved and lessons learnt. Specific examples make a stronger case than adjectives, and leave less room for inflated claims.

Let the work speak, but give it a voice

Organisations also bear responsibility. Appraisal systems that reward polished presentations more readily than sustained contributions inevitably encourage performance theatre.

Managers should look beyond the loudest voices and ask harder questions: Who quietly makes others better? Who prevents problems that never become headlines? Who delivers consistently without demanding applause?

This matters beyond individual fairness. When visibility becomes the currency of advancement, employees learn to spend time managing impressions. The business pays when appearing effective takes precedence over being actually useful and impactful.

As another appraisal season approaches, perhaps the better question is not how impressively we can describe our achievements, but how faithfully our descriptions reflect reality.

By all means, tell your story. Explain your contribution. Give your work the visibility it deserves.

But resist the temptation to turn every accomplishment into a superlative.

After all, a good reputation should be built on the substance of our work, not the sophistication of its packaging.

The writer is a senior accredited director of the Singapore Institute of Directors and serves on several boards, including as chairman of SGListCos