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During a recent ACSD Senior Student Development Officer Collaborative virtual gathering, our conversation briefly turned to performance reviews. I left that meeting challenged to engage the performance review season with thoughtfulness. While rarely expressed aloud, I genuinely love performance review season. Despite the exhaustion that comes with analyzing data, scheduling conversations, and completing paperwork, I’ve come to recognize that these few weeks represent one of the most important seasons of the year.
Performance reviews are a dedicated space to encourage team members, listen deeply to their experiences, and challenge them to grow personally and professionally. Rather than viewing reviews as administrative burdens, I see them as sacred opportunities for transformation.
As my research on Millennial Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) revealed, transformational leadership behaviors are strongly preferred by this emerging generation of higher education leaders (Pacurari, 2024). But how do we translate these research findings into practical leadership approaches that make a difference in our daily work?
Let’s explore how key elements of transformational leadership can transform our approach to performance reviews from mechanical evaluations into meaningful developmental conversations that honor both our institutional missions and the people we serve.
The Heart Behind the Process
Performance reviews often get reduced to systematic evaluations that miss the true opportunity before us. Christ’s ministry reminds us that development is fundamentally relational and transformative. He met people where they were, but loved them too much to leave them there. He saw not just present reality but future potential in everyone He encountered.
My research revealed a clear pattern: Millennial SSAOs overwhelmingly embrace transformational leadership approaches that elevate, inspire, and develop their teams (Pacurari, 2024). This orientation reflects the gospel principle that we are called not merely to manage people but to participate in their transformation. Just as Christ’s leadership was never about maintaining the status quo but always about transformation, our performance reviews should cultivate growth rather than simply check an institutional box.
Inspirational Motivation: Connecting Performance to Purpose
Inspirational motivation is simply the ability to communicate a compelling vision that inspires others to exceed expectations. My research found this to be a key predictor of transformational leadership among Millennial SSAOs (Pacurari, 2024).
Practical Applications:
- Begin with “Why”: Start conversations by asking, “What moments this year connected you most to our mission?” This elicits stories that remind us why the work matters.
- Frame Growth Areas Through Mission: Rather than “Improve your data skills,” try “Better data analysis will help demonstrate our impact on student success.”
- Connect Individual Goals to Vision: Show how professional development contributes to institutional priorities. Research by Arikan (2020) suggests that connecting individual work to organizational vision significantly enhances employee motivation and performance.
- Use Future-Focused Language: Dedicate half the conversation to looking forward with phrases like, “I can envision you leading…”
When team members rediscover their “why,” their engagement deepens naturally. These approaches honor the unique gifts God has placed in each person.
Idealized Influence: Leading with Integrity
Idealized influence means demonstrating values and ethical standards that earn trust and respect. It emerged as another strong predictor of transformational leadership (Pacurari, 2024). As Deng et al. (2022) notes, idealized influence involves leaders serving as role models through consistently ethical behavior.
Practical Applications:
- Demonstrate Vulnerability First: Begin by sharing your own growth points before offering feedback.
- Maintain Consistency: Apply evaluation standards evenly across your team. Research by Sischka et al. (2021) shows that inconsistent leadership behaviors significantly undermine trust and psychological safety in organizational settings.
- Follow Through: Document your commitments to provide support, then deliver on those promises.
- Align Values with Practice: Ensure evaluation criteria reflect your stated values.
I’ve found regular check-ins throughout the year are particularly effective. These brief conversations focus on whether I’ve followed through on my promises to support growth.
Individualized Consideration: Personalizing Development
Individualized consideration involves recognizing and developing each person’s unique potential through coaching and mentoring. Performance reviews are perfect opportunities for this approach. According to Shamshad and Khan (2022), leaders who demonstrate individualized consideration positively impact followers’ psychological well-being and self-efficacy.
Practical Applications:
- Ask Curious Questions: “What makes you lose track of time?” reveals core strengths to build upon.
- Personalize Development Plans: Work collaboratively to customize development plans rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. Studies by Lin et al. (2022) demonstrate that personalized development approaches significantly increase implementation success and skill development.
- Honor Communication Preferences: Some process feedback better in writing, others verbally. Adapt accordingly.
- Connect to Life Goals: Find intersections between organizational needs and personal aspirations to transform development from requirement to investment.
A Season of Prayer and Reflection
For me, performance review season is fundamentally a spiritual practice, a season of prayer and thoughtfulness. Before each review, I spend time in prayer for my team member, asking for wisdom to see them as God sees them, both their current reality and their created potential.
The transformational leadership behaviors that characterize Millennial SSAOs align beautifully with this perspective. By emphasizing inspirational motivation and idealized influence, we can transform performance reviews from dreaded evaluations into meaningful conversations that encourage, challenge, and ultimately develop our teams while advancing our institutional missions.
As you prepare for your next performance review cycle, I encourage you to see it not merely as an administrative task but as a sacred opportunity to speak life and vision into your team. The research is clear: transformational approaches make a difference. Now it’s up to us to apply these principles in ways that transform both our teams and our institutions.
References
- Arikan, S. (2020). An overview on leadership styles for organizations. Romanian Economic and Business Review, 15(3), 17-32.
- Deng, C., Gulseren, D., Isola, C., Grocutt, K., & Turner, N. (2023). Transformational leadership effectiveness: An evidence-based primer. Human Resource Development International, 26(5), 627-641. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2022.2135938.
- Lin, C.-P., Liu, C.-M., Joe, S.-W., Chen, K.-J., & Tsai, C.-C. (2022). Modeling leadership and team performance: The moderation of politics and leadership self-efficacy. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 33(1-2), 73-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2020.1794804.
- Pacurari, N. (2024). Coming of age: Leadership behaviors of millennial senior student affairs officers (SSAO) [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of the Cumberlands.
- Shamshad, I., & Khan, M. K. (2022). Emotional intelligence, transformational leadership, self-efficacy for well-being: A longitudinal study using sequential mediation. Journal of Public Affairs, 22(3), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2506.
- Sischka, P. E., Schmidt, A. F., & Steffgen, G. (2021). The effect of competition and passive avoidant leadership style on the occurrence of workplace bullying. Personnel Review, 50(2), 535-559. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-09-2019-0469.
