The Career Bermuda Triangle for Women in Midlife: Perimenopause, and Performative Performance

We were the Corporate Athletes of the Workplace, so why are we now so tired?

Years ago, I held a leadership role in a company that I suspected on day one was not a fit, but I didn’t know why.

In many ways the company looked and smelled like a fit. It rewarded an intense work ethic and proactivity, something I’d demonstrated in spades over the years. It didn’t occur to me that, perhaps, I had changed, or that, rather, my perspective on what constituted being effective in a role had changed.

Some of my well-meaning peers who had been at the company gave me tips on what would help me fit in better. 

One coached me on avoiding a senior leader’s wrath during planning sessions (I never quite got it). 

One insisted I be more proactive in the peer-review process by “dinging others before getting dinged,” telling me not to leave it to chance that I would get positive reviews in such a politically charged environment. He suggested proactively planting seeds of dissatisfaction with my detractors’ performance in the review process. 

One particularly kind colleague agreed to meet with me regularly to plot out how I’d win favor with new management following the abrupt departures of my two bosses in six months. The plan consisted of helping solve another leader’s higher-grade problem that I had no capability of solving in the hope that I would get absorbed into his group and would thus keep my job by jumping ship to a new department.

I did not have the stomach for the gymnastics required to get on in this place. That in itself was a painful realization, as for years I prided myself on my shape-shifter-like capability of adapting to any environment; to toughing it out.

I appreciated the kindness of my colleagues for offering me advice, but I resented what it implied: that none of what I was actually accomplishing in my role mattered, only the gamesmanship required to perform it. Even if the effort was necessary for survival at the company it seemed exhausting and inefficient—a waste of needed energy better spent doing a good job.

I left that organization with a new internalized mandate to always be humble and help those who struggled as I was helped; but also to walk away from situations that required performative performance over just plain performance.

I was more than two decades into my career, and I was only just learning the art of energy management.

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The past few weeks I’ve had restorative catching up with old friends; some who have known me since our first jobs out of college, some from college, and even one I first met at a dance at our local YMCA when we were in junior high. 

These friends have storied career backgrounds. One worked in Big Tech for many years, left the industry burned out, and has been on a career walkabout, exploring new hobbies and occupational curiosities while no longer being in the position of having to work. 

Another one I always found to be preternaturally ahead of the curve, having married and delivered four children while I was still wandering, single, westward in search of a professional identity. When all of her kids were grown she picked up the professional rope she had tenuously managed to hold onto throughout her child-rearing years and started climbing it deliberately and effectively. She is today what some of us refer to as a boss.

Another built a name for herself in fashion by building her own PR firm for some of the most notable brands in the industry. Being an incessant achiever, she assumed she had to keep forging into new realms and did so, often at great emotional and financial cost, before realizing that doing what comes naturally and succeeding at that is the reward in itself, not a sign of complacency.

Another weathered a diminishing divorce while taking on a new career, which is, perhaps, a surrogate for her new life. Her new job has hardly provided deliverance, but if anything her trials have forced her to view uncertainty, not as a predator to be locked out at all costs, but as a new roommate with something to teach her, whose tendencies to ruminate need to be managed. Her roommate has proven to be a fun watchmate of Netflix shows.

And yet, sitting down with my friends to talk about how we all really were I found certain consistencies.

The P Word. Let’s just get this one out of the way, shall we? Perimenopause. Some of us are moving heaven and earth to mask it, for fear that brain fog will cost us our jobs or worse, our self-concepts as competent people. A few of us are pissed that it’s even a concern at a time when we’re at our wisest and top of our game. Me? I’m irritated that women feel scared (often rightly so) into having to re-perform their jobs, at a stage of life when they have a whole career as proof of their capabilities, rather than just doing their jobs.

We see value in mentoring but are not big fans of managing. My friend who left the corporate world is getting antsy and wants to return to the positive feelings she experienced while “getting things done” and working with others. I asked her if she’d consider a management role. Her response: “Ahhhhhhh. Hell no.”

Says one friend, referring to her earlier career as an Independent Contributor: "I'd ‘IC’ all day if I could.” Another one admitted she liked being a “Mama Bear,” but not managing so much as supporting others. Another loves the “hard stuff”, but not managing: “Good God, not that." 

Perhaps the theme here is, not that we don’t like people, but we’re done seeking the gold star of approval for our best work by getting people management responsibilities that take us away from that work.  Having been called a “Lone Wolf” by people I’ve worked with closely, I consider myself a resigned and surprised manager: Resigned to the fact that often my roles require managing people, and then pleasantly surprised when I find myself deriving a sense of satisfaction from it.

The desire to simplify. One of my friends said about her high-powered role: “I’m not long on this. If I can make the money work in a couple years I’d also be fine dialing it down to a fraction of my salary and leading a lower-stress nonprofit where I can still have impact."

I recall in my 20s, while in a particularly toxic role, insisting that I would move to Nepal and meditate for a living. I’m glad I stuck it out, if not just because I’d never manage to sit for very long with my restless leg syndrome. But also because now I realize that simplifying can itself be performative, and then it’s called escape. I prefer to think of my preference for simplicity now as a qualified curation of the shit from the shinola.

Eyerolling around performative performing. I see people who are unbelievably talented, who are, as I like to say, “in it”: in a proof-building phase of their careers. They won’t let an email go unanswered, or let a ball drop, or do anything in their power to not appear as though they are anything but 100% committed to their jobs. I look at these folks like I do Olympic athletes, because I know the energy it takes to appear at all times like you have it handled. And indeed, these folks, by and large, have it handled. 

But over time you also witness those who really don’t have it handled. They have impostor syndrome, or are deeply insecure about their capabilities and will do anything to appear competent, so they perform performance. And they force everyone else to play to that performance. It’s exhausting. 

My friend who left Big Tech had a magical ability to perform without performing (I know, I worked with her) which can also be draining, because while you are never in jeopardy of losing your job, you become everyone’s go-to for actually getting stuff done.

My other friend felt stuck having to live out her legacy of performance, when she no longer felt it was who she was.

"I’ve been called out for not saying anything during meetings, which is fair, because I was hired in large part for my expertise. But I don’t always have something to say; sometimes I’m just listening.”

I do want to contrast the assessment of my friend’s performance with that of Steve Case, former CEO of AOL, who had been lauded for his evolutionary management style of “intense listening” and saying nothing during meetings. For men this is management worthy of a Harvard Business School case study; for women it’s a sign of decline.

Acceptance, not despair. But, this friend also tells me, she’s been working through her fears of decline with a therapist and coach, who have given her perspective, and it resonates with me.

This new way of being, my friend says, is not a sign that something is wrong. It’s a sign of change. She still is who she is, but a new, wiser and more nuanced self is emerging. 

And, my friend says, “I’m just getting to know her.”