Is this fair feedback?

[Milleilly]

I work in an industry dominated by confident men. I’m not unconfident and do speak up for myself but am definitely not the loudest / most confident person in the room.

I recently had some feedback from my boss which was said with the intention of blocking me from going for a promotion. So all overwhelmingly negative, basically underlining why I wasn’t ready. One of the comments, relating to a task that had ultimately gone well and on which I had received good feedback, was “she often seemed nervous when I was working with her”. This was from another senior person I work closely with.

aibu to think that this is quite unfair and out of context? What can I even say to that?

Hopeful bump

It's difficult to say whether it's fair without more information. They also should have given an indication of the actual tangible behaviour as to what led to that feedback. It's subjective as it stands.

I've experienced similar. Even if you're a 'loud and confident' woman person, if others are 'louder and more confident' you get pushed down as one of the quiet ones.

Is there office politics going on here? I'm not sure 'seeming nervous' is grounds to block a promotion. That's an interpretation. You could be focused and concentrating and quiet as a result. How did you 'seem' nervous?

At a new job (a few weeks in), my manager gave feedback about 'the most successful people come in early, stay late, get their heads down and don't chat' (sales role).

I took it on board (not that I was chatting or faffing but I thought ok, show up and work hard).

A week later he gave feedback that I was 'a lone wolf' because I turned up before anyone, stayed at the office instead of going to the pub with colleagues, and didn't idly chat when grabbing a coffee

Bear in mind as well that reasonably assertive women are labelled 'ball breakers' and 'aggressive' where the same from men isn't even commented on because it's deemed 'normal'.

Really hard for us to judge. We don't know you, your personality, what you may think is confident could come across as really timid to someone else. Who knows if it was justified.

I think it's unfair purely because it's subjective. Did they give instances of where your apparent nervousness impacted on your work e.g. not meeting clients/peers in the eyes when talking to them, perhaps talking too quickly meaning it was difficult to understand the key points etc? If they did give examples and outlined why these were relevant, then I think that's something to consider and possibly work on in the future.

If they didn't, I think @TibetanTerrah is right and this is a difficult situation to win. The only things I can think of are probably what you have already done - articulate your successes (in terms of relationship building, financial impact for company, basics like achieving or going beyond goals) and find others to support you. Being great at your job is often not enough, you do need senior people in your corner when you want to go for a promotion - someone who is not your line manager who is willing to speak up on your behalf. Do you have someone like that who could counter what the other person claimed or highlight your positives?