Anna Cosic

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Anna Cosic I help female Directors advance in their careers. 🚀

You just started a new role. Congrats! 🎉You want to get up to speed fast and show them they made the right call, so you ...
09/30/2026

You just started a new role. Congrats! 🎉

You want to get up to speed fast and show them they made the right call, so you put your head down, absorb everything, and tell yourself you’ll speak up once you understand the place.

It makes complete sense!

It’s what most of us were taught a good new hire does. It even sounds like the usual advice: listen first.

But so many of us hear “listen first” and turn it into “stay silent until further notice.”

And at this level, listening was never meant to be silent. Two ears, one mouth means you listen more than you talk. It doesn’t mean zero mouth.

Here’s why it matters: In those first weeks, your new stakeholders are working out who they hired.

They don’t have your track record, most never saw your resume, and you’ve no results yet.

All they have to go on is how you engage: what you ask, what you notice, what you make of what you’re hearing.

The leader who asks the right questions early is the one who builds trust and credibility fast, and sets herself up to realize her full potential.

The sooner you engage, the sooner they see the leader you are!

Save this if you’re just starting a new, more senior role and send it to a peer or friend you know who just did. 🎉

09/29/2026

I’ve always been a perfectionist with high standards.

For most of my career, that was my superpower. I did my best, whatever it took, and I delivered work that made me stand out. It got me promoted.

But once I got to the Director level, I couldn’t figure out why it had stopped working. Why the same standards that got me here weren’t getting me recognized anymore.

Here’s what I didn’t see at the time:

My perfectionism had started showing up as holding back.

I didn’t speak up with senior leaders unless I had the perfect answer.
I didn’t apply for new roles because I didn’t check every single box.
I didn’t delegate, because no one would do it exactly my way, so I stayed buried in the weeds, doing it all myself.

And what I finally understood is that my bosses were never looking for the person with the highest standards. They were looking for a strategic leader.

Someone who speaks up before she has it all figured out.
Who throws her hat in the ring at eighty percent.
Who uplevels her team instead of redoing their work.

My perfectionism wasn’t making me look ready for the next level. It was making me look like a workhorse.

The shift wasn’t about lowering my standards. It was about learning where to adapt them and where to let them go. Because high standards aren’t the problem. Knowing where to bring them is exactly what turns them into strategic leadership.

If you’re a fellow perfectionist, this one’s for you. Your standards are a strength! You just get to decide where they serve you. 🔥

Save this if you see yourself in it, and send it to a perfectionist who needs to hear it.

There’s a question I ask almost every woman I start working with, usually in our first conversation about the promotion ...
09/23/2026

There’s a question I ask almost every woman I start working with, usually in our first conversation about the promotion she’s going for: who, besides you, actually knows that you want it?

There’s almost always a pause. Then some version of “well, I think it’s obvious,” or “they must know, I’ve been the top performer for two years.” (For the record, that would’ve been my answer too when I was a Director!)

Here’s what took me too long to learn:
The more senior you get, the less the work speaks for itself. At this level, ambition that hasn’t been said out loud gets read as a lack of ambition.

When senior leaders put someone forward, they’re putting their own credibility on the line, so they choose the people they’re sure want it and will run with it.

A leader who’s said where she’s headed is easy to champion.

A leader who’s never raised it leaves a blank, and blanks get filled in with whatever seems plausible: “she seems happy where she is,” “she’s got a lot on her plate,” “she’s never mentioned it, so it can’t be a priority.”

None of it comes from bad intent. The people deciding are busy and working with the information they have. We just never gave them this piece.

And this part is entirely in your hands. It doesn’t take more hours or turn you into someone who brags.

There’s a way of saying what you want that lands as leadership, not entitlement, and it’s a skill like any other, which means it can be learned.

You’ve done the work to be taken seriously for the next level! This is about making sure the people who decide know you want it

Save this if you’re going for something bigger, and send it to a woman you know who’s ready for more. 🚀

09/22/2026

I used to wear my independence like a badge of honor. 🏅

Ever since I was a kid, I was praised for figuring things out on my own. For being the capable one who never needed help. So I carried that straight into my career, and for years, it made me successful.

My boss would hand me something, and I’d do whatever it took to deliver it, well and on time, all by myself. I’d rather spend five hours figuring something out than send one message asking for input. That self-sufficiency got me recognized. It got me promoted.

And then I hit the Director level, and the exact same thing started working against me.

Here’s what I didn’t understand at the time:

For most of my career, my value came down to one thing: how well I could get things done myself. That was the currency. I delivered, I delivered well, and I got rewarded.

But at a certain level, the currency changed. My value was no longer about what I produced on my own. It was about what I could make possible through other people.

And because I kept spending the old currency, working harder, carrying more, doing it all myself, I looked like a workhorse, not the strategic leader they were looking for.

This is the part it took me the longest to accept:
Delegating was never me asking for help. It was me directing someone to do their job. Escalating to my boss wasn’t me bothering him. It was me letting him do his.

None of it made me less capable. It was the exact skill they were measuring me on now.

Once that clicked, things started to shift. Over the next few months, my workload came down. I felt supported instead of alone. And I was finally seen as ready for the next level.

Letting go of needing to do it all myself didn’t make me less capable. It’s what finally made me a leader. 🔥

👋 Save this if you’ve also taken pride in never needing anyone. And send it to a friend who also does it all herself.

đź‘‹Your boss is on the way out? This might be the best thing to happen to your career this year. đź‘ŹWhen a boss leaves, ever...
09/16/2026

đź‘‹Your boss is on the way out? This might be the best thing to happen to your career this year. đź‘Ź

When a boss leaves, everyone treats it as a loss. But here’s what most people get wrong about that moment: they think they lost a boss. What they actually lost is a translator.

Think about what your boss had that nobody else did: years of watching you work. The quarter you rescued, the hire you got right, the call that turned out to matter. And when your name came up in rooms you weren’t in, they translated all of it into impact, in the language the people deciding your next step actually understand. That visibility took years to build. And it lived in one person. Who just left.

So here’s a question worth sitting with: outside your boss, who could describe your impact in a sentence? Not your title, not how hard you work. What you’ve actually achieved. If the honest answer is “nobody, really,” that’s exactly what this moment is for.

Because a boss change is the one time in your career when your reputation gets rewritten. Your new boss isn’t carrying last year’s version of you forward, they don’t have it. Whatever you wish people saw (more strategic, more senior, ready for what’s next), this is the window to show it. And it’s open right now. 🚀

If your boss is on the way out and you want to come out of this seen as the leader you are, my free live training, How to Go from Workhorse to Strategic Leader, is where to start. Link in bio!

đź‘Ź Save this for when the reorg lands, and send it to a woman you know who just got a new boss.

09/15/2026

You keep watching it happen.

Someone gets invited to present to the leadership team. Someone gets tapped for the strategic offsite. Someone gets picked for the project everyone can see.

And you don’t get it! Because they’re not more qualified than you. They definitely don’t work harder than you. So how are they the one getting tapped?!

Here’s what most of us miss at this inflection point in our careers:

Early on, a promotion really was a reward for working hard and doing great work. But at this level, it stops being a reward and becomes a bet - a bet on who they trust to operate at the next level.

And under pressure, people bet on who they can count on, in that moment, to deliver.

So it comes down to who feels like the safe bet. And that’s rarely about who’s most capable.

It’s about who they’ve actually seen think strategically. Who’s visible. Who’s top of mind. Who’s made it clear, recently, what they bring.

The workhorse, the one heads-down doing brilliant work where no one sees it, is the bigger unknown. Even when she’s the stronger candidate, betting on her feels riskier, because they don’t have the evidence in front of them.

This is what “be more strategic” and “work on your executive presence” are really pointing at. Not that your work isn’t good enough. But that they can’t yet see you as the leader they’d bet on.

And I know self-promotion can feel icky - like bragging. But that’s not what this is. It’s being on the bench and telling your coach: “Put me in! I can help us win!” That’s who gets bet on. 🎯

So this is your invitation to stop waiting. Whether it’s a stretch project or the biggest bet of all - your next promotion - get proactive.

Make it easy for the right people to see your value as a strategic leader, so the next time around, it’s you who gets tapped. 🔥

Save this if you’ve been doing the work and waiting to be picked. And send it to a woman who deserves to get tapped next!

You’re applying for senior roles, but your resume is describing a junior candidate.September is one of the biggest hirin...
09/13/2026

You’re applying for senior roles, but your resume is describing a junior candidate.

September is one of the biggest hiring windows of the year, and if you’re updating LinkedIn or taking recruiter calls, here’s what’s quietly working against you: most of us describe ourselves like a workhorse.

A list of tasks, responsibilities, and skills. Facilitated this, helped with that, proficient in the following.

The problem is that a list of tasks reads as ex*****on, not leadership.

So when you apply for the senior role, you don’t come across as a level below - you often don’t get considered at all.

The hiring team is scanning for one thing: can she do the bigger job? A list of what you’ve done leaves them to figure that out for themselves, and most won’t.

The shift is to connect the dots for them. Reframe your past work from tasks to outcomes, the ones that matter for the job you’re going after, so everything you put out answers the real question: not “what has she done?” but “why will she succeed in this role?”

And doing that is the first rep of thinking like the strategic leader they’re hiring for.

The roles are being posted right now!

If you want to hand in your notice before the turkey goes in the oven, start with my free live training, How to Go from Workhorse to Strategic Leader. Link in bio!

👋 Save this for your job search, and send it to a woman you know who’s ready for her next move. 🚀

09/10/2026

I once worked with a Senior Manager named Sam.

In her mid-year review, Sam was told she needed to be more strategic.

And she wanted to act on it. She really did!

But like most of us, she got busy. Heads down, back-to-back, just keeping up. So she kept doing what had always worked, and told herself she’d get to the strategic stuff eventually.

Three months later, she had a check-in with her boss. And she was stunned.

Because she told her things were actually getting worse.
Which made no sense to Sam. She hadn’t done anything differently. So how could it be worse?!

And that’s when it hit her:

Every week that passed without her acting on that feedback, her boss was losing a little more faith. Because what reason did she have to believe she was suddenly going to wake up and change?

Doing nothing wasn’t neutral. It was costing her, every single day.

That was the wake-up call she needed. She finally started making the shift, for real this time. And by her year-end review, she could actually show it. She got the promotion. đź’Ş

Here’s why I’m telling you this now -

It’s September. Before you know it, it’s year-end reviews. And every week between now and then, the people who gave you that feedback are watching to see if you’ll act on it.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to start. 🚀

Save this if you’ve been told to “be more strategic” and haven’t cracked what to do about it.

And send it to a peer or friend who got the same feedback and is sitting on it. 🔥

Too busy to be strategic? Heading into the fall push, a lot of us are about to be busier than ever.Here’s what I want yo...
09/07/2026

Too busy to be strategic?

Heading into the fall push, a lot of us are about to be busier than ever.

Here’s what I want you to look at: how much of your week goes to work no one asked for and no one will remember.

The deck nobody requested, the teammate’s task you redid,
the slack you absorbed because it was faster to just do it yourself.

It feels like being helpful!

But every one of those hours is an hour not going toward the high-impact work that positions you as a leader.

So you end the quarter buried, and the review still says “be more strategic.”

The fall push is coming either way. The only question is what it produces for you, and that’s in your control.

Not by working harder, by working differently.

If you’re ready to spend this fall on the work that actually moves you forward, my free live training, How to Go from Workhorse to Strategic Leader, is where to start. Link in bio!

Save this, and send it to a woman you know who’s ready for the next level! 🚀

09/03/2026

When I first became a manager, a boss told me I’d have to get more comfortable with people not liking me.

And as a lifelong people-pleaser? I was horrified.

I had made myself a promise that I would never become the cold, backstabby boss who steps on people to get ahead.

So if that’s what it took to move up, I wasn’t interested.

But that’s not what he meant.

He wasn’t telling me to stop being kind. He was telling me that to lead, you have to get comfortable taking a stand and making the call. Even when not everyone’s on board.

Because here’s the thing. We will never get everyone to agree. On anything, ever. Make a real decision, and someone’s going to be unhappy about it.

And for us recovering people-pleasers, that feels like a nightmare.

But then he told me the part I’ve never forgotten:

When you make people feel heard, include them, and walk them through your thinking, they don’t have to agree with you to respect you.

They’ll respect the decision. And they’ll respect that you brought them along.

The goal was never to be liked. It was to be respected. 🚀

And it turns out, you can absolutely do that, and still be the kind of leader people genuinely enjoy working with. đź’ś

Save this if you needed to hear it, and send it to a recovering people-pleaser who does too.

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