Can Introverts Be Leaders?

Since we’re all very busy, I’m going to cut to the chase: yes, but with some caveats.

First of all, if you identify as an introvert, I want to assure you that you’re in solidarity with many (most!) of my clients in leadership positions. Some of them are powerful strategists, who can map a path through uncertainty that lands their company on solid ground. Some of them are gifted people managers, who can inspire large teams to stay focused and productive during intense work periods. Some are visionaries who can predict industry trends from miles away, and spot emerging markets way before competitors. And some have an action-based excellence that allows them to execute complex plans perfectly, down to the last detail.

Each is a self-proclaimed introvert, and each has their own way of managing that paradigm. But what they all agree on is that as an introvert, you’ve got to actually practice speaking up for yourself and advocating for your work. Introverts often have a neurological response to making themselves the center of attention, even if it’s completely warranted, such as when it’s your turn to lead a meeting or give a presentation. You might feel so nervous that you shake, sweat, go “blank” or completely numb. This is your introverted response in action, and it’s completely natural. But you don’t have to be ruled by it!

Do what my clients do, and carve out two 30-minute practice sessions per week. Make a list of important leadership tasks on your upcoming schedule, like meetings, presentations, performance reviews or client pitches. Now for each event, make a list of points you need to communicate, like strong opinions about ongoing projects, industry reports, or resource requests for your current project. Write down what you want to say, and practice!

One tip: make sure that the language you’re using is confident and assertive. Introverts often struggle with this, because it can feel “pushy”, “arrogant”, or “bossy”. But leaders speak confidently and without apology. They recognize that this straightforward style helps others understand what’s expected of them, and reduces friction so that everyone can focus on the next steps.  

Here are three examples of unconfident language, and three ways to correct it:

Unconfident: “I was thinking maybe that the next time we work on a project, we could have a look at some current data and bring it to our strategy.”

Confident: “Before we begin our next project we’ll need to review all current data. Please have it ready by the end of next week.”

Unconfident: “The latest reports seem to show that we have to choose a faster path to customer retention. I was going to draft a strategy, but I’d love to get your thoughts on this?”

Confident: “As you can see from the report, we need a faster path to customer retention. I’m going to draft a new strategy that I’ll present next week.”

Unconfident: “I’m afraid that Senior leadership might have a problem with this particular item on the agenda, should we wait until we’ve heard from them?”

Confident:“We’ll need to check with Senior leadership before we move on this, but the entire team should be ready to act.”

This is just one of the techniques I work on with my clients. I give Power Communication trainings to groups of Executives, and private coaching packages for professionals at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt, Cisco and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. DM me for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

An Astounding Power Skill

There is one particular skill that almost every single client I’ve ever worked with, and every single woman I’ve ever known, finds incredibly difficult. I have a theory about why this is: I believe that most women learn to fear this skill, because it goes directly against the way we are socially and culturally conditioned to show up in the world, i.e. making ourselves small, unobtrusive, polite and compliant (I’ve previously written about how this conditioning can wreak havoc in our careers via BTS Syndrome). 

But embracing this skill at work, in a professional context, can be transformational. When done strategically it can make an enormous difference in the way you’re perceived by everyone around you, including Senior leaders who are looking for high-performing talent that they can support and promote. The power of this skill cannot be overstated. You may be astounded by how well it works.

The astounding Power Skill I’m talking about is the ability to accept a compliment. 

Yes, seriously! Think about it: if you’re in the habit of deferring compliments about your own hard work, giving others the credit and minimizing your own accomplishments, how do you expect to get ahead in your career? Accepting a well-earned compliment gracefully and confidently signals to others, including Senior leadership, that you own the full scope of your work, and that you can handle any challenges that arise along the way to achieving those goals. It also says that you’re comfortable being in the spotlight, which is necessary to be considered for leadership roles. 

OK, let’s pause for a moment. I know what you’re thinking: how can you accept a compliment without sounding arrogant, braggy, or like a complete jerk? 

The challenge, again, is that you have to do it intentionally and skillfully. Here are some real-life examples from my clients. Notice that each one contains confident, powerful language, without apologizing or minimizing your hard work.  

Here are three compliments, and three ways to answer them skillfully:

1. You did a great job building out this excellent team.

Thanks very much! I have high standards for team-building and I’m glad to have found so many great people to bring to the company, each with their own unique strengths. I look forward to their progress and I’ll keep you posted. 

1. You did great work on this project, and the clients are very pleased.

Thanks very much! I’m super growth-oriented and I value the opportunity to learn so much on a big project like this one, it was compelling and informative all the way through. It was great to have such a strong team handling the day-to-day [here you can call out certain individuals and their contributions] so I could oversee the larger vision and keep the clients happy. 

1. Your work at the company in the past 5 years has been stellar, and we would like you to interview for the role of CFO.

Thanks very much, I’d love to! I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to learn from so many high-achievers during this time, and I hope to continue. I’ll start preparing for the interview.

Don’t miss an opportunity to take the credit that you deserve and jump to the next level. No cringe, no shame, no apologies! Know your worth, and own it whenever you can.

This is just one of the techniques I work on with my clients. I give Power Communication trainings to groups of Executives, and private coaching packages for professionals at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt, Cisco and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. DM me for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

This Strength Is A Weakness

If you want to get ahead in your career and take on all the responsibility that comes with leadership, you have to demonstrate to others that you can thrive in the spotlight. Work presentations are a good opportunity to do just that. Strong, confident and compelling presentations can make you much more visible, especially if you use your subject matter expertise to be of service to both your clients and your own peers. 

Often when I work with clients on a work presentation or pitch, I can see their SME coming through in certain areas, but not others. Once we clarify the actual narrative of the presentation, we begin working on the performance aspect of it.

This is where things can go quickly off the rails. Many of my clients share a common weakness that sabotages their best efforts to appear confident and powerful during presentations. This weakness is actually a strength, but only when used in the right way at the right time. It’s called, “reading the room.”

The concept of “reading the room” actually comes from the world of theater performance. A theater play or concert is actually a collaboration between the performers and the audience. Each person contributes to a collective energy field that fills up the room and gives it a certain quality of energy. High-level performers can feel this energy as soon as they walk out onstage, and they learn how to work with it, so that they can deliver their most impactful performance. For example, sometimes an audience has come to the theater on a weeknight, directly from work. They are tired and low-energy, and not giving much enthusiasm. The performers can meet them where they are and elevate their spirits, so that by the end of the show the audience is uplifted and giddy. Other times an audience might be filled with fear or anxiety from something scary in the local news. In this case the performers might start off very quiet, and gradually build to a greater level of intensity that distracts the audience from their fears, and helps them regain a sense of strength so they can go out and face the world again. 

“Reading the room” is a valuable skill when used correctly. But many of my clients have the wrong idea of how it’s supposed to work. Once they stand up and start their presentation, they are hyper-attuned to every little thing that is happening with others in the room. If someone yawns, or scratches their nose, or stares out the window, or picks up their phone and starts texting, it’s intensely distracting. All of a sudden you no longer feel confident. You’re terribly self-conscious, shaking and sweaty, and talking too fast because you desperately want it to be over.

High-level presentation coaching gives you science-based techniques that will help keep you calm and focused, and transform your nervousness into excitement that actually makes your presentation better. Your task at that moment is not to “read the room.” It’s to grab the spotlight and hold it, no matter what happens, so that the room can see that you’re comfortable with power. From there you can find allies who believe in your work, and go much farther with their help. 

I work on these and many other skills with clients every day Contact me for my rates and availability in 2025.

Your Career Gut Check Is Overdue

A client said something recently that I can’t stop thinking about. We were talking about a  promotion she received last summer, from VP of her company’s sales team to becoming Senior Director of the entire department. 

On paper this was very exciting. My client had been working toward this promotion for a year. She took on big projects and scaled them to great success, and she even created a new marketing strategy that was adopted by the entire department. She also gathered thorough feedback about her management style from her team, and the results were excellent. It all worked in her favor. 

My client had been in the role for 6 months when we met for our first session. She was seeking Executive coaching because she wanted to continue her professional development and keep growing as much as possible. 6 months is enough time to get through the onboarding process and settle into a new job. Yet when I asked her how it was going, her face fell. “It’s hard to admit,” she said, “but I can just feel in my gut that this role isn’t right for me!”

When I asked her to elaborate, she thought for a long minute, then told me, “I don’t feel seen and heard the way I did before, and I’m not having the impact I was hoping to achieve.” My client knew what she was worth, and she realized that her value wasn’t going to be appreciated in her new role. By the end of our session she decided that it was time to look for something else. 

A periodic career gut-check is crucial to your long term success. It takes courage to face reality, but if you don’t know what’s right for you, who does? Especially for women, who will eventually have to face the double-whammy of sexist and ageist discrimination on their career path, this is so important.

If you stay stuck in the wrong role, here's what could happen:

• You could experience wage stagnation, and never earn more than a certain amount.

• You could lose value in the job marketplace, and never be seriously considered for a better role. 

• You could experience serious burnout that leads to irreversible health consequences. 

One indication that you might be in the wrong role is if you’re having the same experience as my client: you’re not feeling seen, heard or appreciated for your hard work. 

If you’ve already done a gut-check and determined that you’re NEVER going to get stuck like this again, here are some actions you can take:

• Review your finances and make sure that you’ll be able to cover at least 6 months of bills, in case there is a lag between your old job and your new one.

• Start activating your networks and connect with people who genuinely love your work, and let them know you’re available to chat.

• Get some coaching on skills that will help you increase your value in the job marketplace.

Many clients come to see me after they’ve done a thorough career gut-check, and realized that it’s time to move on from their current role. They don’t ever want to get stuck like that again. My job is to help them find their Executive Power Voice, and level-up their professional communication so that they can better advocate for their work during job interviews, performance reviews and work presentations/pitches.

Reach out to me with questions about all my Power Voice for Executives private session packages and group trainings.

Professional Development FTW

As you move forward through your career, you’re likely to hear all kinds of well-meaning advice from people around you. Older, more experienced mentors may tell you to create a long-term strategy for getting ahead. They probably believe that having a thorough, decade-long game plan is your best shot at achieving your goals. Other people may tell you to forget about that and focus on applying consistent excellence to whatever is right in front of you, and eventually the larger path to your goals will be revealed. 

You probably know someone who took bad career advice and has big regrets. That doesn’t have to be your experience, and you should always take advice with a grain of salt. But regardless of which strategy you choose, most people will agree that professional development is a key element to your career success. If you haven’t taken it seriously, now is the time to start.  Think of professional development as an investment in both your current role and whatever kind of position you aspire to achieve. It’s a win-win for both “present you” and “future you”. 

So far, so good. But there is something important that I want to warn you about, and it’s here in these examples that I’ve seen with many of my clients:

1. Their company makes them take a “personality test” that is designed to reveal their strengths and weaknesses, and those results are supposed to dictate the type of professional development they receive. 

2. Their manager, someone who attributes their own career success to a certain type of management training, will insist that they take those same training courses. 

3. They’re required to complete a certain amount of hours with the company’s in-house leadership coach, someone they don’t know or trust.  

Please don’t let anyone else dictate your professional development! You have to take control of this crucial piece of your career power. 

So where to begin?  Start by asking yourself, “What are the 3 biggest areas of struggle in my daily work life?”. These could be things like organization/procrastination, navigating office politics, or securing stakeholder buy-in for your ideas. Do a thorough internal audit and identify what generates the most friction for you. 

Next, break each one down into individual skill sets, and start training on them. For example, if organization and procrastination is your biggest issue, you could teach yourself a new CRM or productivity protocol. If office politics are obtuse for you, try taking a course on networking. If stakeholder buy-in has never been easy for you, get some high-level communication coaching and learn to create more impactful presentations (this is part of what I offer my clients). 

A complimentary method of determining your professional development is to seek feedback from the people around you. If your company doesn’t have a formal vehicle for this, you can use a tool like a 360 review. Good-quality feedback is always useful! Even if the results show that you’re extremely lacking in a number of areas, you now have a clear list of new skill sets to work on. 

The point is to take charge, execute, and see it through. Investing in high-quality professional development is the single most impactful action you can take on your own behalf. It can help you stand out from the crowd and take a big leap forward. It can make the difference between a good career and a great one. Even the highest-level leaders get professional development, because they know that it helps them achieve everything they’ve accomplished. 

There’s no reason to ignore every piece of career advice you may receive. There are bound to be some good people who can offer insightful guidance when you need it. Just make sure that it aligns with what you know about yourself, your goals and your vision. No one else gets to decide those things for you!

Reach out to me with questions, comments or inquiries about all my Power Voice private session packages and group trainings. I love hearing from you!

The Job Interview Subject You Must Bring Up

Many of the high-level clients who seek me out are in a period of career transition. They want to take the next big leap forward, usually to a higher leadership position where they will have more responsibility and more impact. Even though they are extremely experienced with a strong track record of proven successes, they don’t feel confident in their ability to show up as powerfully as possible. As we practice for job interviews, areas of communication weakness are revealed. While there is some variation in these areas, one issue in particular comes up again and again. 

It comes down to this: when you’re in the process of interviewing for a high-level role, you must communicate that you intend to shape the role. That means you set clear expectations for what you wish to accomplish, the autonomy you need to get it done, and the way you expect to be treated. During interviews many women will focus on what is written in the job description, and over-explain how their experience makes them qualified. But if you’re already in the interview room for a high-level role, it’s understood that you can do the basics of the job. Often women are afraid of being perceived as demanding or arrogant by speaking up about these things. I urge you to keep in mind that high-level leaders are expected to make their needs and wants clear. If you don’t do that, you might inadvertently signal that you don’t really see yourself as a competent leader, and aren't up for the job at hand. To make a strong impression and inspire powerful confidence in your skills, knowledge, and expertise, you have to go beyond your limits. 

Communicating clearly and without apology is not arrogant! It’s the most efficient way to get what you want and achieve your goals. Of course, you should always practice for job interviews. You can write out 5-10 questions that you anticipate you’ll be asked during the interview, and practice delivering your answers in a clear, concise, and compelling way (you can also practice asking your own questions of the interviewer).

For high-level job interviews, practice communicating these three things:

1. That you expect to shape the role you’re taking on. Shaping the role is what will lead to your greatest success. Let them know that you expect a high degree of autonomy, so that you can work quickly and efficiently and accomplish XYZ (see my previous post on the 4 Magic Words for more info). Speak to your future vision for your team, your project and the company, and talk about what you need to achieve it all. My clients who do this have been able to achieve great things and are much more fulfilled in their careers overall. 

2. That you expect to be given full credit for your achievements in the role, both privately and publicly. This is the one that my clients find the most difficult to ask for, and I understand that it can feel vulnerable. But women’s accomplishments are chronically undervalued in the workplace, at every level and across every sector. You may have already had the demoralizing experience of having your hard work ignored, sidelined or even demeaned. Or you may have spent your entire career suspecting that your work is worth much more than you’ve ever been given credit for. In any case, you must be crystal-clear about receiving credit, and give specifics (ex: being given public credit at Board meetings, and/or being recognized as the expert in the room on high-level client calls). Don’t skip this step, or you could end up getting the same old treatment. 

3. That you expect to maintain a robust degree of ownership over your work. This one actually relates to #2, but it’s more about what happens at the salary/compensation level. If part of your role involves creating and/or designing original products and/or content, and there is an opportunity for you to own some percentage of the profit sharing, you must ask for this in the interview. Let them know that you won’t sign on unless they guarantee it. Some of my clients have deep regrets about not asking for this from the beginning, as they saw their hard work skyrocket into massive sales that left them out in the cold. Of course the specific percentages may be dependent on achieving key sales and/or engagement metrics, but regardless, you must make it clear that you expect to participate in profit sharing. 

These are just some of the techniques I work on with my clients. I give private Power Voice For Executive Women session packages to highly motivated individuals. I also give Power Communication trainings to groups of Executives and professionals at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. CONTACT ME for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

A Bad Career Habit You Must Break NOW!

I’ve written previously about how having a BTS (Behind the Scenes) mindset can hamper your career progress. I see this with many clients who have held behind-the-scenes roles, especially in heavily male-dominated fields like tech, law, finance and in the corporate sector. They reach a point where they want to advance to the next level of their career, but they’re still using old behaviors and communication styles that keep them stuck on the sidelines, instead of stepping confidently into the spotlight, where the big rewards are. 

Today I’m going to outline another BTS mistake that I see clients making all the time, and give you some tips about how to bypass it. This one is a doozy, because it often leads to extra work, the kind that accumulates over time and can lead to career dissatisfaction, or even serious burnout. So it’s important that you stop doing it right now!

I’m talking about covering for other people’s shoddy work. 

If you're a leader or manager, you might already be doing this. It may take the form of completing a team member’s incomplete tasks, editing their poor storytelling, or even throwing out their reports and crafting whole new ones for them, so that their bad work doesn’t reach the eyes of Senior leadership. In short, you’re doing the work that someone else is supposed to have done.

Cleaning up after others may have become a regular habit. You may even believe that a good leader makes their entire team look good. But in fact, actions like these are actually a misguided attempt to project your own personal standard of excellence onto the stragglers, in the hopes that they’ll get the message and start performing at a higher level. It’s a passive and distinctly ineffective way to communicate your message, and it leads to a ton of extra work on your plate. 

Think about it: doing all that extra work might even be the reason why you’re not making good progress on your own projects, or having the impact you want to achieve. How can you stay engaged with your Zone of Genius when you’re busy cleaning up other people’s mess?

Here are three ways to break free from this habit:

• Audit the way you’re setting their expectations. When you assign a task to someone, are you crystal-clear about what you expect from them? This isn’t micromanaging. It’s a simple but powerful action that can greatly impact their results. Use your Power Voice! Be specific, using adjectives that communicate how you want their finished product to look and feel. Talk to them face to face, then follow up with a clear, concise email recap.

• Identify their key strengths. Don’t assign a systems-ops problem to a creative storyteller. Especially when your project deadline is tight, match the right task to the right person. This one action can save a ton of time and energy for all concerned. 

• Engage them in a mid-project group meeting. This is when you can redirect anyone who is off track. Especially if someone is late with a task, use your Power Voice to remind them exactly which team members are waiting on their work. Social pressure is powerful. Make sure that person understands that being late or shoddy will have consequences for the entire group, and that others won’t be pleased with them. 

Using your Power Voice to break through your BTS habits takes time, but the results can be extraordinary. Power, after all, is impact. As your team's work improves, and your leadership impact is felt in new ways, you can be noticed by key figures who help you take big leaps forward in your career.

This is just one of the techniques I work on with my clients. I give private Power Voice session packages to high-level women Executives and others. Power Communication trainings to groups of Executives and professionals at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. Email me for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

The Key Strength You're Missing

Despite the fact that gender equity in the workplace has made some progress in the past 25 years, there is still quite a long way to go, especially in the corporate sector. Some companies claim to have achieved things like, “30% gender equity, and counting”, but it doesn’t take a data scientist to see that all of that progress is happening below a certain level in the company. When you look at their Senior leadership level, it mostly disappears.

For women who are employed in these companies, the day-to-day effects can be very real. Male-dominated workplaces are historically resistant to women’s contributions, and that can play out in meetings, performance reviews, panels, presentations and even at networking events. For example, you might have had the experience of feeling like whenever you bring up a good point in a meeting, it’s ignored until it’s repeated by a male staffer, who then gets all the credit.

But there is another issue that is worth your attention. Many women inside corporate environments, in order to survive and prevail so they can keep working, unconsciously adopt the “kill or be killed” mindset that is common in high-performing, male-dominated workplaces. You may have even come to believe that success is a zero-sum game, and that the other women in your workplace are a direct threat to your success.

If you're like most of my clients, you probably didn’t start out that way. When you were a young woman at the very beginning of your career, you didn’t yet have enough skills, knowledge, experience and wisdom to be a threat to anyone. You were just working hard, head-down, trying to learn and achieve as much as you could.

But now that you’ve climbed up the ladder, things are different. You might have some amount of animosity, or even antagonism, toward the other women in your professional workplace. This isn’t entirely your fault. In fact, it’s mostly the result of having spent so much time working inside a system that wasn’t designed for women to succeed. Seen through this lens, it’s understandable that you may have lost some goodwill toward the other women as you struggled to stake out your territory, and hold onto it. You may have felt the need to play your cards close to your chest, and keep to yourself as much as possible.

I often see this phenomenon when I enter a new workplace to give a Power Voice for Executives training to a group of women. Recently I gave an event to a group at a global finance company who had been working together for about 5 years. One of the women was from France, and because I grew up in Canada and went to a French elementary school, I could instruct her (a bit) in her native language. When we took our lunch break, another woman from the same group walked up to her and started conversing in French. This shocked the first woman, who didn't know that her longtime co-worker was fluent. Let me say that again: these two women had worked closely together for 5 years, and never known that the other spoke French!

One of the things I love best about giving group trainings is watching this type of breakthrough happen between women. As they work together to learn and practice high-level communication skills, the women encourage each other’s voices to grow literally and figuratively stronger. A collective feeling of trust is established, and as they go through the Power Voice exercises (which include writing scripts, mock-interviewing each other, and performing for the whole group), their walls break down. By the end of the event they are chatting excitedly about how to apply their new skills to upcoming projects, and making plans to continue practicing their Power Voice skills.

Having a strong, connected and trusting team is key to your success. Women are MUCH stronger when we work together. Many of the groups I work with pull women from different teams across their company to attend the training, which creates strong connections from every direction. This is a great way to forge a powerful support network going forward. By the way, those two women I mentioned earlier? They made plans to vacation in Paris this summer with their families.

Contact me for details about my “Power Voice for Executives” group trainings and private session packages, or have a look on my website. I love hearing from you!

The #1 Mindset Mistake for Career Women

Before I begin, a quick reminder that I write every word of my newsletter myself, sans AI. This is me, Alicia, speaking to you directly, bringing you tips, information, and encouragement to help you find your Power Voice and use it to make a big leap forward in your career. Please reach out to me any time with questions or comments, I love getting your feedback!

Whenever a new client arrives in our Zoom for their first session, I spend the first half hour asking some simple intake questions, and listening carefully to their answers. I’ll ask them to tell me the story of their career, leading up to where they are now. Then I’ll ask them to project into the future, to share where they would like to go.

Although the details of each woman’s story can be extremely different, there is one particular element that often shows up, both in their larger career choices and their day-to-day work. It’s about being “behind the scenes.”

Some women have spent their whole career doing “behind the scenes” types of roles. Some of them started out “behind the scenes” in their career, and have transitioned to more visible roles, but are still employing a “behind the scenes” mindset. Some have always had visible roles, but have never been able to see themselves as anything but “behind the scenes.” I call this suffering from BTS.

Traditionally and historically, women have been relegated to BTS roles in almost every sector and industry. Even here in the 21st century, the workplace gender bias that keeps pressure on women to fill BTS roles, and adopt that mindset, is massive. That pressure may have unconsciously shaped both your career path and your mindset, even though you didn’t want it to.

It's true that for some women, especially those in heavily male-dominated fields like tech, finance, law, construction, and also in corporate America, there can be an advantage to employing a BTS mindset as they move up the ladder. Working carefully behind the scenes can help you appear non threatening to those in power.

But there comes a point in your career when having a BTS mindset is no longer a viable option. Successful leadership requires a powerful strategy that you consciously apply to your work, and all of your communication. Many of my clients are currently in leadership roles, but a BTS mindset is keeping them from achieving maximum impact.

Here are some signs that you're suffering from BTS:

• You are excellent at strategy, systems ops and other kinds of high-level tasks, but you can’t seem to rally support for your ideas.

• When you have to give an important presentation, or lead a big meeting with Senior staff in the room, you feel terribly anxious and don't perform well (you might even be so nervous that you pass these tasks off to someone else!)

• You have to repeat your ideas and strategies over and over to your team, who don’t seem to take you very seriously.

• During your annual performance review you are told that you’re not stepping up enough, even though all your metrics look good (your boss might even say that you need to “work on your Executive presence” before you can be promoted).

If you’re suffering from BTS, it’s likely affecting the way you communicate with your staff and everyone around you. Using your Power Voice can clarify your points, hold someone's attention, and inspire powerful loyalty, which can translate into powerful impact.

Here are some simple ways to use your Power Voice to remove BTS from your professional communication:

• Adopt a regular Power Voice practice routine. Before a big meeting, set aside 30-60 minutes.. Write down your points, and examine them for qualifiers, or anything that minimizes your point, or dilutes your authority. Stand up and speak your points out loud, and again: watch for qualifiers! If this exercise makes you uncomfortable or even emotional, that’s a sign that it’s working. Just let the emotions pass through, and do it again.

• Have the courage of your convictions. When you make your point, speak in a clear and confident voice, and let it land. Allow others to express dissenting opinions without rushing in to take care of their feelings. Let them adult their way through it! Stay strong and don’t soften your words. Show them that you won’t be dissuaded.

• Examine your metaphors. Are they having the effect you want? Something like, “overburdened with tasks” might not get through to someone, but “drinking from a firehose” could do the trick. You’ll have to decide which one is right for which situation. Flexing your style when necessary is a power move.

This is just one of the techniques I work on with my clients. I give Power Communication trainings to groups of Executives and professionals at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. Contact me for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

The Language of expertise: Part 4

We’ve come to the last of this 4-part installment (here's where you can read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). I hope you’ve found it helpful, and that you’re getting more comfortable with the idea of declaring your expertise. Especially for women, standing up for your expertise through strategic and intentional communication is a powerful action that can help you take a huge leap forward in your career. When I work with groups of Executives and professional women, I can see and feel how much expertise they carry with them wherever they go. Helping them find the language for it, and seeing their expertise make an impact in the world, is my favorite part of my job.

The fourth Language of Expertise strategy that I want to talk about today is the Language of Future Prediction. Experts are not stuck in the past. They certainly draw from it, especially as it relates to the larger context of their expertise. They also keep current with whatever is going on right now, and can speak in great detail about those issues in a way that gains our trust (see parts 1-3 of this series in the links above).

But experts also use the Language of Future Prediction to tell us what may come to pass in their field, their sector and their industry. These predictions are usually high-level hunches based on their skills, experience, knowledge and wisdom. They can spot trends and predict how those trends will affect the next phase of their company. They look outside their sector for clues about larger market trends, and can point to areas of undeveloped growth. They can interpret obscure bits of data that point to otherwise invisible trajectories. They can see months and years ahead, and paint a picture of what the future will look like in a way that immediately has the ring of truth. They also use the Language of Future Prediction to position themselves inside the future, as key decision makers with intelligence, insight and vision to spare.

Throughout this entire 4-part series on the Language of Expertise I’ve reminded you that it’s about building trust, not just with key stakeholders, but with Senior leadership, your peers, and those who may want to work with you, or for you, in the future. The reason it works so well is because by using the Language of Expertise, especially the Language of Future Prediction, you are signaling to the world that you believe in yourself, and that you are strong and confident enough to carry the weight of leadership.

Many women are frightened of declaring their expertise and moving into positions of leadership because of the increased (and sometimes vicious) scrutiny that is applied to female leaders in almost every sector and industry. This double-standard is real, and it is one of the many reasons why women are stalled at levels below those where they actually belong.

I’ve noticed that many of my clients who are comfortable using the first three Language of Expertise strategies will often balk at using the fourth one, the Language of Future Prediction. They are afraid of making a great big public mistake, one that will follow them everywhere, and undermine the forward trajectory of their career.

But in fact, experts can roll with the punches, and are able to pivot quickly from mistakes, absorbing new data and course-correcting accordingly. This is actually part of the privilege of being an expert: the ability to change your mind whenever you want. Retracting your mistake and course-correcting in public can certainly be scary, but when done skillfully, this process can actually help people trust you even more, as they recognize that you are open and receptive to new ideas and new ways of thinking, not stuck in old and outdated ones.

In any case, now more than ever, we desperately need women experts to declare themselves in every sector and industry. As you embrace this process, I strongly recommend that you find (or create) a community of fellow female experts that you can be close to, and share resources with. Pushing beyond sexist narratives of how women should and should not appear in professional spaces is going to take a lot of energy and stamina, and sharing the burden with women who have been through it will greatly help you on your journey.

Lastly, in order for women to actually shape the future, we need to speak publicly about our predictions and our vision for it. Staying silent won’t get us there. Women, I implore you: seize the mantle of your expertise, use these techniques, and make the world understand that you are well-qualified to lead us into a future that we can believe in.

I give Power Communication trainings to groups of professionals and Executives at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Columbia Bank, Carharrt and Kimpton Hotels, both remotely and in person. Contact me for more info about my trainings, rates and availability. I love hearing from you!

The Language of Expertise: Part 3

If you want to be perceived as an expert in your field, you must be able to build trust with everyone around you, especially key stakeholders. Every time you speak up in professional settings like meetings, work presentations, client pitches, or industry conventions, you have the opportunity to accomplish this goal. The Four Power Communication Skills that I’m outlining in this 4-part series (Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here) are designed with this goal in mind. The third of these skills, which we’re going to talk about today, is the Language of Constructive Criticism.

If reading those words makes you flinch, you’re not alone. Many women shy away from giving any kind of criticism because of sexist social conditioning that tells us we are supposed to be nice, polite, and accommodating to others at all times. The thought of criticizing someone else’s work may feel distinctly uncomfortable, or even frightening. But without it you could end up covering for someone else’s shoddy work, or having to take the blame for their mistakes. A good dose of constructive criticism at the right moment can help you avoid these common issues and get your time back.

In any case, if you want to gain trust in your expertise (and stand out as a leader), you need to take this skill seriously. By providing genuinely constructive criticism, the type that helps people work smarter and better, you are also demonstrating your skills, knowledge, and wisdom, as you point out important issues that someone may have missed in their work, and provide valuable perspective that comes from your more experienced vantage point.

Constructive criticism is illuminating and encouraging, not shaming or blaming. The person on the receiving end should feel that there is a solid path forward, not a series of roadblocks, or impossible hurdles that they can’t overcome. You can start by praising a part of their work that is particularly good, and express appreciation for it. Then you can draw attention to the issue, and point out whatever they may have missed or neglected. You can then call out a particular skill that the person possesses, and encourage them to apply it to the solution. If the person appears to be feeling admonished, rather than empowered, it can be helpful to share a short anecdote about how you once overcame something similar in your own work, and how that incident informed the solutions you now believe in.

Experts are also able to offer high-level constructive criticism of their company, their sector, and their industry as a whole. Many of my clients work through these things in our sessions as they prepare for media interviews, Board speeches, industry conventions, or company retreats. Do you know your company’s current top-5 pain points? Are you able to offer some ideas for viable solutions? How about your industry: is it going in the right direction? If not, what would it take to get there? These things can be extremely influential, and have a big impact on your career visibility. Make sure that everything you share is backed up by rigorous data and facts, and be prepared to face some blowback if your ideas are particularly provocative. Be polite but firm in your responses, and keep in mind that innovative ideas are often met with derision, until they’re recognized for their genius and widely adopted by all.

Please feel free with questions, and reach out to me if you’d like to book a Power Voice or Power Communication training for the women in your workplace. I love hearing from you!

The Language of Expertise: Part 2

In my previous post I introduced the Four Power Communication Skills that women can use to communicate their expertise, and harness it in service of advancing their careers. I want many more women to stand up and identify ourselves as experts, so that we can claim our rightful place at the top of every industry. To paraphrase RBG, women belong in all the rooms where experts are respected. It takes courage to reject sexist narratives about women in the workforce and gain the respect and influence that our expertise deserves. These Power Skills will help you advocate for your expertise in any situation. 

Last time I shared the first Power Skill, which is the Language of Opinion. Today I’m going to share number two, which is The Language of Persuasion.

Experts have influence because their expertise illuminates things that we can’t see on our own. When we engage with a subject matter expert, we may come with preconceived notions, or even strong opinions, about something in their domain. But the expert has a deep

well of skills, knowledge, experience and wisdom to draw from. They are usually able to see many sides of a problem, which helps them identify viable solutions that are invisible to us. An expert who can persuade us that we might be wrong, and fully transform our point of view, is highly impactful and impressive. Through this skillful and powerful action they earn our trust, and we are highly likely to recommend their expertise to others.  

Now it’s your turn to learn this important skill. Let’s break it down:

First of all, persuading someone out of a strongly-held opinion is not a quick process. People often over-identify with their own opinions, to the point where they feel distinctly threatened when those opinions are challenged. I see this phenomenon all the time when I work with executives in corporate America, who often feel that they’re in direct competition with their peers and almost everyone around them. In this highly-charged atmosphere every work day feels like a battle for territory, leading people to cling to their opinions as a method of staking their claim on a patch of unstable ground. 

But even those who are merely skeptical need to be treated carefully. When it’s time to persuade someone to change their mind, it’s important to approach them lightly. The first step is to make sure that they feel seen and heard. Can you reflect back their opinion exactly as they see it? If not, ask them to clarify their point of view. Especially if you sense fear in their words, take another moment to reassure them that you understand where they’re coming from. Don’t skip this step! If you can show that you understand their point of view, you'll be more likely to persuade them to change it. 

Once they feel seen and heard they will start to relax a bit. Now is the time to express some kind of common ground. Maybe you had the same fear about the issue as they did, until you learned some new facts that recently came to light. Or maybe you can point out that their opinion actually supports theirs, and that there is a natural progression in effect. You might try using an analogy or metaphor that shows the issue from a different light. Storytelling is highly effective in the Language of Persuasion, because it gets the brain moving outside the usual lines of thought and inquiry. 

Whatever method you use, make sure to stay calm and respectful toward that person. Don’t gloat or act superior, or you’ll risk losing their trust forever. Remember, your objective is to build trust, and you can only do that by respecting their fundamental humanity, even if they are 100% wrong in every way. Go slowly, listen deeply, and make a compelling case. Converting a skeptic is one thing, but converting a naysayer is a high-level skill that every expert should know how to do. 

Reach out to me with questions, or more info about my Power Voice group trainings and private session packages, or click around my site.

The Language of Expertise: Part 2 (Copy)

In my previous post I introduced the Four Power Communication Skills that women can use to communicate their expertise, and harness it in service of advancing their careers. I want many more women to stand up and identify ourselves as experts, so that we can claim our rightful place at the top of every industry. To paraphrase RBG, women belong in all the rooms where experts are respected. It takes courage to reject sexist narratives about women in the workforce and gain the respect and influence that our expertise deserves. These Power Skills will help you advocate for your expertise in any situation. 

Last time I shared the first Power Skill, which is the Language of Opinion. Today I’m going to share number two, which is The Language of Persuasion.

Experts have influence because their expertise illuminates things that we can’t see on our own. When we engage with a subject matter expert, we may come with preconceived notions, or even strong opinions, about something in their domain. But the expert has a deep

well of skills, knowledge, experience and wisdom to draw from. They are usually able to see many sides of a problem, which helps them identify viable solutions that are invisible to us. An expert who can persuade us that we might be wrong, and fully transform our point of view, is highly impactful and impressive. Through this skillful and powerful action they earn our trust, and we are highly likely to recommend their expertise to others.  

Now it’s your turn to learn this important skill. Let’s break it down:

First of all, persuading someone out of a strongly-held opinion is not a quick process. People often over-identify with their own opinions, to the point where they feel distinctly threatened when those opinions are challenged. I see this phenomenon all the time when I work with executives in corporate America, who often feel that they’re in direct competition with their peers and almost everyone around them. In this highly-charged atmosphere every work day feels like a battle for territory, leading people to cling to their opinions as a method of staking their claim on a patch of unstable ground. 

But even those who are merely skeptical need to be treated carefully. When it’s time to persuade someone to change their mind, it’s important to approach them lightly. The first step is to make sure that they feel seen and heard. Can you reflect back their opinion exactly as they see it? If not, ask them to clarify their point of view. Especially if you sense fear in their words, take another moment to reassure them that you understand where they’re coming from. Don’t skip this step! If you can show that you understand their point of view, you'll be more likely to persuade them to change it. 

Once they feel seen and heard they will start to relax a bit. Now is the time to express some kind of common ground. Maybe you had the same fear about the issue as they did, until you learned some new facts that recently came to light. Or maybe you can point out that their opinion actually supports theirs, and that there is a natural progression in effect. You might try using an analogy or metaphor that shows the issue from a different light. Storytelling is highly effective in the Language of Persuasion, because it gets the brain moving outside the usual lines of thought and inquiry. 

Whatever method you use, make sure to stay calm and respectful toward that person. Don’t gloat or act superior, or you’ll risk losing their trust forever. Remember, your objective is to build trust, and you can only do that by respecting their fundamental humanity, even if they are 100% wrong in every way. Go slowly, listen deeply, and make a compelling case. Converting a skeptic is one thing, but converting a naysayer is a high-level skill that every expert should know how to do. 

Reach out to me with questions, or more info about my Power Voice group trainings and private session packages, or click around my site.

The Language of Expertise: Part 1

It might shock you to learn that many of my high-level, accomplished, experienced clients don’t identify as experts in their field. It certainly shocks me, and last year I did a deep-dive into this phenomenon: why is it so hard for women to identify as experts, and what’s stopping them from stepping up and owning their expertise? 

What I learned is that there are 3 main reasons, and you might recognize some (or all) of them:

1. Many women don’t want the friction that comes with publicly owning their expertise. They fear that they’ll be subject to intense scrutiny that will cause extra stress and second-guessing, which will interfere with the quality of their work.

2. Some women are concerned that declaring themselves as experts will change the way their peers see them, leading to toxic competition and a lack of psychological safety in the workplace.

3. Others fear that they don’t have enough of what it takes to be considered an expert, and are not able to visualize themselves in that role. 

I completely understand if you identify with any of these, and please know that you’re not alone. But I want to point out that one of the most powerful and harmful sexist narratives in our culture is that men are the top experts in every field. In fact, we have become so enculturated to the dominance of male experts, that in daily work meetings, group discussions, and project strategizing we often defer to men’s opinions automatically, even when there are actual women experts in the room!

I’ve taught my Power Voice methods in over 200 workplaces, and I’ve seen these effects with my own eyes. I know you have too, and in my next 4 posts I’m going to help you move beyond your fears and claim your expertise, so you can see and feel the fantastic effects on your career.

Let’s begin here:

There are Four Power Communication Skills that we expect from an expert in any field, any sector and any role. The first is the most important: we expect them to be able to express clear, confident opinions. If you watch an interview with Martha Stewart, you expect her to express firm opinions about the best new pie recipes, nonstick vs copper pots, and the current state of food journalism. If you watch one with Viola Davis, you expect her opinions about working with top directors, launching her own production company, and the state of the entertainment business for older women and women of color. If you watch Kara Swisher, you expect her opinions about the best and worst new media products, the latest Meta and X shenanigans, and which new media outlets are actually worth your time. 

When it comes to your own workplace activities, if you can’t express informed and confident opinions about the subject(s) at hand, you can’t gain trust with anyone (that includes stakeholders, Senior leadership and your own peers). Opinions make it clear that you have studied an issue from many angles, and arrived at a strong point of view. They allow others to quickly understand your message, and they become an important part of your personal brand. Many of my clients have spent years hanging back, refusing to speak up even though they have valuable opinions to offer. This leaves them feeling unseen, unheard and unappreciated. Don’t make this mistake!

The language of your opinions matters. You can take time before meetings and presentations to craft strong, confident words that get your point across. When I work with clients on this task, we use “The Three Cs”, which stands for Clear, Concise and Compelling. Make sure that you speak up when expressing your opinions, so that everyone in the room understands that you should be taken seriously. Don’t use qualifiers or minimizers when you speak, and don’t use uptalk at the end of your sentence (That’s when everything you say? Comes out sounding like a question? Because you go up in pitch at the end of every sentence?).

Next time I’ll outline the second of the Four Power Communication Skills. Please feel free with questions, and reach out to me if you’d like to book a Power Voice or Power Communication training for the women in your workplace. I love hearing from you!

Nine Power Career Habits for Women

In my job I get to meet and work with extraordinary women from around the world. Some are in high leadership positions, and some are striving to achieve that level. In any case, they work extremely hard, and I learn as much from them as they do from me. Because I work across multiple sectors and industries including tech, law, finance, construction, nonprofits, politics and startups, I get a bird's-eye view of the power habits that they consistently engage with on a daily basis. These are actions that boost both their career power and their personal stamina, so that they can fulfill their full potential without burning out. Here are their nine most common Power Habits:

1. Reserving time for exploring their curiosity: More than almost any other Power Habit, this one leads to the most everyday career satisfaction. Reserving 20% of your work week to investigate work-related ideas, trends, or interests that spark your curiosity engages your brain in new ways that can yield powerful results. Take 3 hours on a Friday morning to read what your industry’s leaders, thinkers, and doers are interested in, or follow your own hunch and dive deep into it. You could discover your next game-changing idea, or stumble on a solution to a complex problem, but at the very least you’ll feel fully engaged with something new.

2. Taking all their vacation days: Yes, really! It’s a simple but extremely effective way to reduce your chances of burning out. Removing yourself from your everyday context and enjoying new kinds of activities can be wonderfully restorative, but you don’t have to do anything but relax by a pool or stroll the streets of a new city. Taking ALL your vacation days gives your brain plenty of time to completely unplug from work and be in the present moment, so you can return refreshed and ready to rock. 

3. Planning post-project downtime: Not the same thing as a big vacation, but equally important. If you’ve been grinding away for weeks or months on a big project that has finally launched, it’s a good time to step back and breathe for awhile. Pushing yourself beyond your limits will only lead to shoddy work and endless burnout. Taking an extra day for your weekend at the end of an intense work period will help you reset and recharge. No apologies!

4. Engaging with professionals outside their industry: You may think it’s wise to keep your social focus narrow, but if you want to achieve maximum career impact it’s best to connect with people in other sectors. Their perspective on your industry, your company and/or your products can be invaluable. You’ll also get to learn what’s happening inside their own industries, and gain insight into how markets move and morph according to their industry trends. My clients who do this are able to make big jumps into other industries with relative ease.

5. Connecting, not networking: If you dread the thought of networking and have never gained any viable results, try reframing yourself as a connector of people and resources. Look around in your current networks and see who needs what. You might be able to provide a new job lead, a reference for a service professional, or a potent article or other resource that helps someone advance their understanding of a complex problem. Think of these as deposits in the bank of your professional network. Once you become known as a powerful connector you can start making withdrawals in the form of introductions to people who can help you advance your own career. Some of my clients actually track their connecting activity in a dedicated spreadsheet, so that they can keep track of how the flow of energy is moving.

6. Daily decompressing: You already know this one, right? Meditation, exercise, neighborhood walks without anything in your ears, or diving into a good work of fiction are simple actions that can yield powerful results, but only if you do them daily. Many of my clients have an end-of-work ritual, something that signifies that they’re done for the day, like taking a 15-minute walk, listening (or dancing!) to a favorite song, or changing into lounge clothes. Small, daily habits can help you decompress and let go of tension that accumulates throughout the day.

7. Planning for stress: My high-level clients do this action before it’s needed, so they can anticipate their needs in an emergency, and have everything ready to go. Assemble all your (and your family’s) healthcare providers, prescription information, support services (like babysitters, grocery delivery, house cleaners, etc), and other relevant info on a giant spreadsheet that you share with family and trusted friends. In case of a genuine emergency, the kind that requires a sudden and unknown amount of time off, your info is easily accessible to those who can help. Don’t forget to add your favorite stress remedies (things like the number of a good takeout place, your favorite kind of chocolate or special treat, or even your favorite book) so that you have plenty of resources to help you get through. 

8. Forensic project analyzing: Some companies have this action baked into their culture, but some don’t do a very thorough job, and some don’t do it at all. The benefits of tracking what went right and/or wrong about a big project are many, but analyzing mistakes is an especially valuable learning tool that you don’t want to miss. Some of my clients form small “forensic teams” with co-workers that create simple reports about each major launch from the perspective of their larger team or group. This data can be harnessed to your advantage during performance reviews and job interviews, but it can also give you powerful insight into ways that your company could improve your department’s overall performance, and maybe even that of the whole company. 

9. Tracking wins, big and small: You can turn this into yet another spreadsheet, or you can open a simple doc and list each of your personal work wins as they come up (along with the date and other relevant info.) Most of these will likely be your contributions to work projects and/or events, but some of them could be small, personal things that no one else can see but you. For example, if you are someone who is terrified of conflict, but you managed to successfully resolve an ongoing work conflict with a colleague, add it to the list. Refer to the list when you’re preparing for performance reviews, but also glance at it when you’re in a moment of low confidence. Seeing all your wins grouped together can give you a boost, and remind you that this, too shall pass. My clients who do this action always seem to have greater career satisfaction than those who don’t. I’ve actually started doing it myself!

I hope you find this helpful. Please reach out to me for more info about my Power Voice for Career Women group trainings and private session packages. Love to hear your comments and answer your questions below!

Four Career-Boosting Words

As I mentioned in my previous post, the language we use to describe our career, and the stories we tell ourselves about it, can greatly shape our trajectory. Whenever I’m giving a Power Voice training to a group of women, I listen carefully to their words and reflect them back, so that each woman can hear herself clearly. What I often discover is that there are 4 magic words that are missing from the language they use to describe how they want to advance in their careers. 

This type of language occurs in performance reviews and job interviews, but it can also be present during daily one-on-one dialogue with managers and/or Senior leadership. In a nutshell, anytime you’re expressing what you want to accomplish in your current role, and especially what you’d like to do in your career trajectory, you need to use the 4 Magic Words:

“So that I can….”

Here’s how you can put the 4 Magic Words to work in a performance review. After you and your manager are done discussing your recent job performance, you can then introduce the subject of what you want to do going forward, both in your current role and in your overall career. That’s when the 4 Magic Words come into play. First I’ll show you how your communication looks and sounds without them: 

“Next quarter I want to shift my focus away from compiling weekly product reports, and toward seeking out new trends for our products.

This is a clear, concise sentence. But it doesn’t give enough context for your request, or create excitement around the action you propose to take. Generating emotions like excitement and interest are crucial for stakeholder buy-in, and without the 4 Magic Words you won’t get much impact. Here’s how they can help:

“Next quarter I want to shift my focus away from compiling weekly product reports, and toward seeking out new trends for our products, so that I can identify new markets and help drive greater growth.”

See the difference? Now you’ve painted a clear and compelling picture of what you want to accomplish, and what kind of result you want to get. This sentence also shows that you have long-term vision, and that you’re thinking about the overall health of the company, not just your place inside it. Demonstrating this type of initiative and vision can help you stand out and stay competitive in a crowded company landscape. 

When you’re in a job interview (which is actually a co-interview between you and your potential new employer), it’s especially important to paint a vivid picture of what you hope to accomplish in the new role, so that they can understand how you see yourself and your own career potential. Setting expectations up front can also help you achieve greater success in your new role. Here’s an example of before and after the 4 Magic Words in this context:

“In this role I would concentrate on building an experienced team.”

“In this role I would concentrate on building an experienced team, so that I take our product development to a global level, and generate at least 30% more revenue worldwide.”

That’s a big improvement in context which includes a self-appointed metric (make sure you can back this up with examples of your previous successes), and a vivid picture of how your action would benefit the overall company in the long term. Positioning yourself as the leader of this action signals that you have confidence in your ability to get the job done (again, back it up with past success!).

Those in leadership positions can also benefit from using a variation on the 4 Magic Words. Many high-level leaders I work with are very consumed with high-level language, which often involves long acronyms, strange metaphors, and complex data analysis that is boring at best, and incomprehensible at worst. If your language is too obtuse you might be perceived as gatekeeping valuable information about goals and objectives. In order to gain the trust of everyone in your company’s ecosystem, you need to be able to articulate your vision in a compelling way that engages everyone, not just the other high-level leaders in your circle. Also, as a leader you set the tone for your company’s overall work culture. Hiding your own enthusiasm and passion for the company’s goals could lead to a dry, unfulfilling, and unengaged work environment where employees don’t feel connected to a larger sense of purpose. So instead of something like this:

“Our primary focus in the next 18 months should be boosting our DNRS backlog while incorporating T-48 and R-49 components.”

You can use this variation on the 4 Magic Words to clarify the purpose of your proposed action, and drive excitement for what it will accomplish:

“Our primary focus in the next 18 months should be boosting our DNRS backlog while incorporating T-48 and R-49 components, so that we can create new markets and work toward our goal of achieving a 12% market share.”

I advise my clients to use clear, concise and compelling language in all their professional communication. Most people can learn to be clear and concise, but being compelling takes a lot more effort. Adding the 4 Magic Words will help you get there. Contact me for info about all my Power Voice group trainings and private session packages. I love hearing from you!

Change Your Language, Change Your Career

Whenever a new client comes for their first session, I always ask a few simple intake questions about their career history, so I can better understand the context that they come from. Often they will tell me a story that sounds something like this: 

“My college had an internship program that sent me to work part-time at a company, and when I graduated they offered me a full-time role. I was in that role for a few years, and then a woman above me went on maternity leave and I took over for her. When that was done another team had an opening, so did some work for them, until one of their managers quit and I filled in for a bit. Later that year a headhunter found me on LinkedIn and asked me to interview for a few jobs, and I got one of those roles at a bigger company where I stayed for a few years. Then an old college friend told me she was leaving her position at ______ and asked if I would want to interview, so I did. I got that job and I’ve been in my current role at _____ for ten years.”

Now, at first glance this may seem fine. But look again: do you see the problem? What’s missing is a strong sense of personal agency. This version of the story sounds like something that happened to her, rather than something that she herself engineered, with full intention and engagement.

Whenever a client tells me this kind of story, I know we have some serious Power Voice work to do. Inevitably she will have difficulty expressing her opinions and points in a confident, authoritative way. She probably won’t speak up very much during meetings, and will usually shun work presentations, fearing that she won’t be able to handle the pressure. She might even fail to speak up strongly for her work in performance reviews. Yet she will also experience an enormous amount of frustration, feeling unseen, unheard and unappreciated by her peers and those who can advance her career. 

It’s no surprise that many career women are struggling in this way. Male-dominated sectors like tech, law, finance, science, and politics can feel terribly intimidating. But even workplaces that have achieved gender equity can feel inhospitable to women’s skills, knowledge, and expertise if the women employed there don’t feel confident and connected to each other. Solidarity is strength, and shared experience is powerful. My “Power Voice for Career Women” trainings function as team-building exercises for groups of women, as they learn new communication skills together, and share their experiences. 

One of the things we talk about in my “Power Voice” trainings is the concept of personal agency, and how that can be applied to your career story. Claiming full agency over your career choices is a powerful way to shift your mindset and boost your self-confidence, so you can start speaking up for all your hard work and get noticed by those who can advance your career. Agency starts with re-framing the language of your personal story to reflect each moment when you made a distinct choice. For example, here is the previous story re-framed with agency:

“In college I chose an internship program that came with a part-time role at Company X, and when I graduated I accepted a full-time role with them. One of my managers went on maternity leave and I stepped up to take over for her. During that time another team noticed my work, and I jumped over to them when the leave was done. I liked the people on that team, but I was seeking a bigger challenge, so I interviewed for a bigger role at Company Y, and accepted their offer. I worked on big projects with them for a few years that drove revenue by over 30%. Then an old friend from college, who was leaving her role at Company Z, suggested I apply for her position. I got that role and have been working my way through Company Z for the past ten years. What I’d like to do next is….”

See the difference? This version has more action verbs, more details, and an overall sense of agency that highlights her choices. If you can reframe your own story this way, you'll automatically start to feel more powerful, and act with greater confidence, especially as you look ahead at the next part of your career.

To be clear, there might have been moments on your career path that didn’t feel entirely within your control. Companies downsize, layoffs occur, and people get transferred or demoted. You might have had a period of personal illness that took you out of the workforce, or maybe your maternity leave didn’t go as planned, and you needed much more time to recover from giving birth. (NOTE: It’s important to acknowledge that some systems actively work to oppress women's contributions, and their very existence inside those systems. If you are stuck in that situation, get out as fast as you can!). If you feel that harm that may have been done to your career (and your confidence!), please take time to grieve and heal if you need to.

Once you’re ready, applying the language of personal agency to those moments when you might have felt helpless can help you get some power back. You can take that power forward on your path, whenever you tell your story to yourself and others. Changing your story can change your career, as you start to project a sense of radiant confidence and personal power that helps others see you in new ways that can lead to new opportunities.

Please contact me for more information about my "Power Voice for Career Women" group trainings and private session packages. Leave your questions in the comments, I love hearing from you!

How Women Can Lead With Their Expertise

My clients come from all different sectors including tech, law, finance, construction, education, and politics. Learning about the challenges they face on their career path, and helping them to overcome them, keeps me inspired and hopeful about the future of women in the workplace. But there are some things that are hard to handle, and one of them is downright heartbreaking. It’s the way that women struggle with showing up in the workplace as experts in their field

There are many factors that contribute to how we navigate the professional systems around us. Women are generally not socially conditioned to put our expertise front-and-center. Even if we want to, the gender imbalance of experts in our culture can make it hard to locate inspiring examples of women who are at the top of their game. Sexist work environments can make women feel too vulnerable to risk drawing attention to our skills, knowledge, and expertise. Man of my clients have spent most of their career keeping their heads down and working around the clock, without any boundaries around their mental or physical health, hoping that their hard work will “speak for itself”. 

I hope you already know that is NOT a viable career strategy! You have to draw the right kind of attention to your work, and stand by it, at every stage of your career. Especially if you’re on a management/leadership track, or have already achieved a high-level role, it is crucial that you can represent your work, and yourself, in a way that builds trust and confidence with those around you. 

Here are 4 tips for leading with your expertise:

1. Recognize the expectations of a higher-level role: once you achieve this kind of position you are expected to show up as an expert, with full confidence and faith in your own abilities. Get used to pushing your ideas and opinions into the center of the dialogue, and be prepared to defend them robustly. Even if your hypothesis turns out to be wrong, an expert always has the courage of their convictions. You can always pivot quickly with new information, and incorporate it into your project going forward. 

2. Show your work in an impactful way: don’t make the mistake of “never letting them see you sweat!” Women’s hard work is too often overlooked or dismissed. When you make a project presentation, include one slide that briefly outlines your research path, and a small overview of the journey to your conclusions. Be careful not to reveal unique resources that give you a competitive advantage, but you can include the insights you gained from them. This is a crucial piece that I create with my clients who need help on their work presentations.

3. Present your game-changing ideas regularly: Experts are defined by their expertise. Often the best game-changers come from questioning iron-clad assumptions, and taking a different approach to them. What do you see, hear, and feel is coming next in your industry? Use your skills and abilities to do some trend-spotting, and make some projections for how your company could stay ahead of the curve. Present your ideas in a strong, compelling pitch deck, and be prepared to answer intense questions.

4. Remember that “less is more” in professional communication: Over-explaining and over-correcting can have the effect of weakening your points and arguments. Stay calm and lead with simple facts that back up your argument. Treat your words as if they carry weight, because they do. 

I advise my clients to get comfortable with pushback on their expertise. Friction is a sign of influence, as others work through your challenges to their assumptions, and come to appreciate your unique perspective on the task(s) at hand. Resist the urge to take care of anyone’s feelings! Trust that they are adults who can handle their own emotions. Professional conduct is standing strong in your own integrity, and allowing others to do the same. 

Please contact me with questions, or if you’d like to book a group “Power Voice for Career Women” training for the women in your workplace.

Three Ways to *Genuinely* Empower Older Women Workers

Recently a large-scale study on the effects of ageism on working women was published in the Harvard Business Review. The authors demonstrated that a woman will face ageism at literally every single age that she is employed in the workforce. This is not an abstract concept. It is a wide-spread systemic issue that translates to lived experience for millions of working women (I’m 100% certain that you’ve already had your own experience with this issue!). 

In my career I’ve observed women in all kinds of environments, including tech, law, finance, construction, nonprofits, education and startups. I’ve taught my Power Voice methods in over 200 workplaces, and I’ve gotten a closeup look at the way that many companies attempt to apply gender-equity policies in real time. Because of my extensive experience, occasionally companies will ask me to consult on the effectiveness of their policies, so they can make improvements that will have a lasting impact. 

What I always point out to them is that especially for women who are approaching or existing in middle-age, the combined forces of sexism and ageism can feel especially heavy. Companies need to keep in mind that this pressure awaits all women, and the sooner they address it with corrective policies, the better. Here, for the first time, I am publishing the most common suggestions that I offer when I consult. Please note that these are general concepts, and that some employers require a much more complex treatment of their gender equity policies.  

Here are ways to support and empower older female workers:

1. Actively seek their advice on major decision making. The older women in your organization are a huge untapped resource of skills, knowledge and true wisdom, and the sooner you leverage it, the better. Remember that women will often keep to themselves as a kind of, "go along to get along" workplace strategy, and this might prevent them from actively volunteering their thoughts. Request their input during meetings, and/or reach out to them offline. Make time in your schedule to hear their input, and give them credit when you use their ideas. 

2. Create a robust Women’s ERG group, and save it as a line item in your ongoing yearly budget. Don’t skimp on it! It’s an investment in the long-term health and wellness of all the women in your company. Think of it as a combination of ongoing education and community support. Send out surveys to the group to gauge their interests, and allot enough cash in the budget to hire quality coaches, educators and speakers who can provide corresponding trainings and activities. This is often how I am hired to come and give Power Voice trainings to groups of women. I can tell that a company is investing in women when I see a broad mix of ages in their Women’s Group. 

3. Give older, experienced women the flexibility to spend 20% of their work time on projects that spark their curiosity. When all of that knowledge and wisdom is aimed in the right direction, it can yield powerful results. This is something that at least 75% of my older women clients long for. Set them free to learn, grow, and innovate.

I love to speak with employers about ways they can improve workplace conditions for older women. Email me for more info, or if you’d like to book a Power Voice for Career Women group training for the women in your company.

The Trap Of the Blind Mentor

My client Erica*, a 30ish woman with cropped blond hair and a sweet southern drawl, has been working since she was a teenager. In high school she did an internship program at a software company in Houston, doing simple data entry. After a few months of this mind-numbing work, she asked for a meeting with the company’s VP of sales, to see if he would be her mentor and help her find a new direction. Under his mentorship she transferred to the sales department, and thrived there for four years, eventually accepting her first full-time position. 

You can see how much spirit and fire Erica has from this simple story of her 16-year-old self. She skipped college and went straight to work in various companies, becoming a sales expert who could be counted on to raise revenue everywhere she went. Eventually she moved to LA, where she is employed in the sales department of a movie studio, leading sales of video games derived from the studio’s movie characters. 

When Erica came to see me she was tired of feeling stalled in her career, but uncertain of what the problem was. Her work was regularly praised, and she’d recently project managed a big upgrade in her team’s software, which had led to a 20% increase in sales. She wanted to rise up the company ladder and become a Senior sales project manager. There were already some women in those positions, so she knew it was possible. But despite her hard work and best efforts at networking, nothing was panning out. 

Erica was willing to try anything. I asked her if she’d ever worked on speech and presentation skills before, and a lightbulb switched on above her head. She told me that her mentor had always considered them to be “soft skills” not worth investing in. This sparked my own lightbulb moment. I asked her about her mentor’s career background. She said that he graduated from an Ivy league college where he was very active in his fraternity, and was proud of how those connections had led to his first few jobs. Eventually a former frat buddy, the VP of a Texas tech company, hired him as his replacement, where he remained until retirement.

No wonder her mentor didn’t think public speaking was important! This man’s privileged connections had been driving his whole career. He hadn’t had to worry much about speaking up for himself, because he’d always been bolstered by the recommendations of his friends (it’s also important to keep in mind that white men are, by default, seen as more competent than everyone else, leading to even greater advantages). Erica hadn’t been to college, or joined an elite club. She’d relied on her own steam to get her where she was, inside a global company. All she needed now was a way to stand out from the crowd.

Erica and I made a 3-step plan. First we worked on her Power Voice, to make sure that she had the skills to speak confidently in any situation. We also created some Power Communication strategies, so she could demonstrate a high degree of both competence and warmth in all of her professional communication. Then we examined the schedule for her company’s conference, and Erica applied to speak at one of the events. She was accepted, and we prepared a PowerPoint that outlined the details of the project she’d so successfully managed, so that other teams in the company could adopt the same practices. 

That was last Spring, and since then Erica has been invited to present to many other teams. She just completed her annual performance review, which included not just a promotion but a substantial raise. When I asked her how it felt to take a big leap forward, she said, Better than I ever imagined!

*name and some details changed for privacy
On September 13th I'm going to help 12 women take their own leap forward. Want to be one of them? Grab your ticket HERE.