Episode 41 How To Get Your Voice Heard in the Leadership Space (Part 2)

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Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 41.

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As always, I'm really pleased that you're

here with me today, and today's episode

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is the second part of how to get your

voice heard in the leadership space.

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And I know when I was an HR director,

I really struggled with this at times.

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And so I've rolled all my learning from

that experience into these two episodes.

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In last week's episode, we looked

at the tactical strategies that

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you can use to get your voice

heard in the leadership space.

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And today's episode is thinking

about more of the mindset, issues

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that you need to work on in order to

amplify those tactical strategies.

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I split it into two episodes because

there is so much in here because it

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is complex and it is bigger than I

could just deliver in one episode.

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If you missed last week's episode and

you're just tuning into part two, do go

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back and listen to part one because both

of these episodes are key to getting

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your voice heard and getting your

ideas across and amplifying your voice.

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I really hope you enjoy today's episode.

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What do we mean by

getting your voice heard?

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It's those things where you're talked

over by a colleague or your ideas are

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pitched or badged as somebody else's

or there's too much noise to break

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through and feel like you are having

that influence that you want to.

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And that can lead to

feelings of frustration.

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Of anger, demotivation, disengagement.

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It can affect your confidence.

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It can trigger unhelpful

thinking patterns, and it

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can be really demotivating.

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And if this is happening to you, you

definitely want to start to take some

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action to, change that so it doesn't

become an embedded way of being for you.

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I shared some examples of clients I've

worked with in the last session and I was

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thinking, gosh, I've got more as well.

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I was thinking about my own experience

I remember when I was working as

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an HR manager though as a deputy

director was appointed her above me.

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And where I'd previously had access to

the senior leadership team, it then had

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to go through him and he was regularly

taking the things I was suggesting and

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pitching them as his or the team's ideas.

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And it was very subtle.

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It was very hard for me to challenge

it, but it was incredibly demotivating.

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It did contribute to me deciding

to leave the organization.

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But I've also worked with a client

where she was on the introvert scale.

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She was a senior leader and

the rest of the leadership

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team were mostly extroverts.

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Her way of being in terms of.

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Thinking things through deeply, making

a contribution when she had something

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to say was drowned out by the extrovert

discussion, thinking out loud process.

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She found it very hard to get

her voice heard in that setting.

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And then I had another client

who was an HR director.

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She wasn't an introvert, but she was

a reflective thinker, and she was put

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on the spot by a colleague who is very

dynamic, very action oriented, very now.

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And she found it very hard to respond

in the moment, and that then triggered

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lots of unhelpful thinking patterns for

her, and she found it very difficult.

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I wanted to share those to say you're

not alone if you are experiencing this.

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It happens a lot, particularly

to female leaders.

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There's definitely things you can do

to position yourself to make sure that

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you do have that impact and influence.

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And I do work a lot with female

leaders around this area.

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Today we're gonna talk about

the confidence factors.

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Last time, the tactical

things we talked about were.

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Building trust and credibility

and things you can do to do that.

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We talked about mapping allies and

building a bank of social credit.

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We talked about consistency of identity

and how you can use that effectively.

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We talked about likability and the double

bind that women have to face around that.

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And we talked about, doing a communication

review in terms of words or language

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that you are using that isn't helpful.

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Part two today is around that

inner work that you need to tackle.

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If you are noticing some of it is you

holding yourself back in terms of.

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Contributing or getting your voice heard.

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What I would say with the confidence

piece, we can't solve it in the 15

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minutes we've got now, that if you

are finding it a real struggle, you

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might want to have some coaching,

particularly around this area.

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The first thing would be to think

about what is the story that I'm

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telling myself about my voice?

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Am I telling myself that

no one is listening to me?

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Am I, reiterating the fact that I

can't influence at a senior level.

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What is the story you're telling yourself?

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Are you saying you are no good at this?

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Because often that inner critic is

going to, tell you a story , but then

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in the session or the meeting or the

conversation that you're having, if

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your inner critic is being triggered and

it's starting to say things you're like.

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Don't make a contribution when

no one's listening anyway.

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Or don't say that's gonna sound stupid.

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That is all going to contribute to you.

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Then sitting back and not using

the opportunity or looking for the

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opportunity, pushing yourself to make that

contribution and getting your voice heard.

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And what we want to do, is to

think about increasing your

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self belief about your value.

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And your validity in terms of making that

contribution and also to quieten that

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inner critic and engage your inner coach,

that will then support you in the longer

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term around making those contributions.

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Starting to notice what is the narrative

that's going on about me in terms of me

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having influence and making contributions.

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Then the second thing to notice is,

am I falling into a comparison trap?

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Am I comparing myself to some of my

more extrovert colleagues, perhaps

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if you are on the introvert scale, or

am I comparing myself to a particular

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peer who I feel is always, got the

airtime and therefore giving up

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because I feel like I can't compete.

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It's noticing if you're

falling into a comparison trap.

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'cause that's a very unhelpful

pattern to fall into.

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And then it's thinking about preparation.

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What do you need in

order to be successful?

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How can you help yourself?

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Some of that can be noticing.

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Can I find a buddy in that?

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Meeting in that conversation that somebody

that I know has got my back, who's going

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to support me so I feel more comfortable

or confident making a contribution.

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Can I ask my boss or the

chair or that buddy to give

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me an opening in the meeting?

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Maybe to say, Sarah, what

do you think about this?

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To make it easier to contribute

or to give me a slot on the agenda

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to actually be able to voice

my thoughts, my contribution.

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Preparation in advance,

particularly if you're finding

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it hard to think on the spot.

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So noticing areas on the agenda that you

want to contribute to and having something

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prepared where you can, that makes you

feel more confident about then making

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that suggestion, making that contribution.

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And being intentional about making

a contribution in an assertive way.

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Thinking about, okay, I want to be the

second or third person that speaks in

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this meeting, can just be a helpful way of

pushing yourself to get your voice heard.

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You can also think about getting feedback

on actually how you do come across.

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I worked with a client who was a head

of and she wanted to understand how

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she was coming across to the senior

leadership team, the directors of C-Suite.

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And so she had the opportunity.

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Do a presentation where a

colleague was going to be

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present at that meeting as well.

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She asked her colleague bravely,

courageously, to give her feedback on

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how she came across in terms of her

gravitas and her executive presence.

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It was helpful for her because what

she got back was, the feedback was

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really positive and she came across

much better than she thought she had.

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But also it's constructive.

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There were areas that

she could still work on.

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So it really helped to

boost her confidence.

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'cause often our perception is that were.

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Not doing that well, or , it

doesn't land well or we're not

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having the impact that we want to.

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But , if we take the time to ask for

feedback, and I know it can feel tricky

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sometimes, it can be helpful in terms of

understanding how we are actually creating

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impact, but also what we could do better.

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Then there's things like

considering posture and dress.

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We all learn, don't we, early

in our career about posture.

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Standing up straight or sitting

up straight, eye contact mirroring

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in terms of building rapport.

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Not having our arms crossed, all of

those things, but sometimes we can

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forget about it or when we're not

feeling confident, then our body

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language can be , less confident.

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So.

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Do I need to be more expansive?

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Particularly if it's a Zoom meeting,

the number of clients when I see them,

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they are, low in the zoom picture, and

you want to be occupying as much of

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the picture as possible to have impacts.

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It's doing some of those

check-ins around that.

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Then also thinking about what

makes me feel good in terms

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of dress or look that I can.

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Put on all of this uniform, this

armor that makes me feel confident.

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I had one client who, when we

talked about this, she said,

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actually it's wearing red lipstick.

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I know if I wear red lipstick,

I'm inhabiting my confident me.

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And that for her really worked.

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She was going into a meeting, she

would just pop on a bit of red

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lipstick and it would signify to her

that she was in her confident mode.

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It's thinking for yourself, what's

gonna make me feel good in terms of.

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Posture and look.

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And then the final thing to think

about is speaking with conviction.

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Women tend to have a unique way of

communicating that's very collaborative,

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very consensus building and inviting.

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I'm not suggesting that you

suddenly become very authoritarian.

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But it's about giving up unhelpful

patterns of speech that, mean the

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recipient doesn't get your message in

the way that you want to portray it.

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For example, you might really want

to say, I think we need to increase

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the marketing budget on this project.

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But what you say instead is what

about increasing the marketing budget?

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Okay, now the recipient receives

that as, okay, this is a debate.

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Maybe I don't think I want to spend

extra on the marketing budget.

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They're not getting the fact

that you as the expert, feel

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that this needs to happen.

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And you partly do that because you

want to make other people feel more

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comfortable with the suggestion, but it

doesn't get across what you really think.

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Or for example, you might say, can

you get that to me by tomorrow?

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When you really want to say,

I need that tomorrow, please.

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Now by asking a question instead of making

a statement, it allows me to say, no,

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sorry, I can't get that to you tomorrow.

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Whereas if you say, I need that by

tomorrow, I've then got to think

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about, okay, what can I reprioritize

in order to get that to you?

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It's thinking about the

language that you use.

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Are you.

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Positioning things as a question rather

than a statement when you really want

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it to be an intentional statement.

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I know that's, quite a lot to think about,

but I wanted to give you some things you

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could contemplate around internal stuff.

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What's going on for you and

what you could think about.

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Getting some help with or

experimenting with in terms of

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having more impact and influence.

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I hope that's been useful.

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Obviously if you do want to have a

conversation with me about having

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some coaching specifically around

some of these areas, please do send

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me a direct message, get in touch,

and we can have a chat about it.

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Have a great week and I look forward

to catching up with you soon.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.