Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders. My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you, as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF, you didn't know you were missing until now. Yesterday, I led a session on influencing for success for the female leaders of a national charity. And there was one slide that really resonated with the women in the room. And that slide was all about how we give our power away. One of them even said it had completely blown her mind because she thought that she did all of those things to give her power away.

So in this week's episode of the influence and impact podcast, I'm exploring all the ways in which we frequently give away our power, and how we can start taking some of that power back. But first, a few updates for you. So if you're listening to this, when it first comes out, I have a new quiz that you can take, which will help you to establish how much authority you have as a leader. If you'd like to make more of an impact in your role, but struggle to have authority within your organisation, you'll be able to answer a few key questions and then you'll get instant access to your results and the exact steps that you can take to build your authority and influence. So the link for that should be in the show notes. And you can also go to my website to find it, which is Carla Miller training.com. In other news on the 26th of April, my masterclass is coming back for two weeks only. So this masterclass is called How to be an influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. And we're going to talk about the three common influencing mistakes that I see a lot of female leaders making, I'm going to share three practices that you can use to really step into your influence and your authority. And I'm going to talk you through the exact steps that you can take to become a more influential leader. So do grab your spot for that. Whilst it's available. It's only available for these two weeks.
And then my final exciting update is that the doors to influence and impact my 12 month group coaching programme for female leaders open on the 26th of April, and they are open for four weeks. Basically, the doors closed on the 21st of May, I only open the doors a few times a year. So if you are interested in how you can work with me how you can join, what is an amazing group of women within the influence and impact programme. Come along to that webinar, I'll be talking about it for five minutes at the end of the webinar, or connect to me on LinkedIn. Or if you're already on there, drop me a message and we can have a chat and talk about whether it's the right fit for you. Okay, so that's all my updates, we've been really busy creating these things for you.

Now, let's get into the episode. So the slide that I was talking about that I shared was actually talking specifically about how we get in our own way, and how we give our way our power when it comes to influencing. I'm going to start there. But it sparked a really interesting discussion. And actually, there are so many different ways. Some of them are huge, some of them tiny, in which we give our power away. And I think just recognising those is the first step to starting to claim back that power. Now power isn't a word I talk about a lot. I remember having coaching myself, probably about 10 years ago now. And my coach who was a man was talking a lot about becoming a powerful coach. And I felt really quite uncomfortable with that language because I think along with the word ambition, it had had some really negative connotations for me. So I think when I think of power, I think of people being very directive and overly assertive and having huge amounts of gravitas or authority. And I think having been a politic student for a long time, I think about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. And it doesn't always bring the best out in people. So I have my own stories and myths around the word power, which actually, I don't have any more, I very much want to be a powerful coach, I very much want to be. No, I can't even say it, I don't think I do want to be a powerful leader, I want to be an influential leader, because to me, influence is a way of impacting and creating change and advocating for what's important for me. And everyone wins in that situation, it's Win win was power feels like a zero sum game, it feels like if you have more power, someone else has less. So I think we can talk about being a powerful coach, because I feel like I have some really powerful methods. But as a leader, I don't think I aspire to be a powerful leader, because that feels like I might have power over other people. Do I aspire to be a powerful woman, I think I'm on the precipice of stepping in to that idea. I absolutely want to impact change, my company is called Impact consulting. And to be able to impact on a big scale is powerful. And so I don't want to be scared of that.

But that was a very long explanation for why actually, I usually talk about influence rather than power, it feels a lot more appropriate for many of us, operating within organisations. And in fact, there are some myths about influencing and whether we're trying to have influence over other people, we got into a really interesting discussion about that yesterday as well. But that's a discussion for another day. For now, let's talk about some of the ways in which we make it hard for ourself to influence because we're giving away our power, and then not all obvious. So the first one is that we believe the myths within our organisation. So if, for example, you are someone who likes new ideas, who can see opportunities for improvement, who always wants to innovate. And you're told that within the organisation, that it's just not an innovative organisation, we don't like to do new things we like to stick to what is known. If you believe that myth, you won't even bother trying, putting forward your ideas, because you'll be convinced that they're going to be shot down. So often, we believe these myths within our organisations, they're not even our own stories. They're stories we've heard secondhand thirdhand from others.
And organisations evolve how an organisation was five years ago could be very different, or even a year ago, if you've got a different chief exec or leadership team on board. So make sure you're not believing the myths within your organisation and letting that stop you from claiming your power and putting forward your ideas, your suggestions, your proposals. Another thing we do is we take one incident and create a story around it. And we actually do this in our minds our whole lives. And it started when we were children. So something happens as a child, maybe we exhibit some kind of behaviour, maybe we're running around making lots of noise. And we're told to sit down and be quiet, but in a really stern scary way. And from that we established that it's not safe to run around and make lots of noise. We are using that same kind of logic all of the time, because our brain likes to take shortcuts, and it likes to keep us safe. So when we get when we have one negative experience, our brain turns that into a generalisation. And when you get into a similar situation, the alarm bells go off and tell you it's not safe to do that. So you could be taking one historic incident, maybe you tried to speak to the chief executive, and they were in a hurry, and they didn't have time to talk to you. And so you didn't feel listened to and you turn it into a story of they never listen to what you have to say there's no point in that, that having that conversation because last time I tried to have a conversation with them. They just didn't listen, they didn't really have time for me. Actually, you might just record them on a bad day. They are not taking your power away. In that situation. They are not stopping you from asking for a conversation. It's you that's doing that inside your own head.

Another thing that we do is we defer too much to authority. And I've done a whole podcast episode on I think is how to say no to your boss is what it was called. But basically there's this unspoken idea that you have to do absolutely everything your boss says. Now I'm not talking about disrespecting authority. However, there should be space for a healthy discussion. If you really feel like you shouldn't be working on something or that something isn't a priority. And if you've got a really good case, for that, we should be able to feedback we should be able to positively and constructively challenge. You don't want to be the person who is challenging all the time. But you should be able to on occasion, challenge. But often we don't do that we defer way too much to authority. And we assume that the people in authority always know what they're doing and always have access to the same information that we do. If someone in your organisation is making a decision that impacts your team, and they are unaware that impacts your team are unaware that you've got some valuable data or analysis or experience to share. It's up to you to find a way to make them aware of that, they are not always going to be aware of what they don't know, basically. So be wary about deferring too much to authority. We also misinterpret ambiguous signals. So like I said earlier, our brain is always trying to fill in the gaps for us and makes assumptions in order to do that. So you could have a really tense discussion with your line manager in a team meeting about a particular project that you you're not on the same page for. And then the next day, you say good morning to them, and they're quite short with you. And your brain leaps to the conclusion that actually, they must be really annoyed with you, because the fact you've disagreed with them in that meeting. Actually, the fact that they were quite short with you. And in fact, you might even be looking for that behaviour. So they might not even have been short with you at all. But they might have been in a hurry, they might be really tired, they might like meat day have started their day with their child being hard work or screaming because they didn't want to go to nursery. And trust me that that means you haven't got much tolerance for anything else. So make sure you are not creating a story that's not there, make sure you're not misinterpreting ambiguous signals.
And then the final way when it comes to influencing in which we give away our power, is that we are so nervous about putting our idea forward, so worried about judgement or failure, that we watered down our suggestions or make them so indirect that nobody actually knows what we're asking for. We've been so vague about it, that there was just no point in even saying it in the first place. Because no one knows what you want, and why you want it. So those are some of the ways when it comes to influencing that we can get in our own way. But there were also so many other ways that we hand over our power. So the next one I'm going to share is a really big one for me. And that is that we hand over our power when we determine whether our needs are reasonable or acceptable, based on how we think other people will respond to us. Now it's a real skill to have the emotional intelligence to be able to read a room to be able to think about the impact of what you're saying on other people and to think about how they may respond. But I know that many of us are people pleasers, I was a huge people pleaser. I'm sure I still am to some extent, but probably less than the workplace after all of this coaching that I've done. But I was a people pleaser, to the extent where I lost touch or connection with what I actually wanted. And this was sort of in all areas of my life, actually. So I would think, Okay, this is what I want to ask for. And then I think well, this is how they're gonna react. This is what they're going to say, and this is how it's going to end up.

So actually, why don't I just go for what they want in the first place. And I wouldn't even suggest what I wanted to suggest. And I did that so much that that was my default. And I completely lost touch with what I did actually want. What I did actually need. This is getting a bit personal, but I had a I briefly had some therapy sessions. And in one of them, the therapist said, what what are your needs in a relationship? And I couldn't answer the question. I honestly didn't know because I was too busy trying to be a great girlfriend and hold on to a relationship when I was too in touch with what other people wanted and their way of thinking and not enough in touch with what I wanted and my way of thinking. And I think women compromise all the time. And sometimes we get so used to compromising that we don't even bother to put forward what we actually want or Need. So I would really encourage you to start asking for what you want, asking for what you need, and not with the assumption that it's going to be turned down. I was listening to a podcast from another coach on that topic, actually. And they got someone to ask for what they wanted, on the assumption that they weren't going to get it. So this person said, I think it was actually a lift home, this person said, Could you maybe give me a lift home? If that's not too difficult for your appreciate? It might be really out of your way. So yeah, actually, don't worry about it. And then they were asked to ask for the same thing on the assumption that they would get it. And I think they said something like, you can give me a lift home. Right. Great. Thanks. I mean, that's I haven't given us necessarily the best example there. But hopefully, you get the point I'm trying to make, which is, there is a difference between asking for what you want, when in your head, you're thinking they're never going to give this to me anyway, and asking for what you want on the assumption that they are or that it's highly likely or possible that they are going to give it to you. So I would encourage you to first of all, start thinking about what do you want and need in a situation. And actually, the the important word in that sentence was you think about what you want a need in a situation. Because I think as leaders, we are often very good at advocating for our team, and very good at thinking about what our team wants to need in the situation. And often what our line manager wants and needs in the situation, we are not so good about thinking about what we as individuals want and need in a situation. We don't want that to be our driving force all the time. And I know that we can quite often judge people where it looks like that's the case.
But if that's not your default, you are not going to go there. If you're someone who is worried that you're going to be become that you're going to become selfish or demanding, the chances of you actually ever being selfish or demanding are incredibly low, it's much more likely that you are very far down the other end of the spectrum, and could move a little bit in that direction.

Another way in which we give away our power, and sometimes it can be a sensible thing to do is self preservation. So this was mentioned by one of the women on the programme that I ran the other day, basically, if you've had the battle so many times and you just don't have the energy or if you know that, that the person you're trying to influence has a super strong opinion on this. And they're quite aggressive about how they shoot you down. There are times when it makes sense when self preservation means not speaking up. So don't beat yourself up for that you are allowed to take action to feel safe within your environment. And actually, that's a caveat I want to put on this whole episode is I am recording this episode on the assumption that we are talking about you operating in a healthy working environment and with people who are reasonable to deal with some environments and cultures are truly toxic. Some people are truly toxic. If you are experiencing bullying, if you're in a toxic environment of some kind, if you are experiencing some kind of systemic discrimination. This episode isn't aimed at you. You're allowed to feel disempowered by a system that disempowers you and I would encourage you to get some support to help you challenge or step out of that situation. I in no way want to victim blame. This episode is based or this episode is aimed at those of us who actually are operating in healthy environments with reasonable people and are not stepping into the power that comes with our role and are giving our power away and could benefit from taking the steps I'm recommending within the safety of a healthy environment. So I just wanted to caveat that because I would hate for someone to listen to this who was being bullied for example, and start to blame themselves. That's absolutely not what I'm trying to do. And I am not an expert in that area. However, I did do a podcast episode on how to get over a bullying former boss so that might well be helpful to you.
Okay, so back to ways in which we generally give power away. We underestimate ourselves. We think, well, I couldn't possibly step up to that level who am I to operate at director level or chief exec level or board member level? Or who am I to move into consultancy or coaching or whatever it is that actually you'd really like to do, we often underestimate ourselves. And when we are consistently underestimating ourselves, we're encouraging other people to do the same. And I did that a lot. When I was younger, I would caveat, whatever I was saying, with, well, I'm probably not right on this, or I could be wrong. Or I don't know if this is relevant. But we all have those phrases. So I have yet when I that's not true, 90% of the women that I work with, have some kind of caveat ng phrase that they use either at the beginning, or the end of what they're saying, which basically completely diminishes the power of what they're saying. It's basically a paraphrased version of, you don't really have to listen to me on this, or I could be wrong on this. And someone said, you can start playing caveat being go and notice, when people are using their particular phrases, we all have those phrases, I would really encourage you to notice yours. I worked with somebody recently, someone who's amazing at their job, and then a very senior role. And I noticed that when we were having a conversation, she was using one phrase consistently, that undermined her. And she was going into a situation in which she was feeling intimidated. And we talked about how actually, she uses that phrase all the time. In that particular situation, it wouldn't occur to her to use it when she's within her comfort zone and coaching for her was outside of her comfort zone.
But I challenged her in the meeting she had the next day, she was giving a presentation to not use that caveat as much. I think I said you could use it once. And she didn't use it at all. And she felt more empowered. Often we are using those caveats. And when we do that we're under estimating ourselves. We're undervaluing what we can bring to the conversation, how often do you hear a man use a caveat like that? Because essentially, what what it sounds like when you're using a caveat is that you're questioning yourself, you're questioning your own judgement, your own knowledge, your own experience, that's what it sounds like, you may not actually be questioning yourself, you may just feel uncomfortable. Putting your opinion out there and being open for judgement or failure or being shocked down. Most of which probably isn't likely. But it becomes a possibility that wasn't there, if you just keep quiet. Or if you don't caveat, actually, that's not true. If you don't have that, you're still opening yourself up to exactly those same things, it is just part of, of leading of operating in the workplace is not everyone is going to agree with your ideas all the time. Sometimes they're going to be critical. And there are ways to learn how to deal with that and respond to that. Okay, we also see our weaknesses and focus on those, not our strengths. So if we see all the things we can't do, and focus on those, instead of all the things we can do, we don't want to step into positions of power, because we don't feel qualified to do them. And we constantly compare ourselves to other people and think we should be more like them, even though they've got a different personality type a different communication style, a different role. We still think, Oh, we're not enough, we should be more like them.

Another thing we do, and I'm guessing a lot of you are kind of mentally ticking off in your head. Yep, do that. Yep, do that. No, don't do that. One. It's okay, that you have lots of these, I think a lot of these are, are symptoms of how we've been brought up of the environment that we're working within, they are not floors, all of these things are talking about if you do any of them, you are not flawed. There's nothing wrong with you. The reason I'm sharing this long list is because so many of us do that and that's why I've ended up doing the kind of work that I do because we are all sabotaging ourselves in these ways. So please do not feel judged. Do not feel shamed. Do not feel blamed do not feel not enough. You are enough. And all I'm trying to do is help you to notice when you're not communicating as powerfully as you could be. So the next one is looking for validation from others. I've done a whole podcast episode on this. So I'm not going to talk for long about this, except to say that we actually need to find our validation internally, not from other people. And when we are frequently seeking validation from others, then we are giving away our power, we're hoping that they then give it back to us. And they're not always going to do that, because they don't even realise that that's the game that you're subconsciously playing. Your validation ultimately needs to come from you. Yes, it's really nice. If it comes from your line manager, your chief exec, your colleagues, your team, your friends, your family or partner, but actually, it needs to come from you. Another way in which we give away our power is we don't have boundaries, or we don't hold our boundaries. And we think we're being really compassionate by not having those boundaries. But actually, when people stomp all over them, we feel very resentful, and that isn't compassionate and Brene. Brown does some amazing work and writing on this topic. But healthy boundaries are a way of taking back your power. And you know, a simple way to talk about boundaries might be someone speaks to you in a way that you feel is diminishing, and you don't say anything, then they never know that they are stomping all over your boundaries.

If someone raises their voice to you in the workplace, you don't think that's appropriate, you can absolutely say, Please Don't raise your voice. To me, I don't want to be spoken to like that. That is quietly powerful. And then you can go on to listen to the point that they have to make, but they don't actually get to shout at you in the workplace, for example. So set your boundaries. Some of us when we struggle with saying no go down an alternative route more of a passive aggressive route where because we don't want the confrontation of saying no, we say yes, and then we just avoid doing whatever it is that we just agreed to do. It that's not powerful, is not particularly helpful, because it doesn't change the situation. And it's not something I'd recommend unless you really have exhausted all other options. Another way in which we give away our power is we choose to not take responsibility for a situation, by which I mean at the level at which you operate at because if you're listening to this and you're operating at management or leadership level, you really don't want to spend very much of your time at all complaining about things that frustrate you, within the organisation, sitting in that place of blaming other people for it being hard to do your job, what you want to do is take what I call radical responsibility, and step up and try and find solutions to those things. At this level, we all have to be changemakers, we all have to try and make the organisation better. And then the final way, I'm sure I could list many more about the final way is being very sensitive to what we see as criticism.

So if you struggle to deal with negative feedback, then that can really take your power away because you feel completely disempowered by any form of feedback that isn't 100% positive. And actually, you learn through feedback that isn't positive. So again, there's a whole podcast episode on that on how to, I think it's respond to or how to get better at dealing with negative feedback. Okay, so I have shared with you a lot of ways in which I, and lots of my clients and the women within influence and impact, give away our power. And perhaps some of those resonate with you, too. What do you do about it? So first step, notice, just choose one of those, please don't try and choose 20 things and change them all at the same time. Because that's just too hard. Choose one and notice and then choose one that perhaps you want to change, but just reflect do I want to keep doing that some of these you might listen to and go. I'm quite happy doing that, actually. Thanks very much, Carla. But nope, I don't see that is giving away my power or actually that's part of how I survive my day to day life and I'm going to keep doing it. That's absolutely fine. Then look at some of the others and think, do I want to keep doing that? The second thing is to think about where does power actually come from? A certain amount of power is gifted to you with your job title, a certain amount of authority. But actually what I'm talking about in this episode is personal power. personal power is is your sense of agency, your ability to get things done that to communicate, to do your role effectively to achieve things in life, to navigate society and the workplace and relationships. And we could all do with a more personal power.

In terms of what else you can do next, these are exactly the topics that we look at in my free masterclass that I mentioned at the start of this episode. So that's called How to be an influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. So we talk about some of the mistakes that you could be making and some things you can try to do differently. So definitely, if this episode resonates, please go and check out that free masterclass whilst it's available. But really this is, this is what influence and impact this is what the influence and impact framework is all about. This is a sort of a golden thread running through the whole framework, because it's about strengthening your inner leader, working on those limiting beliefs you might have about you and your role within the organisation working on that fear of failure, that's got you giving your power away, working on how to turn down the volume on that inner critic, and how to step into what I call your inner leader. And that is an amazing way of taking back your power. Instead of going into meetings with your inner critic running the show where you're constantly running this dialogue in your head judging yourself, you go in feeling calm and confident and able to articulate whatever it is you want to articulate. The second area of my framework is around increasing your impact. That's about some of the mindset shifts you can make so that you're no longer giving away your power. It's about claiming and defining your own personal leadership brand. Thinking about what kind of leader you want to be how you want to step into your role and how you want to be perceived by others, and how you can use language and body language to get your voice heard. And then finally, it's about influencing for success. So that's about communicating powerfully speaking the language of senior stakeholders, and understanding that you do bring things to the table when you are negotiating and trying to influence senior stakeholders.

So if this episode resonates with you, again, I would really look at my influence and impact programme because the doors are about to open, because we work on all of this and so much more. And that's my mission, really to empower women in their careers. And that is the way I do it, I bring them together, create a safe space, and share my framework, my step by step roadmap to become an inspiring and impactful and influential leader. So I'm really passionate about that framework. And that programme, and I would love to see you in that if it's resonating with you. In terms of some really practical things you can do today. Firstly, ask for what you want, and need. And ask them the assumption that it's at least possible, you might get it, don't ask them the assumption, you're not going to get it. Stop caveat in everything that you say, their meetings or everything challenging, or that goes slightly against the norm in meetings, stop, caveat it. That's a habit that we have all got into. And it's a good habit to try and break. Realise that in most situations, you do have a choice, you have a choice about whether to challenge you have a choice about whether to do something, you have a choice about whether to stay in the job that you're unhappy about or not. Now, even if you think well, I don't have a choice, because actually, there's not many jobs out there. And they really need the money. At least empower yourself with the knowledge that you are choosing to stay. Because the job market isn't great. And you really need the money, you're not stuck with that you are choosing that over the other options that you have considered. That will make you feel empowered, start working on those underlying beliefs that you've got around failure around fear of being judged around not being enough, around having to work incredibly hard to prove yourself to yourself and other people. We have so many of these underlying beliefs running our behaviour and it's time to release ourself from the chain of those and start working on those and reflecting on them. And then finally a challenge for you. How could you be 5% bolder this week and I love the word bold. I'm not gonna challenge you to be 5% more powerful, because that might feel intimidating, but bold, we can all be a little bit bolder, I can certainly be a bit bolder. So how can you be 5% bolder this week?

So that's it for today's episode, we've covered a lot. I hope that it's been useful to shine a light on some of the things we do that we don't realise, give our power away. I hope that you've got some next steps in terms of things that you can do. And I would love to see you on the masterclass or within the influence and impact programme. And feel free if you if this episode is resonated. Or if you've got questions that follow up from it, feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn, or comment I often share these episodes on my social media comment on there and started discussion about it. It's really useful for me to know whether or not you found these helpful and to find out what's coming up for you. Podcasts are unfortunately a one way conversation. I much prefer two way conversations. And so if we can do that virtually, then I'm all for that. Okay, so thank you for your time listening to this episode. I hope it's been valuable. And I hope you have a wonderful week, I have set myself a mission of empowering 10,000 women in their careers by 2030.

So if you'd like to help me with that mission, there's a couple of things you could do. If you haven't already subscribed and rated and reviewed this podcast, please do so that would be brilliant. It really helps bring it to other people's attention. And I'd also really love to know what you have taken away from this episode. Take a screenshot of yourself listening to this episode, and post it on social media and tag me I am this is Carla Miller on Instagram, on LinkedIn. I'm Carla Miller one I would love to know what the main takeaway you got from this episode is so take a screenshot tag me and tell me what your main takeaway is.