Carla Miller 00:00
Do you feel like your ability to do a good job depends on how much experience you have, how many skills you have, how many qualifications you have, and you never feel like you have enough to be really good enough to do your job or to move to that next level.

Do you worry that you don't know enough and live in fear of being put on the spot in meetings and not knowing the answer? So you over prepare for meetings, and then you still get asked a question that you hadn't prepared for. And that puts you into that fight, flight or freeze response.

If either of those resonate with you, then this is the episode for you. 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 influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. And I want to become the leadership BFF. You didn't know you were missing until now. But I was coaching a client recently. And she was talking about her career ambitions. And we'd already gone through her skills, her experience, what she was capable of what she was doing at the moment in her role. She was talking about wanting to move to the next level. And so I was sat there thinking, I think you're ready for that. Now you are not only experience, but you are thinking like someone at that next level, you're wanting to make changes that you need to be at that next level in order to be able to make you are thinking like a leader at that next level. And so I asked her, so when are you thinking of making that move? What's your timeline for that? And she said, I think I'll probably be ready in about maybe three to five years. Now, obviously, that's her assessment of her readiness and what she wants to do. But what was really interesting is that when we dug into it, she really didn't feel like she'd have enough experience and skills under her belt for another three to five years. Yeah, I was sitting there as someone who coaches a lot, someone who is recruited to a high level many, many times during my career in recruitment, thinking you are more than ready. And she's not alone. In that studies show that women do feel like we need more experience more skills, more qualification under our belts than men do before we apply for a role.

So we will tend to look at the job description and our eyes will be drawn to the things that perhaps we haven't done before, or are a bit of a stretch, or maybe we've done them in an interim role, but not in a permanent role. And for some reason, we don't think maybe that counts. Men tend to focus on what they know and what they think they are capable of. And so they do tend to stretch themselves more when they're going for roles than women do.

Now, what's really interesting is that this isn't our need for more qualification that skills, experience etc, isn't actually completely unfounded. So there are various studies and various versions of basically the CV study where you take a CV, exactly the same CV, and you put the male name on it, and you put a female name on it, and you put it forward. And the panel always decides that the man is ready for the job and is really experienced, but there are often questions around the women's experience from whether they're quite ready and when they need a bit more or whether they need this particular skill, which is extremely frustrating. It's all part of the the gender bias the influence gap, as I call it, the Authority Gap as Mary Ann Sieghart calls it. So we are facing some very real barriers that men are not facing but we are also internalising those and rather than recognising that some of those barriers are external, we are thinking it's about us not being good enough. And we just need to get more experienced more skills, more qualifications under our belt before we apply for our next role.

Now we talk about this within Be Bolder, my confidence and assertiveness course, we talk about it within Influence and Impact as well as part of a discussion on tackling impostor feelings. So there's a fantastic book by Dr. Valerie Young that called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and in this book, she shares a number of different profiles or personas that sum up some of the challenges that women have despite being very successful in terms of how we think about things. She calls them competence type so the idea behind the competence type is that you decide what will make you good enough. So you set the standards and expectations for yourself of what is going to make you good enough. And only when you reach those standards, to you really feel like you're good enough, whether that's for the job that you've got now, or the job that you want, or just in general. And those standards, those expectations that you set yourself, have very little connection to the reality of what it means to be good enough.

So we often set those expectations extremely high, they're usually almost impossible to reach. And yet, the reality of the bar that we need to reach is much, much lower. Now, one of these personas or profiles that she talks about is the experts. And that's what we're going to be talking about today, I'm going to share some of the things that she suggests, and also some of the ways that I suggest you can do this. But I think the first thing is to just recognise that, if you feel like you have to have a lot more knowledge, experience or skills to be able to deliver in your role to be able to go into meetings confidently, unless you are in the first six months to a year of your role. And it's a complex role, you probably are setting those standards for yourself much, much higher than the reality. I mean, if you sit in a typical meeting and listen to people talk, you will recognise that they don't, they're not all right 100% of the time, and yet you're not sitting there really critically judging them in the way that you would really critically judge yourself or fear being judged by others. So the expert profile is focused on how much knowledge skill experience you have, and you can never have enough. So you think before I need to before I can go to that next level, I need to go and get that extra qualification, I might need another two years in this role to really prove that I'm committed to it and that I've mastered it, I need to go and do all those extra courses. In my spare time, even though I'm completely burnt out and overloaded. Because if I don't do that, then I won't feel like I'm really doing the absolute best and performing really well in my role. Now, the other place this shows up big time is in meetings, because the expert profile if it resonates with you, you also feel like you have to know all the things you have to know all of the answers, and you have to be 100% certain that you're right before speaking up.

So you might sit there in a meeting and think I've got something to contribute here. But what if I get it wrong? What if I'm judged? What if people think I'm stupid, because I don't have this information? Or what if I say something and then later I have to backtrack because it might be wrong. Meanwhile, the meeting is happily going on without you. Someone else makes your point gets the credit for it because they made it and you're then fat, they're beating yourself up with your inner critic getting very, very vocal. And again, the meeting is going on happily without you. Does that sound familiar? Also, you can sit there absolutely terrified of being asked a question that you don't know the answer to whether that's about having information, whether that's your opinion on something, whether that is an idea for something, that fear of being put on the spot and not having the answer can be paralysing, without it even happening like fear is what's the acronym false expectations appearing real. And I don't know about you, but my fear my false expectations appearing real. And my fears are often way way worse than the reality of the situation.

So I might have a huge fear about making mistakes. And then one day I make a mistake and I have a moment of real shame. And then I realise no one else is actually that bothered about this mistake. I said sorry. I said, well, I've learned from it and everyone seems cold with it. We can build things up in our mind to be a huge deal. The story that comes to mind for me, another of my love life disaster stuff, if you're a regular listener is I had broken up with the past I thought was the love of my life that I was going to marry etc, etc. I had broken up with him but technically basically, I'm sure he was breaking up with me and for months lived in fear of him getting a new girlfriend we had a lot of shared friends. We were in the same social circles so I couldn't just wipe it out of my mind and life altogether. And I had a massive fear of basically being replaced. And we spent so much mental and emotional energy on that. And then one day someone said, oh, he's got new girlfriend, and I might have cried, I probably did cry for maybe an hour. And then I just felt relief. I was like, oh, right, the worst has happened. And I'm okay. And I had wasted all of this mental and emotional energy on this false expectation and how awful it was going to be. And then the reality was like, hmm, actually, I am alright. And I think we too, that about work all the time, we create the scenarios in our mind of all these things that could go wrong. And actually, the fear is much, much worse than the actual reality if those things did go wrong. So we're just wasting all this mental and emotional energy.

And so it can also can stop or speaking up, it can stop us being able to respond confidently, it can make us doubt ourselves this expert persona, when we really shouldn't be doubting ourselves at all. So what can we do about this? How can you if you recognise this in yourself? What are some steps that you can take to help you believe in yourself more? Speak up more in meetings confidently deal with situations when you don't know the answer? So a couple of tips for you. The first is an affirmation. So an affirmation is a positive statement about yourself that you repeat so that it becomes embedded in your thoughts. So we have somewhere between 60 and 90,000 thoughts every day, it's estimated that a large percentage of those are repetitive, and also that quite a large percentage of those repetitive thoughts are negative ones.

So if we want to replace a negative thought, so the negative thought or belief, as we call them in coaching that you might want to replace is I always have to know the answer. And being put on the spot, is a terrible thing to be to happen. And I wouldn't be able to cope with that, or my value as a person is determined by how much I know. So what we want to do is to create a positive thought to counteract that. So a great affirmation might for you might be, my worth is not determined by how much I know. My worth is not determined by how much I know, because it isn't your work comes from all sorts of different things, your worth to your organisation comes from a vast array of different things that you bring to the organisation, including Yes, what you know and your experience, that how you show up how people experience you the achievements that you've had the values that you bring into the organisation, how you support and encourage and lead others. And your value as a person doesn't come from your work at all your value as a person as is innate, you are the only person like you in the whole world. And the world needs that uniqueness that you bring. And other useful affirmation for you might be, I can add value to this conversation.

Right now. I can add value to this conversation right now. Because you do not need to be the most experienced person in the room to be able to add value to a conversation. You also don't need to be throwing in lots of facts that you know to be 100% Correct. A meeting should not be people sharing what they already know and everyone agreeing with each other. I mean, you can do that, by email. A meeting should be a discussion of different perspectives, different ideas, it should be about improving your thinking together and building on it and iterating those thoughts and ideas in order to make decisions that need to be made. And so that benefits from different perspectives.

That benefits as much from the perspective of someone who's new to the organisation, or new to the sector or doesn't know the jargon yet, or who is younger than others in the room or older than others in the room. Anything that makes your perspective different is a plus point, not a negative point. And another thing you can do is you can practice being more comfortable with not knowing everything. So we feel like we are when we're asked the question we should always know the answer. I haven't. I don't actually think that's true. I think there are certain questions where you should know the answer. And if you sat down a thought about it and thought about right as, as part of doing my job really well, what do I need to know. So there might be some, some KPIs and key performance indicators around your job that you do need to know that someone would expect you to be on top of as a leader, there is a huge amount of detail there that you don't need to know or that you don't need to be able to access immediately, you just need to be able to go away and find that information. Also, many of us are reflective thinkers, and I think we'll probably do a whole episode on this. But reflective thinkers hate being put on the spot. Because, yes, they might be able to give you an answer on the spot. But actually, if they have a decent amount of time to think about it, they will really analyse it think through all the options very carefully, often methodically, and come up with an answer that they are much happier with. And meetings are not designed for reflective thinkers.

So you don't need to always know the answer. So one of the things I see people doing if they don't know the answer, I see people being embarrassed or feeling awkward that they don't know the answer, apologising and saying, Sorry, or doing that thing where you think, Well, I really should know the answer. And I can't cope with a judgement. If I say I don't. And so I'm just going to make it up, you start babbling, and you don't even really remember what you said, all you know, is that you were in that panic mode. Actually, it's okay that you don't know everything. And I've talked before about as you become a leader, it's less about having the answers to all the questions are more about asking really great questions. And really thinking through when you do need to provide an answer to something really thinking through what that answer is, because it doesn't just impact you anymore. It impacts your team and other teams and other departments.

So I'd like to encourage you to practice being more comfortable with not knowing everything. So that might be you're asked a question, and you want to think about it and you say Great question, not deserve some reflection. Let me go away, think that through, look at the options and come back to you tomorrow. Or it might be you're asked for some information that you don't have to hand because it's not your job to have that particular detail to hand and you can say, Yes, I can certainly gather that information for you. I'll get that to you tomorrow, or this afternoon or next week, however long it's going to take you to gather it. Both of those are professional can do proactive answers. They welcome the question. There's no embarrassment about them. There's no apologising. And they're helpful. Those are perfectly acceptable responses to use when you are put on the spot. So it's okay to say, I don't know. So someone could ask you a question. And it's not something you thought about for and you can go great question. I don't know. I want to think about that. Or someone might ask you a question. And you're sat there thinking I don't even really understand your question. Well, sometimes we do phrase questions badly. I'm a coach, it's my job to ask questions. And I am constantly I say a question. And then I'm like, Ah, hang on, let me amend that to make it a better question.

So if you don't understand the question, it is totally fine to say can you explain what you mean by that? Or even tell me more? Tell me more is often a coach's favourite question. And it buys you a bit of thinking time breathing time, as well. So those are things that you can do, if you are put on the spot. The other thing you can do is to recognise that your inner critic so that negative self talk is probably getting very vocal in meetings. And so again, something we do within be bolder and influence and impact. And we also I also share within my book, Closing the Influence Gap is some exercises that you can do, so that that inner critic doesn't take over when you're in the meeting. And some things you can do to also calm down your nervous system so that you don't so easily go into that fight flight or freeze response and you can respond rather than react. We love to chat about that within our group programmes.

Okay, so I hope that what you take from this episode is that if you are someone who fits this expert persona, you are not alone. There are many, many, many, many people, particularly women, but not just women who experienced this who think the same way so there's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. You don't need fixing. And so you're not alone. Also we can be exacerbated not only by the gender bias that you're experiencing, but particular ways of thinking, particular beliefs that you might have about yourself, that often come from our early experiences. I'm a coach. So I tend to look forward rather than backwards. But part of the human experience is that you doubt that you're good enough. And it just shows up in different ways for different people. So if you ask that they're sometimes feeling like you're not good enough, you are just having part of the human experience. And there, there isn't anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with those feelings. What we want is to not get stuck in those feelings or not be able to perform because of those feelings, we want to be able to recognise Oh, that's coming up again, and then be able to take action and respond rather than react. So if you would like to know more about how you can chart confidently then do join me on one of our courses, or programmes, or grab a copy of the book. And I hope that you will find that super helpful if you want to take this to the next level.

Now, I used to do my little intro at the beginning about my life, but I'm trying to grow the podcast so that we have new listeners, and I realised that actually, they don't really know me and me babbling on about my life at the start of an episode may not be the best way to start it. So I thought I'd give you my little life update, for those of you that are regular listeners at the end of the episode.

So my main life update is that my little boy turns five, tomorrow, which is kind of crazy. And I mean, that really sentimental place where I'm like, oh, please stay a little acute for as long as possible. And oh, it's his last day of being four. I may have overdone that a little bit. Because he said to me the other day, and when we when do I get to be four again? And I was like, Uh huh. We don't creative, he gets to be four again, and his little face crumpled and cried. And I had to say to him, it's all of it. You know, we only get to be every eight once. And it's all about just enjoying it as much as we can. And you've been brilliant. At being four has it been brilliant? Yeah, it's been brilliant. I said, guess what, five, five is even better. And I think five will be even better. But it feels like a significant amount moments, I guess, coming in a couple of months after he started school. So I am taking a moment to just be so incredibly grateful for getting to be a mum, I know not everyone wants that experience. I also know that not everyone who wants that experience gets that experience. And that was me for a very long time. So I'm incredibly grateful. And I'm also taking a moment to not only be proud of him, and the little lovely person that he's becoming, but be proud of myself for getting him this fall. And for getting to a point in my life where we are building this new life together in Cumbria.

Yesterday, I was around at a new friend's house making reefs, which was really good fun and part of our new life in Cumbria. I have a business that is growing and is impacting people. And that brings me joy and satisfaction. I am not living in fear of not being able to pay the bills, which I have been in the past and I know a lot of people are experiencing at the moment. And I have a lovely relationship with this little boy. And I've done it also low although with a lot of help from family, I have to say I'm taking a moment to be proud of myself for that as well and excited about him being five. So that's pretty much what is going on birthday party arranging, advent calendar, arranging, I am not doing the elf he doesn't know about the elf on the shelf and long may that last. But I am thinking of some fun Christmas activities for us to do together. And I've had the headspace to do that. Because October and November and September were so so packed full of delivering workshops, which has been amazing, but December is slowing down. And I've got bit more spaciousness and a bit more headspace to think about Christmas. So that's what's going on in my world. I hope that things are slowing down for you. I know lots of you work in charities and it ramps up for Christmas and rather than slowing down, but I wish you a little bit of spaciousness for you to be able to enjoy the season and take some time for yourself as well. And I will be back soon. So take care if you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look. First of all, I've got a couple more freebies. I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact. Back to work. And I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. So head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes Influence and Impact for women at management and leadership level and Be Bolder a four week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level. You can preorder my book Closing the Influence Gap: a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard.

You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops, or to run my influence and impact programme or be bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering.

If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15 minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation. So I look forward to chatting to you. Take care