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. You don't need fixing. You're not broken. And there's nothing wrong with you. In fact, you're probably completely normal in terms of the thoughts and feelings you're having and the challenges that you're facing. And that's what I want to talk about in today's episode.

Now, before we jump into that, just an update on where I am at the moment, I have just taken my little boy to school for the first time. And he had a real mix of emotions. He was excited. He's been looking forward to this for a long time. He's ready for it. But you could also see on his face, the worry and the doubt and the nerves that were there. as well. As we got closer and closer to the school, his walking got slower and slower. And once we were in there, because it was all a bit vague this first day there wasn't quite so much structure to it. He just didn't want me to leave. And I kept trying to find a child to pass him to so that he felt connected to someone and could kind of disconnect a little bit from me. And that took a little bit of time. And I am feeling all the fields that come with I guess what is the end of an era so proud of their little person he's becoming really conscious that if these past almost five years have gone this quickly, I think the next ones are going to go even quicker.

I've watched my niece and nephew just whizz through primary school and worried that I'm going to get less cuddles. In fact, yesterday he was going on me when I'm five, there's no more cuddles. I really hope he changes his mind on that when he's five. And so yeah, real mix of emotions going on today. I saw this thing on Instagram from the five-minute mum, who I follow. Because I aspire to be the parent that does all those learning exercises with their child. I'm not actually very good at being that parent to be honest. But she had this idea where you will draw hearts on your arm. And then when you're thinking of each other during the day, or you need you know if your child needs to, to feel connected to you to feel loved or to give a hug, you press on the heart.

Now Charlie thought this was a lovely idea, however, did not want a heart drawn on his arm. I did and I have been pressing the heart and sending him Virtual hugs for the last hour or so more for me than for him. So that is what's going on in that part of my world. Aside from that I am busy sending books to people because I've got my copies. Now, if you have pre ordered a physical copy of the book, the paperback that will be winging its way to you on the 20th. So really not long to go now about two weeks and the Kindle comes out on the 19th I've already booked a nice lunch with my friends on the 20th a couple of my local New Cumbrian friends to celebrate the book, becoming a best seller or near to a best seller or just celebrate the book we will see what happens on Monday the 19th And a huge thank you to everyone who has joined my launch squad to support that. If you haven't any would like to support me and the book launch in a really simple way.

You can go to Carla Miller training.com forward slash launch squat and you can preorder the book anywhere that you like Okay, so let's talk about today's episode is gonna be pretty short and sweet. Some of the best episodes are I think when I first started doing the podcast way back when because I think this might be episode 111. Now, they were like, seven or eight minutes long, maybe 15 minutes long. And I think I maybe got used to the sound of my own voice. Now, and obviously, we have some fantastic guests on the podcast as well. But this is gonna be back to one of the shorter ones.

Now, first, I'm gonna get on my soapbox, because there is at with a growing awareness that a women's leadership course is not going to solve every problem that women have in the workplace, which I completely agree with, and a growing awareness that gender bias, gender inequality, inequity in the workplace is still very much alive. And well. Yes, we have made huge progress in many areas and the blatant sexism that has existed for many years, and it is easier for our generation than it has been for previous generations. But there is a growing acceptance that there is systemic gender bias that is holding women back, and I am delighted that this is coming to the forefront. It's something I've been educating myself on. It's something I really enjoyed talking to Marianne CDOT, about in episode 99, where we talk about her incredible book, the authority gap, which is getting that message out very powerfully. So I am a big fan of that wave of awareness. What I don't like so much is that one of the ways of promoting and bringing, bringing attention to that is to completely slate, anyone and anything that is focused on supporting women in the workplace.

Now, when it comes to leadership, confidence, etc. It's, it's being slated as fixing women as gaslighting women. I would really, really like to believe that I'm not in the business of trying to fix women or in the business of gaslighting women. In fact, the idea of that horrifies me, because like I said in the introduction, I mean, I worked with so many incredible women, and none of them are broken, none of them need fixing. And there's nothing wrong with any of them. And that applies to you, too, as I went for a walk earlier, and thought, what, what should I do this podcast episode on what do I feel like people need to hear at the moment, I felt like there might be a couple of people listening who needed to hear that, who needed to hear that there is nothing wrong with you that facing challenges in the workplace is completely normal, that doubting yourself, and your ability and whether you should be in your job or not, is completely normal and actually completely reasonable response to some of the things that we face and experience in the workplace. So that's what I wanted to explore a little bit about today and share my theory on this, which is really that we internalise gender bias. So many women in fact, I would say the majority of women, and including me until relatively recently, are completely unaware of the full extent of gender bias in the workplace. We have a sense of it. But actually, we just think well, that is just the workplace and I need to succeed and do well in that workplace anyway. And then what happens is, we stop noticing the gender bias, and instead we internalise it. And we start to when we experienced gender bias, we start to think there's something wrong with us. So we think we're not enough. We think we're broken. We think we need fixing when we experience things like having our points heated being constantly interrupted. People not listening to or valuing our perspective, going for interviews for the jobs that we've been doing on an interim basis for the last six months really successfully, and then still not getting the roll.

All of these things are often forms of gender bias, but we make it about us and we think well I'm not enough or so I just need to be more. I need to be different. I need to do more. And then what makes me even sadder because all these women, including you are glorious, is that we feel alone in that we think that we You're the only one experiencing that. Rather than appreciating that actually, this is completely normal, and there are many women experiencing it. And so I just want to highlight some examples of that so that if you're experiencing these things, you can hopefully feel less alone in them.

First of all, if you want to know more about gender bias, check out episode 99. Check out Mary Ann Sieghart’s book, The Authority Gap. There's also a brilliant book by Jill Witty Collins called Why Men Win at Work.

Both of those, I think, our recommended reading for any woman and ideally, any men in the workplace. Also check out Episode 84, I did on breaking the bias that's got a lot of the content from my male ally ship talk that I do, because I am not one of the world's leading gender equality experts, I would love to be but I am not there yet. What I have been doing really successfully, as well as working with women, is to start to do male ally ship work and get men up to speed on what's going on and help them to become active allies on an everyday basis in the workplace. But we could all benefit from understanding gender bias.

Now, one of the key areas that I see women feeling like there's something wrong with them is when they have a lot of negative mental chatter when they are beating themselves up a lot internally, when they're thinking I'm not good enough, I'll never be good enough, they're never gonna give me those opportunities. They're not listening to me, because what I have to say doesn't have any value. I when I have one to one, calls with people about coaching, often I will speak to women. And they will say, my inner critic, which is what coaches often call that voice is really, really loud and vocal, and they're beating themselves up for that. And they're beating themselves up for having an inner critic. And I think sometimes coaching can play into that, because it's sometimes coaching can be seen as a magic wand that you waive, and everything and miraculously goes away, and you never doubt yourself again. And you know what, occasionally for some people that can happen for a period of time when they're within their comfort zone. But actually, we all experience an inner critic, we all experience self doubt, it's just part of our psyche. And there is nothing wrong with that at all, it would be more abnormal to not experience it. What we don't want is to be making our decisions from that place or to be stuck in that place feeling rubbish about ourselves for a lot of the time, what coaching can do and what we do in Be Bolder, and what we do in Influence and Impact.

What you can learn to do in my book is help you to recognise that inner critic voice and decide if you want to listen to it or not. Now I had an experience recently, where my inner critic which is usually quite quiet, when it comes to work, can get quite vocal when it comes to parenting. But when it comes to work, I'm generally in in my comfort zone, a lot of the time, it got pretty vocal when I was writing a book because I was just conscious I was going to be have more exposure, and therefore be more vulnerable to criticism, which is always a bit scary. And when you get scared, your inner critic gets vocal. But I was running a workshop with a lot of intelligent people. It wasn't a very simple workshop, there was no golden thread to follow. And I was experiencing brain fog as well. This was recently I talked about the brain fog on an episode a few episodes ago. And other people in the room were contributing things. And there was someone in particular who was contributing some really salient points and summing things up and reframing things. I was thinking, she's better at this than me, she should be here at the front of the room. She's obviously more on it than I am. Why am I even here. I mean, they shouldn't be paying me to do this. They should just get her to do it. And I was having all those thoughts whilst trying to listen and keep a track of things because I was facilitating, and I noticed I was like, that is very clearly my inner critic, my inner critic is getting very vocal right now. Because I'm experiencing the brain fog and I know I'm not performing at my best. And I can choose to listen to that and go into that spiral. Or I can choose to go okay, not now. Shove it away in my head, reflect on it later and refocus on the rim. And that's what I did.

So, despite being a coach, it wasn't that I stood there and I had no doubt at all, or I had my inner critic was completely silent and I was completely tuned into my inner leader which is what I also teach people to do. Now I had a really, really vocal inner critic at that point in time. But I recognised my inner critic and I shut it down. And I had to keep doing that consistently came up again, I was like, oh, hang on, right inner critic. And again, afterwards, it would have been quite easy to get into a slump. And I was started to go into a slump. And I feel quite emotional about the fact my brain was not working as well as it should be. And then again, I caught myself. And I talked to women early in their career who have an extremely vocal inner critic. Within be bolder, we have a lot of women sharing what they find challenging. And the inner critic is a big thing. I talked to people who are newly promoted as managers, or who are now at a head of level who have a vocal inner critic and think I should be doing more I should know more; I just need to get up to speed on all my leadership skills and be as perfect as possible. And I speak to people who are at director or chief exec level who are like, I feel like I'm faking it, I feel like I'm gonna get found out, I feel like they've promoted me too soon, I'm not ready for this.

We often compare ourselves to others, we look and think, well, that's what being a director looks like. And I'm not there yet. Oh, that's what a good head of looks like. There's a lot of comparison. And so if you are experiencing comparison, if you are looking at other people and thinking I should be more like them, or that's what leadership looks like, I see this particularly with my introverted clients, because we celebrate in society, a really extroverted version of leadership. And we think that we have to be have to enjoy being central retention have to be high energy all the time have to be super inspiring all the time, in order for people to follow us. And those are all you know; those are all incredible traits.

But there's also a downside to it extroverts. So, you know, it's not that extroverts are better leaders at all, it's just that society has traditionally value those more extroverted elements of leadership, but then we pay the price for that we actually need a real mix of introverted and extroverted leaders and ambiverts, like me, who sit in the middle.

But I think what I want you to take from this is, you don't need to be more like that person that you admire, or that person that you're intimidated by, or that incredible chief exec or director that you work with. And the world does not need you to be a rubbish version of someone else. The world, your colleagues, your team need you to be the best version of you that you can because we are drawn to we resonate with, we build rapport with feel connected to people who are being authentic, not people who are beating themselves up and trying to fake it and thinking I should be more like that other person. So be more, you now, I put a caveat on that. That's if you're working in a psychologically safe environment, I think it's all very well to say, be yourself at work.

But actually, if it's not safe, to be yourself at work, if you're going to be judged for being yourself at work. And if you are experiencing other forms of bias as well, or you're working in incredibly male environment, it might be harder to be more yourself at work. But what you can do is find your own way of leading and find a way a style that feels comfortable to you, doesn't mean you can't flex outside of that and flex outside of your comfort zone when you need to, it's never helpful to get stuck in just one way of doing things. But it is okay to lead your way. And then the final piece is if you struggle to get your voice heard. Again, you're not alone in that if you feel like your points aren't valued, other people are getting credit for it, your team isn't valued as much as they should be.

A lot of that is coming down to gender bias as well because as women, we have to prove our competence was men do not have to prove they're competent, they are assumed competent, and nurse really proven incompetent, whilst it's the other way around for women. And that's a central theme to Marianne Siegel's book. And it's so so so infuriating. And it makes us rightfully angry. But even just knowing it can help you feel more normal because it's not about the quality of what you're saying most of the time. It is simply about the fact that you are a woman or you might even be a woman that also has other barriers faces other forms of discrimination for other reasons, as well. So That's really what what I wanted to do is to normalise the fact that if you have an inner critic, there's nothing wrong with you. There's no need to beat yourself up for it. If you compare yourself to others, you are not alone in that, if you struggled to get your voice heard, if you struggled to be taken as seriously as you would like, if you struggle to be as credible as you would like to be, then again, it's not that there's something wrong with you.

Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't anything you can do about it, because we can always equip ourselves with tools and strategies and, and that's really what the book is about closing the influence gap. It's all the tools and strategies and insights that I've gathered along the way, from my own experiences, from the experiences of my clients, who I'm constantly learning from, from the zillion coaching courses and things that I have spent my time doing. I've tried to make it really, really helpful. But what I hope it doesn't do is make you feel like you need a book to be good enough, I hope the book helps you realise you are already good enough. You don't need fixing, you're not broken. And I also would encourage you to have conversations like this with other women, it's one of my favourite favourite things about the be bolder cause about influence and impact is that people will feedback they feel less alone, because I can tell you this till I'm blue in the face. But it's not until you are sat in a virtual or physical room with other women in a safe space talking about this, that you really, really believe me that you're not alone. Only one in five women report feeling a strong sense of belonging in the workplace.

So there are even studies that really show that we don't feel like we belong in the workplace as it is at the moment, I really hope that more of us can get to the top and feel empowered to lead our way and change that. But when you don't feel a sense of belonging, it doesn't feel safe to speak up. You know, if you just think about it in a social environment, if you go into a a party or a dinner party, and everyone knows each other except you, you're you sit and you watch for a while you watch the dynamics, probably you talk to people next to you, but you probably don't leap right in and try and lead the whole conversation. Because you want to know the lay of the land, it doesn't feel completely safe. And that's a sense of not belonging equally, if you're in a group and everyone's different from you, in some way, maybe they all seem more confident. Maybe they had a different education or background. Maybe they're a different race from you. Maybe they think differently from you. You don't feel that sense of safety and belonging and it is much harder to speak up and to get your voice heard. So that's it from me today. If anyone else is sending their kid off to school at the moment, or still in that adjustment period, you're not alone in those emotional wobbles as well. And yeah, I think that's it. I just want to say thank you, actually, thank you for listening. We're on 80,000 downloads now, which is incredible. I'd like it to reach many, many more women. I think there's probably between one and 2000 of you listening to each episode or listening each week. And yeah, I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate this chance to connect with you all have a fantastic week, and we will be back next week.

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 at 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