Speaker 1 (00:00):

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 (00:13):

Hello and welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. And I am your host Nicola Buckley. And today we’re going to talk about what I think is a hugely, hugely important subject female leaders. So today I’m going to be talking all about self promotion and sharing your boldness and your brilliance and helping other people to see what you

Speaker 3 (00:33):

Do without that feeling of awkwardness, without feeling icky and doing it in a way that feels really good for you. So, first of all, I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that supported the podcast so far, it’s been an amazing launch. Uh, we’re in the top five in, um, on iTunes, under management. We are also, we’ve been on the bestsellers page next to incredible people like Denise Duffield Thomas, Lisa Johnson. And I was next to Simon Sineck for a few days as well. So that’s been absolutely incredible, but I would urge you just to keep sharing, keep sending this to people that you think this could help. And obviously I work predominantly women, but this can help men and lead shipment help them support their female colleagues as well. So thank you for an incredible start, but it’s just the beginning. So let’s keep going and keep the focus.

Speaker 3 (01:22):

So back to today, self promotion without feeling icky and the overall kind of focus for today is just to really help you to see that it’s not enough just to do a good job. It’s not enough just to give so much and to really, really just trust others and leave it with them. Leave it with your peers, leave it with your senior team, your reputation and how people view you. So it’s not enough to leave it just down to your hard work. It’s not enough to leave just down to doing a great job at delivering on budget and in time, but it’s not enough just to trust others. We’ll talk about you in the way that you want to be talked about and recognize and respect in the way that you want to be whilst you’re not in the room. And when you do that, you’re leaving your hands.

Speaker 3 (02:09):

You’re leaving your career in the hands of others. And I know that many women find it hard to self promote feels awkward. It feels icky. You might be of the generation. Don’t be arrogant. No one likes to be hard. No one likes to show off, but you don’t want to leave it to hopes and prayers. And you don’t want to leave. It’s being talked about when you’re not in the room and just hoping and wishing, and just doing a great job and giving so much of yourself an almost think of it. It’s like two sides of a coin you can deliver on time and in budget and make this incredible impact in your organization. That’s one part of it being incredible at your job, but then the other part is also telling the world. So it’s really today. I want the biggest message you take away from today.

Speaker 3 (02:54):

It’s your responsibility to create your reputation by what you say, what you think, what you feel and what you do in doing a great job, but then also telling people and doing it in a way that doesn’t feel icky, uncomfortable, and awkward, but in a way that feels good. Uh, it flows from the heart. And just in a way that you know, that you can keep nudging and you can keep going with, so think of it in this way, you are the custodian of your reputation. So you can do that for you’re doing a great job to create that respect and recognition, but you also need to tell people what you’re doing. So just to introduce today’s subject as well, before I chat up, this might resonate with a few of you, but I know for me, when I worked in corporate world, so I had a 16 year corporate marketing career, um, and I ran multi-million pound launches, a big household names.

Speaker 3 (03:43):

So I, I would be the person I would be given a launch. I would be given a product. I would be given some commercials and I would be given a date and a budget to run a multi-million pound launch. And I had to deliver on time, had to deliver a budget. And I also had to live, uh, alone. So we’ll get a really positive ROI because that was how, how I got the support across the business. And I loved what I did for a long, long time. I really loved being in the moment. I really loved seeing something come together that had just been an idea and I loved brand new to the market launches. I loved, we had one particular new technology to the market launch, and that was one of my favorite launches. It was a 10 million pound launch, and that was something that was brand new, that was going to help customers in a way that they’d never been helped before.

Speaker 3 (04:31):

And that I love because I was given this big rematch, we ran them a smaller launch and it went south. And so while we got press coverage, we ended up on BBC warm. All the business were behind us customer service teams, loved it cause they fixed the issue and hadn’t been able to fix before. So we had this just support across the business. It’s almost like you’re just riding on a wave of support that led to some really incredible success. And me being on radio on of the day of launch and also giving a keynote presentation, a huge tech conference geeking out, but also as part of that launch, it also, I needed to not only, not only know my role in it and deliver on it, but I also needed to be able to tell other people about it. So I know for me, in my annual performance reviews, I always felt like I was going into battle and I really hated them.

Speaker 3 (05:18):

I felt like I was going in to be half my performance dissected. It always felt like a battle. I always needed to be armored up and prepared for it. And I always felt like I needed to defend what I knew I delivered even with the most supportive boss is still felt like a real fight to be recognized and to be respected in the way that I knew that I deserve to be and to be seen ready for the next step in a really competitive environments. And it felt really icky and awkward to really own my achievements and talk myself up. And every year I over-delivered. Yeah, I was under-recognized and that really lied with me. There’s no one else to blame. And when I look back now with a different perspective, I can see that a lot of that was with me to be in that mode of over delivering and doing a brilliant job, but being under-recognized.

Speaker 3 (06:11):

And I couldn’t just rely on going to those annual performance reviews and hoping and wishing and being really defensive and have laid out my case and being armored up. But actually what I needed to have done was be really sharing the great job that I was doing. I needed to be doing that for the whole year and not just relying on those performance reviews. And I thought that doing a great job was enough. I thought that would get me notice and that would help people see my senior team, especially see that I was ready for the next opportunity. And yeah, and those performance reviews you’re benchmarked across the business. You’re benchmarked across a whole range of different people. And if I wasn’t, I was not actively going out and promoting myself and what I was doing and the brilliant things I was doing. So it meant there was a mismatch when it came into those performance reviews and it left me so frustrated, it made me feel like I was failing.

Speaker 3 (07:04):

It made me really berate myself. I’m really hating myself because I was see my less talented male colleagues or other colleagues get promoted that hadn’t delivered as much, that hadn’t had that same impact, but they were doing that part. They were doing that self promotion, I assume, doing that good job. That was enough. And it really wasn’t. And it’s the same for you. And I say this absolute love. I say this with absolute experience, knowledge and understanding of the corporate world. I assumed that it was enough to do a good job and trust others with my reputation. It really, really wasn’t. The truth was I was leaving my reputation to luck. I was trusting others to speak for me, my mentors and my senior managers. And I was making assumptions about how I was perceived rather than taking time to craft that, to nurture it, to grow and develop my reputation.

Speaker 3 (07:56):

And ultimately my reputation was my responsibility to show up, to share what I’d been doing to really speak up and to shake things up. So today I’m going to help you get past that feeling of self promotion, being icky. That’s my intention to stay, get past that feeling of it being awkward and uncomfortable. So I’m going to talk about today. What is self operation? Let’s get really clear on what it is. Let’s get clear that on why it’s important. Then I’m going to talk about why it’s a struggle female leaders. Um, and then I’m going to talk about five steps. I’ve helped my clients with, to really own their self promotion in a powerful way. So let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with, let’s go to the English dictionary and start with a definition of self promotion. So self promotion is the action of promoting or publicizing oneself one’s activities, especially in a forceful way.

Speaker 3 (08:50):

And I think when I read this definition part that made me uncomfortable in that forceful way, because that’s not how I see self promotion. I see self promotion very much as building on closing a perception gap. I see so many female leaders that are incredibly capable that are very senior in organizations. I just, I’ve spoken to a couple of women this week about potentially work with me in September. And there is this perception gap. I see it so often between how you see yourself and how others see you. So you see yourself through a certain lens in a certain way, and that’s based on your old beliefs and your old stories. So it might be that you assume that your you’re awful at numbers. It might be that you tell yourself a story you’re not great in depression. It might be that you’re telling yourself you’re over emotional.

Speaker 3 (09:40):

So your perception of yourself has got you to where you are, but it’s not going to get you to where you want to be. So that needs to, we need to close that gap because others are seeing you as this powerful female leader. They’re seeing you as someone with impact, with influence that can really make a full spear force for good in the organization. But you’re not seeing yourself as that. So really I would really invite you to think of self promotion in this different way. Think of it as you are going to close that gap between how you see yourself and how others see, I’m thinking of it as leading from the heart. Because like I said, it’s two parts at the same coin. It’s two sides of the same coin. You’re doing a great job. You’re delivering on time and in budget, you’re having this great impact.

Speaker 3 (10:23):

You’re helping set the direction of the business. You’re setting the strategy for your area. You’re doing those brilliant things, but if you’re not telling people and it’s just happening, you are not fulfilling your potential. You’re not just really following through on that second part, do a great job. Yes. But you also need to tell people about it. And like I said, it doesn’t need to be an icky awkward way. So why is it important? Why is it so, so key for you as a female leader to really own your own self promotion? And like I said, the statement I would love you to take out today is that your reputation is your responsibility. Why is it so important? So first of all, corporate world is still an incredibly competitive world. It’s still a world where it’s great to be doing a good job, but you also need to speak up.

Speaker 3 (11:15):

You also need to be visible. And I know for me, I got the feedback when I was having my reviews a lot of the time, just about increasing my visibility and that always frustrated me because it wasn’t tangible. But again, I can look back now with a different perspective and think actually that wasn’t just about giving more or longer hours that was actually about being confident to speak up. It was about demanding bigger projects. It was, it was, that was all with me. And I wasn’t necessarily always doing that. I was often had down busy working long hours, delivering on my projects in time and in budget, but it needed to be more than that when I say more, not more time, more impactful. Why else is it important? I think with women as well, there’s a lot of stereotypes around how we work and how our, how our, what particular traits women work from and that, that more feminine style of leadership.

Speaker 3 (12:08):

And I covered this one, I talked about toxic gender stereotypes, but for me, it’s about stepping past those stereotypes. And the traits associated with female leaders tend to be around empathy and intuition and listening more compassion and care, and they can be seen as skills that are quite, they’re not as action-orientated, they’re more from the heart. They’re more about compassion and feeling, but don’t, and let’s not underestimate how powerful they are. And if we go back to the premise from that podcast episode, it’s not about being a leader that is particularly in one type of skill set and, and traits. It’s actually about being a rounded leader that when you need to be more doing energy masculine energy, you are when you need to be more feminine energy, you are, and you know how to balance those out. So it’s important because we need to help step past those female stereotypes and the assumptions about female leaders and aspiring leaders.

Speaker 3 (13:05):

Another reason why it’s so important, because we quite often see men promoted on potential women promoted on performance. So women are out there proving themselves again and again in a gang, whereas potential can be seen in men. And that’s what they’re promoted on. So really owning that self-promotion is going to help again, bridge that gap and help with that, the gender pay gap and just that the numbers and the stats around men in leadership versus women in leadership and leading on from that, this was something that I was researching last week that just astounded me. Um, and I think this needs to be a whole podcast episode in itself, but there’s 136 year gender pay gap based on current trends. So if companies, there’s this focus on the gender pay gap, now companies need to report on it. It’s a separate report as part of the annual report.

Speaker 3 (13:57):

And it’s something that’s very much looked at by the press. It’s very much looked at people that are going for interviews, but with current trends and current ways of thinking and current progress, the gender pay gap will be here for another hundred and 36 years. So it’s not even my, my children’s generation, it’s three or four generations down the line that likes you start to see that gender pay gap closed and it, then it doesn’t even become about the gender pay gap. It becomes about a gender equality across the entire spectrum. As such gender spectrum continues to grow and evolve. Why is it all important? Also important? It’s also important because you can be the world’s best kept secret. Like I said, it’s two sides of the same coin. Do a great job, deliver, be phenomenal at what you do, but also you need to tell people you don’t succeed.

Speaker 3 (14:46):

If you keep yourself a secret. And that’s probably more challenging there than in the flexible work and world that we’re part of right now, and that working from home, or that may be hybrid of working from home and in the office. So you can’t keep yourself a secret and you probably need to be more proactive than ever with the flexible working or the hybrid working. But it’s very much in the corporate world now, and that is such an important topic. I’ve got amazing guests, I suppose. It’s going to be on the soon to talk about that. So the tree fairs really the truth is here, that it’s not, it’s still not enough to leave this to others. It’s still not enough lead. It’s leave your reputation to wishing, to hoping to luck, tap to however people, how other people might talk about you. And it’s something that I see my clients struggle with a gang and a gang, and it’s reflected in those numbers.

Speaker 3 (15:38):

We’ve been the senior leadership within the corporate world because at its heart is so a man’s world. So my challenge to any of you listening today is to really start to own your reputation, think of your reputation as being your responsibility and really to help not only your career moving forwards and being offered more senior roles, but also to role model and set the way for future female leaders as well. So why did female senior leaders really struggled to promote themselves to self promote? It’s, it’s a whole mixture of things and it’s quite complicated. But first of all, just to say, if you struggle to self promote and really own your impact and tell people about it, then you’re certainly not alone. And it’s really, it’s an epidemic that’s ongoing within women in senior leadership to feel uncomfortable sharing and downplaying that impact and that influence.

Speaker 3 (16:31):

So there’s some new research that have come out for, from Harvard of find when it comes to self-promotion women, systematically rate themselves lower than men, even when the work they do is objectively better. So this was an experiment that was done. So for a series of questions, women outperform men in the answers to those questions yet where men reflected back men gave themselves an average score of 61 women gave themselves average score of 45. So that is a 16 point difference. And that is again, part of why we stop itself, right? We just don’t see the impact and the influence that we have. And that, that to me, that experiment just kind of sums it all up. That that is the work that my mission is focused on doing. And that is also the gap that we really need to close. So what is behind this?

Speaker 3 (17:22):

Why do female leaders struggle to self promote? If you think about the role modeling we’ve had for our lives may as a 45 year old woman. I know for me, I had the very amazing example. I had an incredible childhood. I was very blessed. I was raised on the beach, there’s a CorVel and my mum gave up work for the first four years, my first four years until I went to school. And that was the role model that I saw is that her career came after my dad’s career. And she’s actually said to me, since she felt like she never got the opportunities that I’ve had, and she’s very proud of me, but she feels like she’s missed out. And actually, if it was a different generation, would that have been different. And as much as she was incredible role model as a mother and as a homemaker and just, just really making us feel safe and secure, I also saw that she didn’t feel enough.

Speaker 3 (18:17):

I also saw that she felt like she missed out on her career. I also felt like I saw her put herself down. So I also saw her then later in life do GCSE just for our own sense of fulfillment and our own sense of value and worth. So there’s very much the role models that we see around us, just a particular generation. I’m sure that will start to shift as generation start to shift. And I’m sure it’s different for new generations coming through. There’s also the childhood childhood beliefs that we all still hold and that will, those can really, really hold us back. So think about for you. What did you see growing up? What was you, who were your role models? What was your mum role modeling to you, or did you ever have other strong females in the family? And did you see women being applauded for being selfish for putting others first for negating their own needs and picking themselves lower down the priority list?

Speaker 3 (19:12):

So really think about what do you think your belief framework is and what do you think the role models that you had the have instilled the beliefs that you have now? So we’ve got the beliefs, we’ve got the role models. Why else do we think it’s, it’s been really, it’s challenging for female leaders to self promote. I think another big one is the fear of being judged. The fear of being judged for being arrogant after a lifetime of being praised for being, having humility, being Modeste and almost being taught to downplay a particular skill that we have. So maybe it was you as whole. Don’t be so bossy, don’t be so loud or little girls are meant to be seen and not heard. And all of those things really keeps, keeps women stuck in jobs below their capability. Whilst they’re less talented, peers are being promoted above them because those beliefs are who am I to step forward?

Speaker 3 (20:04):

Who am I to really own my skill and my expertise, who am I to have that level of impact and influence? And the big message that I would really love is to think about is who are you not to? Who are you not to? What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for permission from? You’re not going to suddenly wake up one day and you know, the sun is out, the pigs are flying in the sky and you are just anointed that you are ready. You are capable, you are bold, you are brilliant. You have to step into owning that. And that’s a huge part of what I help my clients do. So for example, I worked with a client who worked incredibly hard for the business. She was part of for five years, and she was one of the most senior females and she report it to the board and she was giving so much for herself.

Speaker 3 (20:51):

She was at the point where she was feeling frustrated and it was only actually when she was forced to take some time off of how, for reasons that she was then invited to become part of the board, the role that she, she knew she could have had a few years before. And it almost took her stepping out on the business for those conversations to not only happen, but to really come to fruition. And for her to get that invites board, she’d been waiting for for a long, long time. And also for her to go on a journey of really getting confident in her skills and her ability owning her impact, owning an influence to really know that she not only deserved it, but she could step into it and own it right now. So how can female leaders start to self promote? How can you start to do it in a way that feels right for you?

Speaker 3 (21:36):

So at the heart of this is all about starting with you. It’s about you role modeling self-promoting, but with confidence in who you are and clarity in what you want and really owning your influence and impact without feeling icky, without feeling shameful. So before you actually start self promote, like we said, look at those beliefs, look at your role models. Look at any stories that you might have that are holding you back. They’re stopping you and big message from stays. This it’s your responsibility, create your reputation by what you say, thing and feeling do. And you are that custodian of your reputation to create the respect and recognition and recognition you deserve right here right now and not owning. It leaves the ratio of men and women across the corporate world. The same of men, just having that higher perspective of self that we’ve talked about.

Speaker 3 (22:29):

And that was in that exam experiment. Even if it’s not a higher level of performance, they just have that more ready confidence. They just have that sense of I’ll give it a try. What’s the worst that can happen. So don’t take this as an accusation. This is not about shame or blame. It’s a call to arms to really own your boldness and your brilliance and to role model south, promoting your impact and influence to start to change that ratio and to have the career that leaves you feeling on fire, having that impact, influence that you know, that you deserve and the income as a result. So how can you start to self promote without that awkwardness and feeling icky? So, first point I want to talk about is really owning it, your performance, as I’ve talked about a few times today, already, your performance will not speak for itself, hitting goals, delivering them brilliantly and boldly time after time is not enough.

Speaker 3 (23:26):

So share your success, talk it up trust more than ever taking your reputation into your hands. And that could start with something small. So that might be accepting, compliment, acknowledging your role in a recent success, putting your hand up and saying that you delivered this and not attributing it all to your team, but you really starting with some of those smaller things to build into really owning your reputation. So point number two is all about promoting your performance. So start to share your wins. So if you’ve had a compliment from a client, if you’ve had some great feedback, if you’ve saved the company money, if you’ve changed the process, if you’ve set in place a new strategy, share it with your team, share it with your boss, share it on a company newsletter, share it on the company intranet. And if it helps think that you’re sharing your wins will make that path easier for other women.

Speaker 3 (24:21):

So you’re not only doing this for yourself, you’re doing this for the future leaders as well and make it the norm instead of never. And start to get past that feeling of awkwardness and achiness, the more that you do it, the easier it will become. And it will become second nature. Point number three is create a list of wins. So sit down and write out a list of your wins in life. So your achievements challenges, you’ve overcome what you’re proud of things that you’ve done, how you’ve changed the world. And you can take this all the way from your childhood through to now. So from all the way from when you were young, all the way through to now, they can be big. They can be small. The point is, these are your wins. And this is a lady who you already are. This is who you are right here right now.

Speaker 3 (25:05):

And in that is your value and worth. And on the days you don’t feel it and you feel awkward about parading yourself and what you’ve done, or you don’t believe it. And you’re not owning it. Go back and read these to really start to unlock that inner Beyonce and start to own that strap around the office and start to own your value on your worth and role model it to everyone else and keep adding slight lists as you grow as well. Point number four is dare to be brave. So you put your hand up more for the opportunities that scare you a little bit, the, our, restretch it fill out outside of your comfort zone. And in doing that, you can start to think of all the reasons why you are the person for that big new role. You can see the possibilities more. You can just know that it’s not just potential within you, but you’re also performing and start to demonstrate to people around the business.

Speaker 3 (25:53):

This is who you are, and they’ll know your name, a new, develop, a reputation, and take a step at a time and nudge yourself towards it. And if you feel scared, that’s okay, because fear is simply that growing pain that you’re becoming more impactful and more influential. So own it. Uninvited point number five is final. One is all about your support crew. So have your support crew ready to cheer you on and promote you in a way that feels good. So that could be a mental, I know for me during my corporate career, I had some incredible mentors, men and women that just have this huge impact on me, helped me with creating my, my way of leading, but they also, they would be talking me up. They would be putting my name forward for opportunities. And that was in a really feel-good way because I had great relationships with them.

Speaker 3 (26:38):

Um, it might also be a female pair. It might be a long time friend, or it might be someone more senior than you and have those people that are there that see your impact and influence, but also people that don’t necessarily know you, especially when you start a new organization, can you go round and meet your peers? Can you book some time with the more senior members of the team and really start to build your reputation and own it? If you’re still not ready to self-promote my final thing. I was stage just like, what is it costing you to say, Modbus and meek? What is it costing you to hide a way your boldness and your brilliance? How is it affecting you and how you’re feeling? How’s it affecting your energy? How is it affecting your career and how you feel about it? And the final point that I want to say is just a little bit woo, but also to remember you are a beautiful free nature for even being here, your mom and your dad doing that thing in that moment make you, that’s a 400 trillion to one freak of nature.

Speaker 3 (27:34):

And there’s a reason that you’re here and there’s a reason that you exist. And with that comes hope and light that you bring to make a difference to the world, to be a force for good to make changes in the corporate world. It might be nice. You just might need a little bit of work to see it and own it. And a little bit of time to find that fire again. So that’s it for today. I would love to know what you think. I think this is such an important subject. If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the moment as a female leader, you can download my overwhelms on fire five step guide. So it’s 10 minutes just to clear your head and start. Then you can start to really promote yourself. And if you’d like to know more about working with me, drop me a message, or drop me an email, or drop me a message. And I would love to speak to you because I think this is so, so important. And next week, um, we are going to be talking all about the myth and the lie of balance for female, senior leaders in the corporate world and why it’s not actually a thing to aspire to. So the final message for today is your reputation is your responsibility.

Speaker 2 (28:34):

It’s not enough to do a good job to leave it to others. I’d hope that your reputation will speak for you when you’re not in the room. Do that for yourself and take it into it. [inaudible].