Nicola: [00:00:00] hi, welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. I’m your host. I’m Nicola Buckley. I am the coach working with women at the top of organizations, helping them to find their first, that passion, that purpose and excitement so that they can have more impact and influence and drive positive change. So today we have another leadership lesson and we have been talking about selfless.

And today wants to talk about why women struggle with self-leadership and why it seems so difficult to put yourself further up the priority list. And it’s partly some client stories that I want to kind of share, but there’s also the neuroscience that sits behind there sudden, you know, that I’m, I am, uh, a neuroscience geek and it’s what I love, but I also think it’s really important to understand that in this context, So why do women struggle with that self lead share?

What is [00:01:00] struggle to prioritize? So from a neuroscience perspective, The male and female brain is slightly different. So the male brain is very much focused on action is it’s very much driven by the animal brain and instant reaction driven by the need for safety and protecting others. So that means that men can be very, it can be reactive, but into straight into the action mode, maybe that emotion without feeling so much as women on the other side of that, women are very much driven by a different part of the brain, which is proportionally bigger for them compared to.

And that is the mammalian part of the brain, the mammalian part of the brain, kind of in the middle of your head. And that part developed when we lived in cave. Scabber so is all about you knowing where you fit in the social hierarchy, you knowing that you had a safe space as part of a group, knowing that you were going to be, you’re going to survive and you are going to evolve and grow because you were part of a bigger community.

So, what that means is that women are hardwired, we’re hardwired, [00:02:00] and we’re designed to actually care more about what people think we’re designed to put others. First, we’re designed to worry about what’s going on with someone else over ourselves and what we need, because that part of the brain is pushing bigger.

So we care. We spend more time thinking about. Well, she said, or I think they mean, or what to say in that email or how’s this going to how’s this presentation going to affect someone else? So it means that women can really struggle with south leadership because we are. Hardwired and wheel designed to pit other people’s thoughts and knees above our own.

It’s how we are being designed. So this isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility to think about and consider and change what you need to do. But we struggle to prioritize ourselves because we have that instinctively within us, put others first, add to that. Also, the other reason we really struggle with Southeast.

It’s because we have seen it for our lives at [00:03:00] women. Self-sacrifice that we marked for ourselves. So we pay all needs below other people. So if I think about me growing up and I know many clients resonate with this one, we talk about it. My mum gave up work for four years by my brother and I were young.

So whilst we were babies and then growing up until we went to school, my mom stayed at home with us. So she gave up her. She stopped her career. She just put it on hold because what did the family need? Are they needed her to be at home a bit, stay at home mum. So it meant dad was the main earner and he would be our work every day.

Whereas mum would stay at home with us and look after us. So that was the framework that I grew up with where mum had her own needs and wants. But actually she put them probably as a lesser priority than what we needed as a family. And many women of all generation have grown up with that sense of, yeah.

I can’t say what I want, because it might upset the one. I can’t say what I want because it’s not the societal of norm. I can’t say what I want because it’s going to be, it’s [00:04:00] going to impact on someone else negatively. I can’t say what I want because that’s selfish. I can’t say what I want because that’s not being a good person.

If I’m selfish, I’m not a good person. And actually these are all mess at society that are the societal norms that we’re then internalizing us our own story. So that means that we, women can really struggle with self leadership. We can put all needs and our priority at the bottom. Of everything else. And just to share a client story just in today’s leadership lesson, um, and this is the story that I’ve shared, what I’ve been given presentations to corporate clients.

Um, and there’s 1 60, 1 of our international women’s day. And we talk about prioritize yourself and shared this story about a client and a client. I worked with a long time ago when I first started coaching. And that client was an incredible woman and she had this great role in London. She had this beautiful family.

Um, she had so many positive things and she was just brilliant. She had this great energy to [00:05:00] be around, but when we talked about prioritizing herself, why she was feeling so tired and why she couldn’t necessarily commit to focusing on her health, what it came down to was she was at the bottom of our priority list.

So when we went through and actually wrote down her priority list, there was her daughter, there was her husband. That was her family. Then there was the house, but above us up before she even mentioned us out, she prioritized her cat. She pet her cat as a priority over herself. And that to me just is that reflection of women struggling with that.

Self-leadership with that sense of like, I am, I am the heartbeat. I’m the center of my own life. And this is what I, a gang. I spent a lot of time working with clients on this because women can spend an awful lot of time leading their life externally. You know, what do people need from me? Who do I need to be to please others?

Who do I need to be to fit? [00:06:00] Who do I need to be to meet expectations and that’s very much leading life externally. Whereas once you get to, when you start to leave with that self self-leadership, you start to lead life internally, you start to become crystal clear on what is for you. You start to become equally clear what isn’t for you.

You start to have that self belief and confidence that I’ve talked about a lot in these leadership lessons that you know yourself, that you can stand proud and tall behind who you are. ’cause you, you have that sense of self-leadership and you’ll live, you’re leading your life internally and you’re listening to heart and what you need giving yourself what you need when you need it.

So that’s it for today. Today’s lesson was really leadership. Lesson was all about why do women struggle with self leadership? So we’ve talked to. Societal norms. Uh, we’ve talked about what you might have seen in your family, and we’ve also talked about the neuroscience, so I’d love to know what you think and what resonates with you.

Um, all my contact details are on the show notes or the [00:07:00] self-leadership is something that you struggle with. Just drop me a message. We can book a call and then we can chat about how I might be able to help you all contact details and the show notes. And we have one final leadership lesson that’s going to focus on self-leadership and that’s going to be steps to becoming that self.

Thanks so much. Bye

If what I took about really resonates with you and you love what I have to say, and you have moments and flashes of inspiration from the podcast. I would invite you to get in touch, to find out how I can help you. So individually, that can be through my coaching focused program for my VIP program, depending on how you like to learn and what will suit you, or I can help you in your organization to really help the women that you work with across the organization at all different levels.

And at that very senior level to really feel empowered and to know that they [00:08:00] can reach the very, the most senior levels in that organization and to give them the. In who they are and the clarity, what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops, do that through leadership programs, and we can do that.

Free consulting work. If you are looking for help with any of that, drop me an email nycla@nicholasschoolco.com. The spelling is not the easiest. So all the details are in the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’d been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being offered three dreams. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into a bigger organization and a bigger role with a bigger pay rise and just a quote from a client that I particularly. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being really happy and she is an incredibly empowered leader.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelmed on fire guide the details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you everyday to stay in your fire. So it helps you to [00:09:00] clear your head. It helps you to come back to what’s important to you, and it helps you to have that most impact and influence every single day.

It’s a little Quip sheet that you can just go through and tick. So go and download that. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter, which comes out every Friday, which is a Roundup of the week. Really. So what’s going on in my world. What’s the blog for that week, a quick video, that’s going to help your particular subject.

And it’s all about helping female leaders to find their fire and also stats and any research from the industry as well. And things that I’m reading that I really like. Um, recommendations that we’re making. So go and subscribe to that. And finally, for the podcast, if you haven’t done so already, I would love you to go and leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

And you’re always going to have the one that release and doing that as well. Not only helps you, but it also means that we’re going to reach more women and we’re going to be able to start that revolution to helping female leaders, to keep that fire, find their [00:10:00] fire and keep it. Keep that passion, that purpose side excitement.

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