Are you sick of feeling underestimated at work and struggling to get your voice heard? Well, let that be a bane of the past, as you deserve to be heard and have the power within you to take radical responsibility of your career. Here to help you take authority over your life is a women leadership coach, trainer, keynote speaker, podcast host and Amazon best-selling author, Carla Miller. Carla is a woman on a mission to empower women in their careers, close the rife influence gap in workplaces and make workplaces better environments for women.

Throughout the discussion, Carla delves into women in leadership, shutting down the authority gap and the ongoing battle against hepeating and conversational manspreading at work. Carla unpacks how you hold power to change whatever is not working for you and reveals must-know tips on quietening your inner critic and amplifying your influence. Further key points throughout include:

- An introduction to Carla Miller

- Women at work: getting your voice heard

- The key to strengthening your influence at work

- The real and rife issue of gender bias in the workplace

- Workplace responsibility and the cloak of authority

- Mastering your personal leadership brand

- Carla's top tips for building strategic relationships

- The power of seeking out a sponsor

- The Queen Bee syndrome: Build up your cheerleading squad

- Radical responsibility: Moving beyond victimhood

- What being happier at work means to Carla?

"That is the brilliant thing about leading. We have the power to create change. And it can be really easy sometimes to get stuck in this isn't fair or this isn't right, but actually, we can often change things." – Carla Miller.

THE LISTENERS SAY:

Do you have any feedback or thoughts on this discussion? If so, please connect with Aoife via the links below and let her know. Aoife would love to hear from you!

Resources:

https://happieratwork.ie/136-excel-in-your-zone-of-genius-with-ian-hatton/

https://happieratwork.ie/138-stop-being-overlooked-at-work-with-paula-sheridan/

Book: The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart

https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Gap-women-still-seriously/dp/0857527568

Book: Why Men Win at Work by Gill Whitty Collins

https://gillwhittycollins.com/why-men-win-at-work

https://gretchenrubin.com/

Connect with Carla Miller:

https://www.carlamillertraining.com/

https://www.carlamillertraining.com/podcast

https://www.carlamillertraining.com/book

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlamiller1/

Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O'Brien:

https://www.happieratwork.ie

https://www.impostersyndrome.ie

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien

https://www.twitter.com/HappierAtWorkHQ

https://www.instagram.com/happieratwork.ie

https://www.facebook.com/groups/happieratworkpodcast

Do you know how much imposter syndrome is costing your business? The thing with imposter syndrome is that we don't know from the outside who is experiencing imposter syndrome at any given time. On a recent study that I carried out, employees describe their experience of imposter syndrome is feeling really anxious and feeling really stressed. Imposter syndrome is known to be linked with burnout because we tend to want to hide our imposter syndrome by overworking. And another symptom of imposter syndrome is that we're not sharing our ideas, and so our voices don't get heard at work. The company that we work for becomes therefore less innovative. Imposter syndrome occurs at all levels within organisations. And it's especially prevalent when we start a new role, when we start a new company. And it can become really debilitating when we are promoted to a position. If you'd like to know more about the work that I do with organisations when it comes to imposter syndrome to identifying it to managing, to overcoming it, please check out my website impostersyndrome.ie. You're listening to the Happier at Work podcast. I'm your host, AoifeO'Brien, this is the podcast for leaders who put people first. The podcast covers four broad themes, engagement and belonging, performance and productivity, leadership, equity, and the future of work. Everything to do with the happier at work podcast relates to employee retention. You can find out more at happieratwork.ie.

And that has served me well not to get promoted, but to just change faces for the better. And I think that is the brilliant thing about leading, we have the power to create change. And it can be really easy sometimes to get stuck in this isn't fair or this isn't right. But actually, we can often change things.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Happier at Work podcast. I am so thrilled that you decided to tune in today. Hopefully the title of today's podcast caught your attention. And my guest today is Carla Miller, we talk all things women in leadership, how to progress in your career, how to manage those tricky situations, and really how to take responsibility and grow your career. As always, I will be sharing the podcast across social media. And I'd love for you to get involved in the conversation if you have any insights to add or anything that you learned from the podcast. Or simply if you want to share an experience that you've had with other people within my audience. I really, really love to get you involved in the conversation. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Aoife O'Brien and I also post on Instagram. That's happieratwork.ie. You'll also find all of my social links on the website happieratwork.ie. So definitely head over there to check that out. Carla, welcome to the Happier at Work podcast, I'm thrilled to have you as my guest today. Earlier this year, I was I was on your podcast as well. So it's brilliant to kind of be turning the tables now we're able to ask you a lot of questions. Do you want to give people a little bit of a flavor of your background and how you got into doing what you're doing?

Sure. And your episode was super popular on my podcast. So I'm hoping was going to be super popular on yours as well. And so yes, my name is Carla Miller. I'm a women's leadership and empowerment coach. And my own background is I was a leader in the charity sector. So I was a fundraising director, I've raised ru working with amazing teams about 20 million pounds for good causes over the years. And I found myself as a director at 29. And also looking very young, so probably about 25 at the time, regularly being underestimated by the people I was in a room with. Maybe they were older than me, maybe they were more male know me. I was certainly spending a lot of time with a lot of donors and trustees who were men in their 50s 60s. And who really questioned what someone of my age and experience could bring to the table. So sometimes I found it hard to get my voice heard. And sometimes I found it hard to have that kind of natural gravitas and credibility. And even though I knew that I was good at my job when my voice wasn't being heard, it caused me to experience quite a lot of imposter feelings which I know you talk about a lot, a lot of self doubt because even though you know you're good at what you do when you are not getting that validation back when you feel like no one is really recognising that value that I'm adding to the organisation or the value my team is adding to the organisation It can make you think, well, it must be because there's something wrong with me, I'm obviously not good enough. So what I need to do is to work harder, and to prove to myself and everyone else that I deserve to be here. And I felt very alone in that at the time. But no, I've worked with 1000s of women. And I know that that gender bias I was experiencing, is real and rife, and that there are many women out there who are doing what I did, and internalising it, and making it mean something about us. So I was lucky enough to get a coach who helped me to work on my confidence, work on my perfectionism, and the overworking side of things. And when I identified I really needed to learn to influence people, if I was going to be as good at my job as I wanted to be, I needed to learn how to get my voice heard. And that's why I focused on doing and when I did that, and got good at that. My career trajectory just improved. So much I ended up as the Chief Exec of a charity, I moved into the recruitment sector. And the people that had taught me recruitment, I was then the managing director a year later. But by then I learned how to have that credibility and gravitas and get people on board with me. So since then, I've worked with lots of very senior boards, I run workshops now in global companies, which I still can't believe I actually get to do and I'm credible doing that the imposter feelings still come up every now and then. And but yeah, I'll run workshops in house for women on confidence, leadership. And then I have open programs, as well, a podcast of my own, Influence and Impact, which generally sits in the top 20 of the apple management charts, they have a new book called Closing the influence gap, which is a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard. So I guess the book is what I wish I'd had in my first management job. And when I was first a director, and when I was promoted, above my peers, and I just wanted a handbook to tell me how to deal with all these situations. And so I've created that handbook for other people now.

Love it and it's, it's so interesting to say that I think it's something that's really important, and maybe you don't realise, and you know, when you're talking about being that younger person, gender is different to those who are in the more senior positions, or the people who you're dealing with the feelings that we get of no one's listening to me, because they they're perceiving me as being a young woman, as I say, young girl, young woman, you know, and and you're not getting heard I can, you know, when you're talking about those kinds of things, I'm just, I'm feeling that, that it's like, oh, it's so frustrating. And how do you actually make that happen? So you said that, like, one of the first steps that you took was, was getting a coach, but in that process of, of being able to influence people a little bit more, what were the kind of steps that you took to to get there, and I suppose, like, maybe this is the the outline of the book, or this is some of the chapters in the book or something like that. But I'm just really curious to know, because I'm sure so many people listening today, they'll just what, you know, they could be feeling exactly that that way, or they've reached a more senior position, they're not being taken seriously. They're not feeling that their voice is being heard. Rather than kind of blaming the environment that they find themselves in, what can they themselves do to create better influence at work?

Sure. So the book is structured to deal with exactly that. And it's the same structure I use in my influence and impact program as well. So it starts with doing the inner work. And so recognising that gender bias exists, absolutely. So that then we can look at, well, how have I responded to that in a way that hasn't helped me? So it might be that we have a sense that we don't belong in organisations, so we find it harder to speak up, and then we tell ourselves, we have to be 100%, right? To speak up, if I'm not completely sure, I'm not gonna raise my hand. Or it could be we tell ourselves, we're not gonna go for that next job, because I need more skills, more experience more qualifications in order to feel good enough. So now, there are lots of ways that we have started thinking about things which aren't serving us in coaching, we call that those unhelpful beliefs. So the first step is really seeing yourself as the leader, you are because so many of us are like, people aren't listening to us, but then we're really doubting ourselves as well. So for me, that's about recognising we all have what I am many coaches called an inner critic, that really vocal negative voice in our head, and I share various exercises to help you learn how to turn down the volume on that and make your peace with your inner critic. And then I introduce people to their inner leader so that calm, confident, wise part of ourselves that we would love to be able to access on demand, but we haven't learned to do that yet. And instead, that inner critic is much more vocal. So helping people to tune into that, understanding what particular stories they have that are creating those impostor feelings for them, and helping them rewrite those stories, but also put some really practical things in place to prevent you repeating those patterns over and over again. So for example, affirmations like, I don't have to know all the answers to be able to add value, or I don't have to be the most experienced person in the room, I can add value right now. So really, really simple things. So that's like a step one is seeing yourself as a leader and doing that inner work, not because you're broken, not because you need fixing. But because you've been trying really hard to belong in an environment that was not designed with you in mind, or working environment, even with all the progress we have made. And I'm making is still basically it was designed by men, for men and for men that had a housewife at home, doing everything for them. So it's about undoing that damage and reminding yourself you are good, you do know what you're talking about, and you deserve to be heard. And then the second part of the book is about getting others to see you as a leader. And I see this a lot with women. And again, society has trained us to be much more comfortable with responsibility than we are with taking authority. So we'll say yes, to all of those tasks, and all the stress that comes with a job. But when it comes to actually asking someone really clearly to do something, holding them accountable, if they won't do it, giving really clear feedback, some of us really struggle to do that. Because we really want to be liked. Society tells us we need to be likable to succeed in the workplace. And so we struggle to have those difficult conversations. So for me, it's about stepping into that authority that comes with your role. And there are various tools to do that. And learning to delegate effectively, as well, particularly as you go up, it's less about what you can do and more about what you can help others to deliver Yeah, and then step three is about increasing your influence and your impact. And that's about strategic relationship building. Because women, we don't tend to do that we tend to be focused on serving our team a lot of the time. And we're not making space to build those strategic relationships. And then often are they prioritise that strategic relationship building, how to influence anyone, and how to speak the language of senior stakeholders so that you feel confident, speaking up. And then the fourth part of the book is about taking control of your career, having those career conversations because we have them less often, and being able to negotiate your salary preparing for promotion? And then how do you succeed in those first 90 days, in your new job, what's going to be your personal leadership brand in that job? So that's fundamentally the structure that I work through. And then we've got a troubleshooting section at the end of the book, which is all those things. You probably can't ask anyone, but you'd like to know the answer to so I don't get on with my boss. What do I do about that? Or how do I get over that toxic bullying boss? Or I'm younger than everyone in my team? How do I get them to take me seriously? Or how do I influence when I'm virtual, and I haven't seen or even met in person, the person they're trying to influence so that there are many steps, basically. But the idea is, it's a really practical toolkit that takes you through that structure.

Brilliant, love it. I mean, Carla, I have so many things to unpack from what you've just said. And maybe before we go further taken a step back. And I'd love to know from you, what are the key challenges that you see that women have in this space, especially when it comes to influencing people at work? You know, what are the challenges you kind of shared about your own personal story? What are the things that you're seeing out there with other women?

So there's a brilliant book on this called the authority gap by Marianne Sieghart, that talks about the fact that men basically are competent, unless proven otherwise, with women, it's the opposite. Now that is completely unspoken, but at some level, we know it, don't worry, you're not doing away. From our experience. We've gone into rooms, we are just as experienced, if not more experienced than the men we're in a room with. We make points and no one pays a lot of attention. A man makes a point that we made repeats it a few times, and everyone thinks it's the best thing they've ever heard hepeating. It's called and I love that phrase. But we often deal with things like repeating, we get interrupted a lot more as well. So women get interrupted when we're in mixed gender groups, we get interrupted 50% of the time that we speak and 97% of those interruptions are by men. So yes, women do interrupt each other as well. But actually, we tend to be very conscious of the needs of others. I'm very conscious of giving everyone that chance to contribute. And men don't do that. In the same way, there's also something called conversational manspreading. So manspreading is that idea that you sit on a train next to someone and they like to say, yes to drive me crazy. In London, I was like if you sat between two men, and you'd be like, seriously, but that's conversational manspreading. So the idea that men take up a lot more air time in meetings than women do. So unless we really outnumber men in a meeting, the average woman gets 30 to 40% less airtime than the average man. And Marianne, the author of that book was on my podcast. And she talked me through this study that was done where they put men and women in front of a piece of art, gave them a Dictaphone, and said, share your thoughts on this piece of art. And women spoke for an average of three minutes, men spoke for an average of 13 minutes, and a couple of them went until the dictaphone ran out, because what they had to say, was so profound on this piece of art. And it turns out, we learned that really young, that boys what boys have to say, gets listened to more and is more valuable than what girls have to say. So we learn that by the age of five, which is quite shocking, and that totally runs through to the workplace. And I'd say more in the workplace than the rest of life. Because the workplace is somewhere where generally, in most sectors, you have more men at the top than women. And we, we are drawn to people like us, we trust people who think like us, act like us talk like us and value the same things as us. So it makes sense that those are the people that if you're a man at the top, it makes sense that you are listening to men more, and that you can see their potential more. So I think it's happening a lot. And I'm not saying this as men's fault, because we all hold this bias. But it just happens to be that men are the ones with all the power. So it's just staying that way. Yeah. So I think those are some of the key things we experienced on a daily basis. And then that then flows through into the fact that we're less likely to be promoted, we get promoted more slowly. And there's less of us, obviously, at C suite level. And often we feel like in order to lead, we have to lead like the men around us, or the super assertive Alpha women around us that have learned to kind of be like a man to fit in with them. And when that doesn't feel authentic, we often go Well, to me, I want to leave then if that's what it looks like, we make the choice not to step up and do that. And I believe we need to feel empowered to lead our way the things that women bring to leadership, and things like empathy, being more consultative, were proven to be able to bring the best out of others more effectively, the men are these things are all so needed in today's working environment.

It's so interesting that you're saying that because that on a recent episode that I've recorded, but it's not been released, as of yet, as the time of this recording, we talked about exactly that about how women either have to shape themselves to be a little bit more like a man, but we don't want women to do that. Because women, you know, very also aware that we're making these sweeping generalisations about women and, and men, but that it's about bringing your whole self to work and not having to change yourself. And you know, definitely the research that I've done around this concept of fit and fitting in at work. The idea that if you have to mask yourself in some way, it's just a piece, so much of your energy, if you have to play a role, if you have to check yourself at the door, however you want to describe it. If you're doing something in any way that is like masking, hiding who you really are, or having to pretend to be someone else in order to get something done, then it just takes up so so much of your energy and that energy that could be spent doing something else, you know,

Absolutely. And I'm with you on the generalisations, I try and talk from my experience and from studies that are out there and also recognise unknowingly all of the studies are very binary when it comes to gender. Yeah, and obviously, reality is very different from that. Also, I think it's really important to note that it's not the same for all women. Like if you are like me, a white, middle class, university educated straight individual, I have had it a lot easier than some of the people that will be listening to this. And it can be really hard to get your voice heard when you're facing additional barriers, as well. So for example, I had a client who is a woman of color, and she kept getting feedback that she was being aggressive for using exactly the same phrases that the white women that were her peers were also using and they were not getting that feedback. So that unconscious bias is is very real. And I think it's really important to recognise that and recognise for me, certainly the privilege that I have that there are things I haven't had to face.

This is this. And thank you, thank you so much for doing that. And back to this idea of how we can get others, we kind of talked a little bit more about how how we can do the inner work on ourselves, part one of the book, how getting how others see you as a leader, and this idea of responsibility versus authority. So it's all very good and well to say yes, and to keep saying yes, and to be a people pleaser. And yes, person taking on loads of additional responsibility. But where the difficulty is, then is having the confidence, let's say, to set really clear expectations and hold people accountable to what it is that they said that they were going to do. And when they didn't deliver on whatever it was, you know, and this is something I talk about a lot, the ability to set those clear expectations. And I think when I say it, I take for granted that people know how to set clear expectations, but maybe they don't, and any thoughts to share around setting those clear expectations, but then beyond that, like holding people to account when they don't live up to those expectations.

So I have a tool that works for both of those in terms of preparing yourself to do it, because I think most of us probably do know what we want to say, because I do that thing where you coach somebody say what would you really like to say? And they say no, they just don't believe that they can, okay, that, that they can be that clear and direct. So for me, I call it putting on your cloak of authority. So as women, we don't, not only are we not as comfortable claiming authority, but actually we don't have as much natural authority, because how authority has traditionally been seen. And gravitas is literally about taking up more space in the room and having a lower tone of voice. And we need to change that. But that's the reality that we're working with at the moment. And certainly I don't have natural gravitas like I could walk into a room. And it would be quite forgettable if I wasn't in my kind of work zone. And I could easily have walked into a room and been underestimated in the past. So what I realised, as I started in my first directorial to have these really tricky conversations where I was having to sit down and tell people things they really didn't want to hear. And Carla, the person still just wants to be liked. And a colored person doesn't have these conversations in her personal life. But Carla, the director needed to have those conversations to do my job well, and I didn't need to have natural authority, because my job title comes with authority. And at the time, Harry Potter was on at the cinema, really dating myself here, and he had a cloak of invisibility. So he would put on this cloak, and he'd be invisible, lose, like, I need something magic like that. And so I would imagine myself putting on my cloak of authority. So when I had to go into those conversations where I couldn't be relaxed, where I had to be really clear, where I had to use silence more, sometimes I had to not make the other person feel comfortable, which is by default, because we were talking about something that they didn't, I didn't want them to feel comfortable about, I don't want you to feel comfortable about not delivering or not performing in your role. I don't wanna make you feel uncomfortable. But I don't want to make you feel like oh, yeah, this is totally fine. No worries, I'll do it for you, which I think is what many of us do.

I can I can relate to that.

And I hear these stories a lot. So that cloak of authority is basically just a really simple tool or idea where you think, Okay, I'm going into this conversation, I want to get my voice heard. So whether it's performance management, setting expectations, or in a meeting with people, your peers or more senior people where you're like, I am the expert on this, and they need to hear my voice, putting on that cloak of authority and saying, right, doing my job well, empowers me, it requires me to do this, to be clear in my communication, and to not be apologetic about the fact that everyone might not agree with, with what I have to say to use silence or not fill the gaps, because you feel awkward. And I think that's a really, really useful tool. So I have handled lots of people go into sessions and go into like, difficult conversations, and they will literally imagine themselves putting that on and you can make it look however you want. I was talking to someone the other day, and they had imagined this big red cloak, like some powerful people in Star Wars have. It's a long time since I've watched Star Wars. So I don't know what that quote is or who those people were. And that but I just imagine it as putting on like a coat, basically. And it's like, okay, I feel more empowered and equipped for that. So I think that seems to be a really helpful tool.

Yeah, but I love what you said as well. You know, maybe Carla in the personal scenario wouldn't like this and Carla wants to be liked. She wants to please people. She doesn't want to make people uncomfortable. But I think you use the term need, I need to do this as part of my role. And whether you got that from your own manager. But the the expectation that is upon you, in that role as leader is that you need to be able to have these difficult conversations.

25:17

Absolutely. So I think it's just getting your head around that rather than doing that, avoiding it as much as you possibly can and then half assing it, basically because you want to be liked. Instead, it's going okay, this is what it looks like to do my job? Well, yeah. And we're going to do that. And sometimes you just need that clarity of knowing that, I think the other way that you can help get your voice heard is to use what I call power words, or your personal brand, your personal leadership brand. So I go through a whole process to help you develop your personal leadership brand. But the short cut version of this is we can be intentional about how others perceive us. So if you're going into a difficult conversation, you can think beforehand, how would I like someone to describe me after this conversation, so maybe it's clear, maybe it's strategic, maybe it's expert, maybe if it's a difficult conversation, where actually you're supporting someone with mental health issues, it might be understanding or warmth. But being really intentional, because when we do that, it acts as a subconscious filter for our communication. So let's say we want it to be seen as strategic, we go into a meeting, and we're tempted to dive into the detail, but instead we go, oh, hang on, I want to be seen as strategic. What strategic question. Can I ask here? Or how can I contribute on that? Level?

Love that. And the next section that you mentioned, is about this idea of building strategic relationships. And that kind of struck a chord with me, because I think typically, and again, another sweeping generalisation, but I think we've sort of touched on this already, that women are better at building those relationships at work. And something that I've heard, I don't know, whether it's from researchers, it's certainly anecdotally is that women don't leverage those relationships. So they're great at building them, but they don't know how to actually turn that into something meaningful in the workplace. So brilliant, from a personal perspective, but how do we actually build those strategic relationships in the way that men do?

27:23

Yeah, interesting question. And I think when I talk about building strategic relationships, for me, it's about identifying who do I need to work well with in order to get my team what they need. So I would use I used to go in as an interim fundraising director, and there were always tensions between the fundraising team, the Programs team in the finance team, because there are interdependencies. And so, rather than just have to deal with those reactively, I will proactively build strong relationships with those people and start having really useful conversations with them about what do you find difficult about this? What's going on? For you and your team? What are your priorities at the moment? How do you think we could work better together and proactively doing that? So when I talk about strategic relationships, often I'm talking about with your peers, when it comes to strategic relationships upwards? You're absolutely right. One interesting concept I like for this comes from Gill Whitty Collins who wrote why men when at work, and it's the concept that we are operating under an umbrella. So we're under this umbrella. And we are working really hard under the umbrella. But the people above us don't know what's going on, unless we tell them. So she tells this great story. She was a I think a VP of Marketing at Procter and Gamble. And she would go to the weekly meeting with the other VPs of marketing, who are all men and her boss who was a man. And in these meetings, the men would be talking every time about the crises that they were dealing with, and what they were doing to solve it. And she was sat there thinking those are not crises, those are problems. And I solve those all the time. And I didn't need to bring them to this meeting. And then, at the end of the year, they all did got their reviews. And despite the fact her team had outperform the others, she didn't get pay rise and the others did. And when she asked why her line manager said, Well, you haven't had to deal with the same amount of crises as everyone else had your job has been easier.

Oh gosh, Carla, that makes me laugh. So what, but also kind of laughing frustration and interestingly, again, on a different podcast that I recently recorded, kind of a similar topic, this exact thing came up and the lady who I was talking to Paula it was her situation now she's gone on to work more with with women leaders and to help them to do the stuff that she's kind of learned how to do. But exactly that that. You know, people are there People are bringing all of these so called crises or problems. And no, that's not how we discussed it like that, oh, you you haven't had so many problems to deal with it was kind of a different context. It was more exactly as you said, but that's what I do every day. Like, why do I need to talk about what I do every day. And it wasn't until her boss saw her operating? You know, I didn't realise what you could do. I didn't realise this is everything you had to deal with. I didn't never saw you bringing people together and like solving things really quickly. And she's like, but this is what I do day in, day out. It's so interesting that unless you tell people, This is what I'm actually doing. And, you know, I suppose her perception before that was, this is part of my role is to identify and solve those problems in advance so that they don't become crises. And this is something I do every day, but interesting them that, you know, and again, is this a generalisation that that men are maybe better at talking about? Here's the problem that came up that I solved. And maybe a takeaway for anyone listening today is to look at, where are you doing stuff on a day to day basis that you just perceive as that's part of the job. And but no one knows that you're actually doing it?

Absolutely. So showing people what's going on under your umbrella. And in the book, and journal articles also talks about this concept of meritocracy. So, as women, we are more likely to think, Well, if we just work hard and do a good job, we'll be recognised and rewarded for that. That's how it works. And her theory is that men do not buy into that at all they see work as a game that you're playing. And part of playing that game well is to make sure everyone knows what you've done, your achievements, what you're good at what you want to do next to what you want to be paid. And so they are communicating that frequently. Meanwhile, we're sat there quietly, thinking, Oh, well, we will be recognised for it. Now, I don't think we need to act like men in that way. But I think we often go to the other extreme, where we're given a compliment, and we go, oh, there, it was nothing. And we get that positive feedback. We feel extremely uncomfortable with it. And we deflect it. It was a team effort. Yeah, team effort, it wasn't me, or it's not that big a deal.

I do that every day. Yeah. I could do that in my sleep.

Exactly. And so if getting comfortable with actually, it's okay to receive that positive feedback, it's okay to say you've built up skills, it's okay to say, this is where I want to go. And I've just been really clear. If you are clear on your career direction, just being really clear with your manager about that, and asking for opportunities to be in the room. And I think, going back to your question about strategic relationships, seeking out a sponsor is probably one of the most powerful things that you can do. So here in the UK, we've talked about mentoring for years. And mentoring is really someone sharing their experience with you talking to you. Sponsoring is someone who talks about you. So someone who is in the rooms, saying, Yeah, you need to hear what Carla has to say, it will be great to have color in these meetings, someone who finds you opportunities. And so you can seek out a sponsor, you can find someone doesn't have to be a woman, but someone that gets you someone that thinks you're great and say to them, would you be prepared to sponsor me, to champion me to help me get into those roles that I need to understand and network within in order to progress within the organisation? I think that that's a really powerful thing that we can all do. And if there isn't an ideal candidate for that than just saying to your line manager, I want to be in the room, how can you get me into the room? How can I present my own work, rather than you presenting it for example?

Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that, Carla, because I know of sponsorship, and I don't know whether I've spoken about it explicitly on the podcast in the past. But it's always been in kind of an abstract way. You need to have a sponsor, but I love this approach of, the sponsorship doesn't have to come from the top, you can actually proactively ask someone who you connect with who like you say, who thinks you're brilliant? How can they advocate for you when you're not in the room? Or how can they bring you into the room to have those kinds of discussions and and just actually laying it out that way and saying this is what I want

And pay it forward. Like do it for someone else? Now? Yeah, yeah. If you if you or someone at any kind of management or leadership level, how are you helping others, particularly those that are facing additional barriers? How are you sponsoring them? How are you advocating for them, championing them giving them a chance to be in the room?

Yeah, yeah. And maybe this is an opportunity for a slight aside, like any thoughts on on this that that, you know, I think it's brilliant. And so that if if you're a woman, and you've had a certain level of success that you put you put your hand down and help elevate other women, but not all women think like that, like, Have you experienced in the past where there's women who don't necessarily do that, it's they, they sort of have that scarcity mindset where if I have this power, I don't want to share the power once I get there, I don't want to I didn't have that level of support. I did this all by myself. So therefore, I don't want to help others. So any any thoughts on that?

35:26

I've seen that a lot. And I think it's called queen bee syndrome. I basically, you're at the top, and there's only room for one queen bee. And I think it is that the air is sparse at the top for women, when you're operating in very male dominated sectors, it must feel like you've worked incredibly hard to be there. And I know that I work with a lot of women today who work in male dominated sectors, and they are constantly fighting the idea that they're a diversity hire. Oh, yeah, it drives me absolutely crazy. Because actually, I was talking to someone yesterday. Well, but every hire of a white male straight man is a normality hire like you're just hiring them, because they're just like you. Yeah, so it takes actly the same. So I think it does exist. However, my experience is when you bring a group of women together, and you create that psychological safety, a safe space, yeah, women are incredibly supportive. So I'm I run various courses and programs where we build communities. And I'm currently working on a community for the future. And I can't call it not queen bees, or no queen bees here. But it is that kind of, that's the approach of basically, it's so powerful when women support each other. And when we can tell our truths and realise we're not alone, it, it just totally opens up opportunities and changes our perspectives. And so I think that there's absolutely space for women to support each other. And, and it doesn't help if we turn on each other, it doesn't help now, there are always going to be some people that are not conscious of the needs of others, not conscious of the impact that they make on others. But I would like to think that that is the minority. And I think we can proactively build relationships with other women. And if that's not happening in your workplace than joining programs, like you and I run where you can build up your cheerleading squad, basically, and be a cheerleader for others. So, so valuable. It's why I do group programs. I used to love one to one coaching, they still do that. I'm like, oh, to what I'd really love to get you in a room with these other people. Because I can tell you to I'm blue in the face that you're not alone in this. But when you hear it from people and you think here's people that look so assaulted on the outside their insides just as messy as yours are.

Yeah. And that's how I start all of my imposter syndrome, toxic vapors, you know, Oh, meet Jane, and from the outside, she's this, this and this, but on the inside something that completely different is going on for her. And but yeah, it's like, I love this idea. Bringing people together in creating that psychological safety sharing. You've and I think hearing other people's experiences while at night might not be as relaxed, direct relation to what you've experienced, I'm sure you can relate, because of the feelings and the emotions that come up associated with that. Absolutely, yeah. And so the last part, then, is around this idea of career conversations. And for me, again, another topic, that's really important, because, for me in my corporate career, and I'm sure a lot of other people can relate to this as well, I felt very reactive, what opportunities are available in my organisation that I'm working in now? How do I get to the next level? In this organisation? You know, were they thinking of the context of my career as a whole? And taking personal responsibility for the management of my career? Now, I've heard people saying, I don't know Is it a bit cringy be the CEO of your own career type of thing. And so that type of like, for me, it's really about taking personal responsibility, looking at the bigger picture, what skills you need, who do you need to connect with in order to progress your career, essentially?

I like to talk about taking control of your career because I think for many years, and maybe some people still do. I certainly sat there waiting to be recognised. Yeah. And, and hoping that my line manager would invest in that training for me and I felt really uncomfortable talking about, you know, the next level because being ambitious as bad for the woman certainly was back then. I'm really hope it's not. Now I really hope that's changing. And, but what I've seen a shift or certainly when I started running my open programs is at one point we had 70% of people joining my leadership program was self funding. So may have basically recognised I need Help with this, I'm going to invest in my own development. And I love that that's happening, we've seen a drop off of the cost of living crisis, and that it's completely understandable. But I love that people have gone, what do I need, and if I can't get it from my employer, ask your employer, definitely and make a clear business case as to how it's good for the business, and also how it's good for them to retain you. Very expensive to replace someone. And there are many facts that you can use to back up the fact that actually investing in women's specific training is a valuable thing to do. And so ask, but if not, then look at what opportunities you can access yourself. And there are lots of fantastic opportunities out there that are at a price point that is accessible for many of us when you think what how is this going to contribute to my career an my happiness at work? So that's one point, I think within the organisation, increasing your visibility is really important. And it's something that again, we often feel uncomfortable with, I did a poll on LinkedIn, and said, Do you do not do it? Because you don't know how? Or because you're worried about getting that visibility, and it's making those imposter feelings kick him and it was 50/50. Okay, actually, and that was really interesting to see. So I was like, okay, C section on imposter feelings. When you read that bit, come back a bit about visibility. But I think we do worry about being seen because we feel more exposed. And so we don't take that opportunity to be visible. And so in the book, I think, a show about 20 different ways that you can become more visible. The other thing is to start thinking about, well, how do I want to be perceived at that next level upwards? And how can I start showing up like that now? So applying those power words in that way, so let's say at the next level, you need to be credible, strategic expert, starting to use those as your power words now, so that people recognise that in you and looking at how do people act at that next level up? And how can you bring more of that energy to things? And what words do they use? So I was working with a team of women. And they were no women in the senior leadership team in this tech company. But when they noticed that they went to meetings, they noticed that women would present these, this is what I've done. These are my plans, men would always present everything as a strategy. And if we go, Wow, what a great strategy. And so they got together, when should we just start calling our stuff strategy? And so that's what we did. And then they started getting feedback. Wow, what a fantastic strategy. And what they've noticed is just the language that we're people were using at that next level, and they weren't using that same language or when they started to do so they were taken more seriously, at that level. So there's lots of little things that you can do to take control of your career. And there's so many fantastic resources like your podcast line, the squiggly careers podcast, I don't know if that's the name of the podcast are amazing if but it's amazing. But all of that content.

Yeah, no, The Squiggly Career is the podcast and amazing IF is the company. Yeah, brilliant podcast, fantastic resources for managing your career. And I think a recognition that careers aren't like the perception is that we go from here to here to here to here. But actually, the reality is, it's a bit more squiggly than that you might change sectors, you might go make a lateral move, you might take a pay cut, like there's all of these things that happen in the lifetime of your career, you might be made redundant. You might you take a break from your career, like I took several breaks for traveling, and things like that. So it's not a it's not a straight line. It's not a you know, it's not just a if I do this, I'm gonna get here. It's like, I suppose maybe another point is keep your mind open to opportunities, like I was so focused on how do I get to the next level? Very ambitious, I want to get to CEO level within this organisation. Is that realistic? I'm not too sure. But that's, that's kind of what I wanted. And yeah, just singularly focused on one organisation, but how do you keep your mind open to working? You know, and building your network with them, with other people within the industry or in other industries as well?

Yeah, I think that's a really good approach to take and, and anything where you are meeting with other people where you're part of a group or community just helps you become aware of those opportunities and see what's out there. But I always say to people, keep a note of you know, when you go to dinner parties, or events or whatever, and you talk to someone you can do that job sounds super interesting. Just keep a note of those things, what inspires you or where you get job envy or life envy at someone because you can, in time, design your life to do that? You mean you have exactly done that? I've done that. And neither of us looking back 10 years ago would have predicted what we were doing now, but we love it. Yeah.

And this is something like I'm a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin. She, I think it's the original development path journey, that she's the original person who I read who, who put me onto this path of personal development, if you like, kind of an easy entry point. But one of the things that she says is notice when you feel exactly as I said, Carla, notice when you feel envious, because that's not the page. Like, oh, I'm a terrible person, because I am I feel envious or jealous of that person. It's noting, well, okay, so how do I, is that something that I want for myself? If it's not, then forget about it. And maybe on a separate note, have a think about, well, what's triggering that? You know, why am I feeling jealous? Because Because of that, but then on the other hand, maybe that is something that you want for yourself, how do I go about making that happen? You know, so just thinking, just asking those questions of yourself. Is this something I want? Okay, well how can I take the steps to make it happen rather than sitting in, you know, and something that we haven't really talked about on the podcast, but like victimhood, and it's something I've talked on, on past guests, podcast episodes, like, I'm a victim of my circumstances, or my boss doesn't do that for me. So I'm not going to do that for my team. It's stepping up and taking personal responsibility for what you bring to the situation.

Absolutely. And I think that's a quality we see in all good leaders, and I call it radical responsibility. But once you are at a point where you can change things I don't think we get to sit in that victim mode anymore. I'm not saying don't feel your feelings, because we all have those feelings, and something happens and we feel anger or whatever, that's fine. But assuming we're not a victim of discrimination, then I think it's really important to say, well, how can I help change the situation? What can I do to make it better, and that doesn't mean you have to do all the work, it might be just prompting the conversation about it. But that's what I started. That's how I ended up getting myself promoted frequently is I would be sat there going, these things are driving me mad, and driving my team mad, we can't get them. We can't do our jobs effectively. And they were organisational issues or cross departmental issues. And I would just initiate them. So I would say, well, we need this fundraising strategy, or we need to talk to the finance team, shall I gather the information. And I hadn't done those things before. But basically, I accidentally created a job for myself. And they created this job at the next level up, because my director was like, Well, I didn't want to do that stuff back and see what needs to be done. And Carla likes doing it. So let's promote her to that level. And that has served me well not to get promoted, but to just change faces for the better. And I think that is the brilliant thing about leading, we have the power to create change. And it can be really easy sometimes to get stuck in this isn't fair, or this isn't right. But actually, we can often change things. That's an example of job crafting at its finest. I've seen it happen time and time again, where there's something that's not being done that needs to be done, someone steps up to take responsibility. And before you know, if you have an entire new role, and that role then could be built out and you're you're leading a team, you know, there's all of these amazing things that can happen. So don't underestimate, stepping up and taking responsibility where you see an issue where you see a problem happening. One point I wanted to pick up on what you said, there is this idea of you don't have to do it all yourself. So it's not a case of identifying an issue. And then thinking that you need to do absolutely everything. You can gather people around you to support you in in doing it and build whether it's a community or build sponsors, or build, you know, allies, whatever it is that you need, in order to be able to do that. You don't have to do it. Like sometimes maybe we prevent ourselves from doing things because we think, Well, no, that's, you know, how much work do I have to do in my day job? How much additional work would that take? But it's about sharing that responsibility? Definitely. I mean, there's a difference between raising an issue strategically coming up with an idea and taking the lead on something and just watch out for that, that office housework or those non promotable tasks that women volunteer for more, were asked more, and we say, yes more. And that is taking our focus away from the promotable tasks like building those strategic relationships and working on high level projects.

This is it. This is it. And so, Carla, the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what is being happier at work mean to you?

For me, it's about creating a workplace where everyone is valued for their contribution equally, regardless of gender, or race, or any of the various things that we unconsciously judge people on. So, for me, happiness at work is a place where you can turn up and you're valued for your contribution, your voice is heard, you're supported and you're supporting and valuing others and hearing their voices too.

Brilliant, I love that. And you've you've mentioned throughout the conversation, the various programs that you have and your book. I'd love for you to let people know how how they can take part, how they can get access to the book, how they can best connect with you.

Thank you. Okay, so the book is called Closing the Influence Gap that's available in any bookshop. And the podcast is obviously available everywhere as well. It's called Influence and Impact for Female Leaders. I have a four week confidence and assertiveness course, for women that's actually formed modules, and called be bolder, we've run that three times this year. It's an open program in house many times, and the next one of those is coming up in early spring, I think. So if you go to my website, CarlaMillerTraining.com, you'll be able to see the details of that. And also Influence and Impact which is my program for female leaders as well. There may be a community coming soon. And in terms of where I hang out, I do post on Instagram, but where I hang out is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my happy place. I just hit 12,000 followers, and very excited by that. And I share all sorts of things there, whether it's about work, or about juggling, solo parenting and working. But I really love to share and support and encourage people there, so do come and follow me, but feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

I'm the same Carla, I love LinkedIn. I use Instagram, but probably not as much as I use LinkedIn. But something that you said there that triggered something in my head that we said, we will potentially talk about on this podcast. And maybe I'll get you back in and have a conversation about it. Another time is assertiveness. And we kind of touched on it before we started recording. We didn't really get to it in today's conversation, but maybe we'll have a conversation about that another time.

Next time. Yeah, bring me back. But thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

And that was Carla Miller talking all things women in leadership. And I really took a lot from that conversation. I hope you enjoyed it. Before I go on to summarise some of the key points, I'd love for you to get involved in the conversation. So a few ways to do that. I always post about the latest podcast episode, both on Instagram, at happieratwork.ie. And also on LinkedIn in my regular page. But also I have a podcast page, the Happier at Work podcast and in there, you will see that I share links to the podcast every week and to a synopsis and include the show notes there as well. So feel free to get involved in the conversation in any one of those places. Now we started the conversation, talking about women and how it's hard to get our voices heard at work, that we feel like we're not being heard. There's no validation there. And it seems to be then this belief that we reinforce in ourselves that I'm not good enough. And when we feel like we're not good enough, that leads to us working harder. And the other thing we talked about is recognising that gender bias actually exists. I have seen some posts recently on LinkedIn, where a man has tried to address the issue that gender bias does exist and received lots of different comments from men, other men to say that it actually doesn't exist, and what's he talking about? But he had loads and loads of facts to back this up. So just acknowledging the fact that it exists. I loved the question posed by Carla, what are your stories? So are you living in the story that you're telling yourself, and our stories become our reality? Essentially, we talked as well about this idea of responsibility versus authority. And responsibility is simply the ability to say yes. And then authority is about setting clear expectations, having accountability, and giving and receiving feedback as well. One of the little tips or tricks that I loved that Carla shared was this idea of the cloak of authority. And it's, it's wearing it as you know, thing that springs to my mind is an invisibility cloak. So telling people things that they really didn't, didn't want to hear. And when you put on your cloak of authority, it gives you that confidence to be able to, to deliver messages that maybe someone doesn't really want to receive. And it's not about feeling comfortable or creating that comfortable environment for someone else. You want them to experience the discomfort if they haven't performed well and get that point across. I loved also this message. This is what it looks like to do my job well. So you know creating that belief around yourself and creating that personal leadership brand, and being really intentional about how you want to be perceived by others. Some of the example words then that Carla used were being seen as strategic being seen as warm and being seen as understanding. Again, something that has come up on a previous podcast episode with Paula Sheridan is people above us don't necessarily know what we're doing. And so it's up to us to take responsibility and to actually tell them what we're doing. We talked about the concept of meritocracy where women assume that it's the case, whereas men see it more as a game. So men are communicating what they want to be paid where they want to go. And it's up to us as women to take responsibility for our own careers, and to be able to pave that way for ourselves. We also talk about the queen bee syndrome. And I think this has come up a little bit in conversations that I've been having recently, where if a woman has worked hard to get where she is, and she hasn't necessarily had that support, in order to achieve what she has achieved, she tends to be very protective of that. And so in order to mitigate that, or in order to change that, it's about creating an environment of psychological safety, to be able to tell her truth to be able to realise that we are not alone. And there is a space for women to be able to support each other. The final point I wanted to leave you with then is this idea of taking radical responsibility, so not sitting in victimhood anymore. Again, I've talked to both spoken about that in a different context. Previously on the podcast episode, the one with Ian Hatton, where we were talking about the victim mindset and living in that, you know, it's blaming external circumstances for the situation that you find yourself in. But rather than setting in victimhood, it's about asking yourself, How can I help change this situation, and realising that you don't necessarily have to do all the work yourself, you can get help in order to change the situation. So I really hope you enjoy today's podcast episode. As I mentioned before, I'd love to get your thoughts on today's podcast episode. And I'd love to extend the conversation. I also have regularly been going live on LinkedIn, I've tried something a little bit new in that I'd go live on LinkedIn audio. Unfortunately, there's no recordings available. So you do have to show up live. So keep an eye out for that on my LinkedIn profile as well. And I would absolutely love for you to join the conversation. That was another episode of The Happier at Work podcast. I am so glad you tuned in today. If you enjoy today's podcast, I would love to get your thoughts head on over to social media to get involved in the conversation. If you enjoy the podcast, I would love if you could rate, review it or share it with a friend. If you want to know more about what I do or how I could help your business head on over to happieratwork.ie