In this episode, Sarah continues the conversation on how to get your voice heard in the leadership space. While Part 1 focused on practical and tactical strategies, this second part dives deeper into the mindset and inner work needed to truly amplify your impact.

If you’ve ever felt overlooked in meetings, had your ideas claimed by others, or struggled to speak with conviction, this episode will help you shift your mindset, quiet your inner critic, and step forward with greater confidence.

Show Notes

00:00 – Welcome and introduction

02:00 – Why mindset matters in getting your voice heard

03:00 – Real-life client stories of struggling to be heard in leadership spaces

05:00 – Recap of tactical strategies from Part 1

06:00 – Identifying the story you’re telling yourself and challenging your inner critic

07:30 – Escaping the comparison trap

08:00 – The power of preparation and finding allies in meetings

09:00 – Using feedback to build confidence and presence

10:30 – Posture, body language, and the confidence boost of appearance

11:30 – Speaking with conviction: moving from questions to statements

13:30 – Final reflections and practical next steps

14:00 – Resources, coaching offers, and closing message

Useful Links

Sign up for Weekly Career Inspiration

Learn about Leadership & Advancement Coaching Programmes

Book a Free 121 Clarity Call

Join The Love What You Do Facebook Group

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Rate & Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Unstuck & Unstoppable helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Sarah know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: sarah@careertreecoaching.co.uk

Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 41.

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As always, I'm really pleased that you're

here with me today, and today's episode

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is the second part of how to get your

voice heard in the leadership space.

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And I know when I was an HR director,

I really struggled with this at times.

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And so I've rolled all my learning from

that experience into these two episodes.

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In last week's episode, we looked

at the tactical strategies that

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you can use to get your voice

heard in the leadership space.

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And today's episode is thinking

about more of the mindset, issues

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that you need to work on in order to

amplify those tactical strategies.

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I split it into two episodes because

there is so much in here because it

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is complex and it is bigger than I

could just deliver in one episode.

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If you missed last week's episode and

you're just tuning into part two, do go

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back and listen to part one because both

of these episodes are key to getting

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your voice heard and getting your

ideas across and amplifying your voice.

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I really hope you enjoy today's episode.

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What do we mean by

getting your voice heard?

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It's those things where you're talked

over by a colleague or your ideas are

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pitched or badged as somebody else's

or there's too much noise to break

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through and feel like you are having

that influence that you want to.

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And that can lead to

feelings of frustration.

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Of anger, demotivation, disengagement.

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It can affect your confidence.

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It can trigger unhelpful

thinking patterns, and it

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can be really demotivating.

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And if this is happening to you, you

definitely want to start to take some

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action to, change that so it doesn't

become an embedded way of being for you.

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I shared some examples of clients I've

worked with in the last session and I was

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thinking, gosh, I've got more as well.

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I was thinking about my own experience

I remember when I was working as

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an HR manager though as a deputy

director was appointed her above me.

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And where I'd previously had access to

the senior leadership team, it then had

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to go through him and he was regularly

taking the things I was suggesting and

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pitching them as his or the team's ideas.

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And it was very subtle.

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It was very hard for me to challenge

it, but it was incredibly demotivating.

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It did contribute to me deciding

to leave the organization.

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But I've also worked with a client

where she was on the introvert scale.

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She was a senior leader and

the rest of the leadership

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team were mostly extroverts.

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Her way of being in terms of.

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Thinking things through deeply, making

a contribution when she had something

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to say was drowned out by the extrovert

discussion, thinking out loud process.

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She found it very hard to get

her voice heard in that setting.

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And then I had another client

who was an HR director.

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She wasn't an introvert, but she was

a reflective thinker, and she was put

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on the spot by a colleague who is very

dynamic, very action oriented, very now.

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And she found it very hard to respond

in the moment, and that then triggered

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lots of unhelpful thinking patterns for

her, and she found it very difficult.

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I wanted to share those to say you're

not alone if you are experiencing this.

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It happens a lot, particularly

to female leaders.

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There's definitely things you can do

to position yourself to make sure that

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you do have that impact and influence.

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And I do work a lot with female

leaders around this area.

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Today we're gonna talk about

the confidence factors.

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Last time, the tactical

things we talked about were.

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Building trust and credibility

and things you can do to do that.

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We talked about mapping allies and

building a bank of social credit.

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We talked about consistency of identity

and how you can use that effectively.

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We talked about likability and the double

bind that women have to face around that.

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And we talked about, doing a communication

review in terms of words or language

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that you are using that isn't helpful.

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Part two today is around that

inner work that you need to tackle.

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If you are noticing some of it is you

holding yourself back in terms of.

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Contributing or getting your voice heard.

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What I would say with the confidence

piece, we can't solve it in the 15

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minutes we've got now, that if you

are finding it a real struggle, you

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might want to have some coaching,

particularly around this area.

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The first thing would be to think

about what is the story that I'm

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telling myself about my voice?

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Am I telling myself that

no one is listening to me?

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Am I, reiterating the fact that I

can't influence at a senior level.

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What is the story you're telling yourself?

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Are you saying you are no good at this?

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Because often that inner critic is

going to, tell you a story , but then

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in the session or the meeting or the

conversation that you're having, if

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your inner critic is being triggered and

it's starting to say things you're like.

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Don't make a contribution when

no one's listening anyway.

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Or don't say that's gonna sound stupid.

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That is all going to contribute to you.

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Then sitting back and not using

the opportunity or looking for the

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opportunity, pushing yourself to make that

contribution and getting your voice heard.

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And what we want to do, is to

think about increasing your

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self belief about your value.

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And your validity in terms of making that

contribution and also to quieten that

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inner critic and engage your inner coach,

that will then support you in the longer

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term around making those contributions.

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Starting to notice what is the narrative

that's going on about me in terms of me

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having influence and making contributions.

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Then the second thing to notice is,

am I falling into a comparison trap?

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Am I comparing myself to some of my

more extrovert colleagues, perhaps

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if you are on the introvert scale, or

am I comparing myself to a particular

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peer who I feel is always, got the

airtime and therefore giving up

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because I feel like I can't compete.

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It's noticing if you're

falling into a comparison trap.

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'cause that's a very unhelpful

pattern to fall into.

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And then it's thinking about preparation.

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What do you need in

order to be successful?

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How can you help yourself?

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Some of that can be noticing.

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Can I find a buddy in that?

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Meeting in that conversation that somebody

that I know has got my back, who's going

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to support me so I feel more comfortable

or confident making a contribution.

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Can I ask my boss or the

chair or that buddy to give

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me an opening in the meeting?

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Maybe to say, Sarah, what

do you think about this?

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To make it easier to contribute

or to give me a slot on the agenda

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to actually be able to voice

my thoughts, my contribution.

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Preparation in advance,

particularly if you're finding

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it hard to think on the spot.

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So noticing areas on the agenda that you

want to contribute to and having something

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prepared where you can, that makes you

feel more confident about then making

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that suggestion, making that contribution.

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And being intentional about making

a contribution in an assertive way.

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Thinking about, okay, I want to be the

second or third person that speaks in

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this meeting, can just be a helpful way of

pushing yourself to get your voice heard.

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You can also think about getting feedback

on actually how you do come across.

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I worked with a client who was a head

of and she wanted to understand how

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she was coming across to the senior

leadership team, the directors of C-Suite.

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And so she had the opportunity.

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Do a presentation where a

colleague was going to be

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present at that meeting as well.

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She asked her colleague bravely,

courageously, to give her feedback on

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how she came across in terms of her

gravitas and her executive presence.

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It was helpful for her because what

she got back was, the feedback was

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really positive and she came across

much better than she thought she had.

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But also it's constructive.

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There were areas that

she could still work on.

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So it really helped to

boost her confidence.

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'cause often our perception is that were.

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Not doing that well, or , it

doesn't land well or we're not

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having the impact that we want to.

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But , if we take the time to ask for

feedback, and I know it can feel tricky

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sometimes, it can be helpful in terms of

understanding how we are actually creating

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impact, but also what we could do better.

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Then there's things like

considering posture and dress.

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We all learn, don't we, early

in our career about posture.

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Standing up straight or sitting

up straight, eye contact mirroring

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in terms of building rapport.

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Not having our arms crossed, all of

those things, but sometimes we can

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forget about it or when we're not

feeling confident, then our body

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language can be , less confident.

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So.

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Do I need to be more expansive?

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Particularly if it's a Zoom meeting,

the number of clients when I see them,

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they are, low in the zoom picture, and

you want to be occupying as much of

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the picture as possible to have impacts.

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It's doing some of those

check-ins around that.

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Then also thinking about what

makes me feel good in terms

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of dress or look that I can.

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Put on all of this uniform, this

armor that makes me feel confident.

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I had one client who, when we

talked about this, she said,

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actually it's wearing red lipstick.

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I know if I wear red lipstick,

I'm inhabiting my confident me.

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And that for her really worked.

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She was going into a meeting, she

would just pop on a bit of red

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lipstick and it would signify to her

that she was in her confident mode.

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It's thinking for yourself, what's

gonna make me feel good in terms of.

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Posture and look.

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And then the final thing to think

about is speaking with conviction.

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Women tend to have a unique way of

communicating that's very collaborative,

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very consensus building and inviting.

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I'm not suggesting that you

suddenly become very authoritarian.

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But it's about giving up unhelpful

patterns of speech that, mean the

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recipient doesn't get your message in

the way that you want to portray it.

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For example, you might really want

to say, I think we need to increase

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the marketing budget on this project.

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But what you say instead is what

about increasing the marketing budget?

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Okay, now the recipient receives

that as, okay, this is a debate.

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Maybe I don't think I want to spend

extra on the marketing budget.

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They're not getting the fact

that you as the expert, feel

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that this needs to happen.

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And you partly do that because you

want to make other people feel more

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comfortable with the suggestion, but it

doesn't get across what you really think.

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Or for example, you might say, can

you get that to me by tomorrow?

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When you really want to say,

I need that tomorrow, please.

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Now by asking a question instead of making

a statement, it allows me to say, no,

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sorry, I can't get that to you tomorrow.

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Whereas if you say, I need that by

tomorrow, I've then got to think

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about, okay, what can I reprioritize

in order to get that to you?

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It's thinking about the

language that you use.

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Are you.

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Positioning things as a question rather

than a statement when you really want

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it to be an intentional statement.

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I know that's, quite a lot to think about,

but I wanted to give you some things you

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could contemplate around internal stuff.

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What's going on for you and

what you could think about.

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Getting some help with or

experimenting with in terms of

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having more impact and influence.

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I hope that's been useful.

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Obviously if you do want to have a

conversation with me about having

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some coaching specifically around

some of these areas, please do send

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me a direct message, get in touch,

and we can have a chat about it.

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Have a great week and I look forward

to catching up with you soon.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.