In this week's episode of the Happier at Work podcast, I was thrilled to be joined by renowned women's leadership coach, Carla Miller. Carla shared invaluable insights and practical strategies for women leaders facing challenges in the workplace, drawing from her own experiences and her mission to empower women to speak up and influence effectively in boardrooms.

Carla emphasised the impact of gender bias on confidence, highlighting the effects of imposter syndrome and the lack of self-belief on women's ability to contribute in high-stakes environments. She encouraged a shift in mindset, urging individuals to focus on their strengths and contributions before speaking in challenging meetings.

One of the key issues Carla discussed was the challenge of being interrupted in meetings, particularly for women. She provided strategies for managing interruptions and finding opportunities to speak up, including utilising allies and the powerful strategy of amplification.

Carla also emphasised the importance of integrating body language tools and the "cloak of authority" to feel more in control in challenging situations. She delved into the use of questions and provoking questions as powerful communication tools, and the significance of delivering feedback upwards in a diplomatic and solution-focused manner.

Furthermore, Carla addressed the use of language qualifiers in communication and provided actionable advice on how women can communicate more effectively, highlighting the importance of body language and ending contributions with confidence.

The main points throughout this podcast include:

• The impact of gender bias on confidence.
• Strategies for managing interruptions and finding opportunities to speak up.
• The importance of integrating body language tools and the "cloak of authority" to feel more in control in challenging situations.
• The significance of delivering feedback upwards in a diplomatic and solution-focused manner.
• The importance of body language and ending contributions with confidence.

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!

Connect with Carla:

LinkedIn

Website

Instagram

Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O’Brien:

Website

LinkedIn 

YouTube

Previous Episodes:

https://happieratwork.ie/take-radical-responsibility-of-your-career-with-carla-miller/

https://happieratwork.ie/213-how-can-women-find-fulfillment-and-success-at-work-with-rebecca-muriuki/

https://happieratwork.ie/210-how-can-you-lead-with-empathy-and-work-to-your-strengths-with-jacqui-jagger/

202: Leveraging Strengths and Setting Boundaries with Lucy Gernon

https://happieratwork.ie/207-gender-equality-and-inclusive-leadership-with-robert-baker/

Mentioned in this episode:

Imposter Identity

Imposter Identity

Carla Miller, you're welcome back to the Haff Your at Work podcast. I know we had you on before, and I'm delighted to have you as my guest for the 2nd time. Do you wanna let people know a little bit about you, the journey you've been on, a little bit about what you do?

Absolutely. And thank you for having me back again, and thank you for coming on my podcast as well. So I am a women's leadership coach. I've been coaching for the past 15 years. And, really, I sort of I'm on a mission to make things easier for women leaders that I found hard when I was struggling in my career. So I was very ambitious. I was a director by 29. I was in rooms surrounded by people that were older than me, lots of older men.

Didn't have a lot of natural gravitas and credibility necessarily, but I was smart, and I knew my stuff. And I would find that when I spoke, I wasn't necessarily people weren't hearing what I was saying. People weren't taking it on board. And then that led to me feeling very, feeling a bit like an imposter, and I know you talk about imposter feelings as well. Feeling like I just need to work harder. I obviously need to be better. I need to work harder in order to prove myself. And, of course, now having coached thousands of women, I know that I absolutely was not alone in that.

I felt very alone at the time. But now I understand that actually, as women, we are not taking this seriously in boardrooms, and that's nothing to do with how talented we are or what we have to contribute. So I'm really passionate about undoing that damage that gender bias does to our confidence, encouraging us to speak up again. And also, at making sure that we can influence effectively because no one really told me that influencing is really, really key to developing your career, being able to advocate for your team, get the resources that you need, create the change that you want to make in your organization. And when I learned to do that, things got much easier for me. I went on to be chief exec for a couple of organizations. I work with boards all the time or I did do for a period of time, like, often me and lots of very old men in suits and never had an issue with credibility. I'd learned to speak their language.

And so now I run group programs. I do one to one coaching. I have a community called women leading, and the idea is about bringing women together, sharing our stories, supporting each other, realizing we're not alone, and sharing any insights and strategies and tools that I've learned along the way that can help them. So, yeah, that's sort of my purpose in life and work at the moment.

Such an incredible journey. I wanna pick up on this thing about, imposter feelings because I know both of us talk about that. But this idea that I must work harder because I feel like I'm not good enough. And and I suppose what I'm hearing from what you're saying is it's it's thinking about it from both the individual side and also the environment that we find ourselves in. And by the environment, I mean, the other people that we're working with as well. So it's not just something that we feel ourselves. It's things that happen to us. So if you speak up and you're not really being heard, that has a direct impact on our own confidence levels as well.

And I would love to explore that idea in a little bit more detail. I know, Carla, you look at this from a couple of different perspectives. Do you want to maybe share a little bit about, well, what does that look like, first of all? Like, when someone's not when someone's not speaking up at work, when does that happen? What does that look like? What's going on? What are the thought process that what are the thought processes that are going on for the individual at that time?

Absolutely. So I often find that people will speak up very comfortably in certain environments. Like, they're talking to their team, and there's no problem at all. And then they get into a room with senior stakeholders or appear that's got a really strong personality. And then they're sat there being very self critical. They're nervous about speaking up. They're setting themselves expectations that that they're struggling to meet is the way I like to think of it. So often they're thinking, I must be completely a 100% sure before I speak up, or I'm not expert enough in this, or I haven't been in this organization long enough.

We have all these thoughts in our heads that are stopping us from speaking up, and we don't ever think to flip that and go, well, what's the benefit to me, to the organization, to the quality of this meeting if I am able to contribute, if I do put in my thoughts. So for me, it's about their thinking I should be more something, more smart, more analytical, more extrovert, different versions for all of us. We're often sat there comparing ourselves to other people, aren't we, and thinking, oh, to be credible in this room, I need to be different. And that really impacts your confidence. It means that you can't speak up. And, actually, I think it's for me, it's exactly the opposite of what we want to do. We don't want to be more like the other people in the room. We want to really own our own strengths and our own opinions because that's where genuine confidence comes from.

You are gonna feel a bit like an imposter if you are actually faking it, if you're trying to be something

Yeah.

That you're not. The more authentic you are, the more people resonate with what you have to say, the more people trust you. So I think there's all these barriers in our heads before we go into these meetings. And one thing I always encourage people to do is think, what's a helpful thought to have in my head before I go into that meeting where I know I feel intimidated or I know it's challenging? So it might be I can add as much value as anyone else in the room, or I'm the expert in my area, or it's my job to provide insights or tell people things they don't wanna hear sometimes. So just sort of resetting with a different thought instead of just going around in your head with whatever thoughts you have around dread and nerves and, oh, I'm gonna mess things up or get things wrong. That can be a really simple thing you can do before the meetings.

I love that as an approach and, like, just something that resonated with me there, like this idea of flipping the thought to something like it's it's actually my job to challenge people on what they're doing. It's my job to bring insights. And therefore, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't speak up in this situation.

Absolutely. And I think a lot of mid to senior level leaders, they are confident in their knowledge. But then they get into these rooms, and that self doubt comes up. And their inner critic gets very vocal and says you're gonna be judged for that. Well, they say something, and they're like, that person totally yawned or rolled their eyes. They think I've just said something really stupid. And we make up all this stuff Yeah. In our heads.

And meanwhile, we're not being very present in the meeting, are we? Because we're too busy self obsessing over what we might have done wrong. And so taking control of your mindset before you go into the meeting can sometimes switch off that inner critic.

Yeah. And it's funny. Like, there's a few things that are coming up to me as you're talking, Carla. It's the high stakes. Like, when you're in those room, like a room with your peers, when you're in a room with your team, fine. No problem. When you're in a room with people who are more senior and the stakes are really high, that's when the inner critic can start rearing its head and being like, you don't belong here. Who do you think you are speaking of? Who do you think you are saying that? But then if you flip it and say, well, the other people who were in the room are all human as well, and they probably went through those same types of fears and emotions that you're going through right now, and look where they ended up.

And maybe they're feeling like that if they've recently been promoted to a senior position, and they're like, what am I doing here? I don't belong. But thinking about it from the human element, like, we're all human beings at the end of the day. And, yeah, like, we probably could get into a whole philosophical debate about hierarchies in an organization. But, really, it's just, I suppose, bringing it back down to to that level that, yes, the stakes are high because they're more senior, but, actually, they were once in the position that you're in now.

Absolutely. And in fact, I coach lots of those senior people, and they still have that

Yeah.

Going on in their heads. I would say we're comparing our messy insights to everybody else's totally polished outside. Yeah.

And in

fact, that's what I love about when you bring groups together and create that self safe environment where people can be open is they realize, oh, these other people, their insights are just as messy as mine. And, actually, they're looking at me thinking I've got it all sorted. I had, within women leading, we have some peer calls where we bring people into groups of 3 to talk to each other. And I've been chatting with people afterwards. And one of them said, I was in a room with these 2 super smart, very senior corporate women, and they were amazing. And they thought I was amazing. And, actually, we were all struggling with exactly the same themes and thoughts. And I was like, yeah.

Totally not alone in that. It's part of a human experience. I'm also in women because we are in this environment where, you know, the world of work was designed for men, by men, and for women that had a housewife at home doing everything else. It really wasn't designed for modern women in any way whatsoever, was it? And even though we're trying to make some changes, it's taking a very long time. So we do have to work harder in order to be taken as seriously, and that doubt, therefore, does come up a lot more for women.

Yeah. Yeah. And what kind of things are you seeing that women are are struggling with at the moment?

Well, in terms of going to meetings, it's things like, am I gonna be challenged? What if what I say is stupid? What if it's obvious? What if people respond strongly, or I've got to say something people don't want to hear? And I feel very uncomfortable about that. Or I have to challenge someone senior, and I feel uncomfortable. I was

coaching someone the other day, and she

said she always brings a different perspective to meetings, and she can tell that quite often people are not welcoming that different And she can tell that quite often people are not welcoming that different perspective. And sometimes she'll say something, and no one pays any attention. And then a man in a room, she works in a very male dominated environment Stop. No. They say something like the same thing 10 minutes later, and everyone thinks it's the best idea ever.

Wow.

Keep eating is what it's called. I was like, you have experienced keep eating. It's huge, especially in male dominated environments. It's like their ears can't hear it when we say it.

Yeah.

But they they can hear it perfectly when a man says it.

Yeah. No. I have never heard that term until I read your book, Carla, the heat heating. Never knew it. Obviously knew it as a concept because I've seen it happen with my own eyes. But I didn't know that it again, that it had a name and it had probably, I'm sure, a whole theory behind it as well. But it's so interesting that that when we when we do speak up and I'm I'm the kind of person that oftentimes I've deliberately wanted to be the devil's advocate, to challenge how we're doing things currently. And I kinda like that role because you you kinda you get to be the challenger of how things are going, but it's only good if people are open and they're welcoming to those kinds of challenging ideas rather than just sticking with the status quo and how we've always done things in this way, therefore, we should always do them in this way.

And it turns out that's turned you into a great podcast host. Thank you. Thank you. You flatter me.

You flatter me. So one of the big challenges then is speaking up. How do we get more confidence to speak up to begin with when we're in front of those kind of high stakes audiences?

So a couple of tools. The first one is if you're worried about throwing in a strong opinion or a fact or a statement because they might get a reaction, I find asking questions is a really powerful way to speak up, to influence within the meeting, to help change the direction or change perspective. And it's actually quite hard to criticize someone for asking a question, so it feels safer Yeah. To do it. So asking a nice open question, like, have we missed anything here? I wonder if we could look at things from a different perspective. What if we considered this? No one's gonna jump down your throat Yeah. For that. So you feel safer doing that, and you're not self editing as much.

So I love a good question for anyone that's thinking it doesn't necessarily feel safe to speak up or I'm doubting myself.

Mhmm. And I

need to be a 100% sure. Questions are a great way to do it. So that's the first tool. The second tool is really recognizing, as we said earlier, it is it's your job to speak up. Sometimes it's your job to speak truth to power. Sometimes it's your job to give feedback upwards, and we can talk about ways to do all of those. But for me, I had that realization when I was in that first director role that I had, where I had to have conversations with people and tell a lot of people things they did not want to hear. And Carla, the person, did not wanna have those conversations because I really like to be like, I do not have challenging conversations in my personal life.

I will avoid them. My cleaner's just been here, and she broke the toilet seat last time, but both of us just ignored it. Neither of us said anything. I am avoiding this challenging conversation. So but at work as a director, it was my job to have those conversations. And so at the time, Harry Potter was on at the cinema, and Harry Potter had a cloak of invisibility. When he put it on, he was invisible. I was like, I need some magic clothing of my own to make me feel empowered going into these meetings.

And so I realized I don't need natural authority. My job title comes with authority. And for me, it was my job title. For someone else, it might be their expertise

or

the fact they've been tasked with a responsibility to do something. And with that comes the authority to get that done. So it's not just about being the most senior person in the room. So when I went into meetings, I would imagine putting on my cloak of authority. And when I put on my cloak of authority, I would show up differently. So instead of filling the awkward silences or apologizing a lot, I would allow those pauses. If it felt uncomfortable, I told someone something they didn't wanna hear, that's okay. They need time to process that and think about that.

My body language changed. I probably spoke a bit more slowly as well. And it's just what we know from psychology is that having some kind of tool, whether it's a visual tool or whether I got clients who use the same concept, but it's their lipstick or their perfume or their blazer or their heels. Whatever way you do it, it gives us more of a sense of agency when we go into situations where we feel like they might be a bit out of our control. So, yeah, the cloak of authority, lots of women have been using that now, and it just reminds you, actually, it's nothing to do with my personality. It's my job, and the authority comes with my job to say what needs to be said.

Mhmm. And interestingly, you did talk about that on our previous podcast episode. And since then, I've shared that with other people, a couple of people who, you know, they came to me and they said, oh, this is happening wherever. I'm like, do you know what? Carla Miller has this amazing tool called the cloak of authority. You need to use the cloak of authority. Read about it in her book, whatever it might be. Listen to that episode. But, yeah, I absolutely love that as a tool as well.

And I I wanna come back to this questions thing. Again, something sprung to my mind, and it was the the maybe extreme version of that when you're asking a provoking question deliberately to get a reaction. You're kinda like, oh, have we considered and you put in your opinion, which is not really asking a question at all. That's just being, to me, deliberately provocative. So I suppose I want to highlight the difference between asking a question out of curiosity because you know that you have more to add versus deliberately asking a provocative question because you want to to kinda get a reaction out of people.

And I think people that struggle to speak up are probably not the same people that will Good point. Poke for bear.

Yes. It's such a good point. Yeah.

Yeah. Because they're worried about people's reactions. Reactions. They're people that

are and they say

people it's a lot of us, and it would include me in the past. Very, very conscious of what others might think of them. So I think it's probably and it's also about tone, how you use those questions, isn't it? What if could be a really open, gentle what if, or

it could

be a really quite focused targeted, well, what if this happens? So I think it's probably different people use the phrase in different ways.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's such a good tool, and I don't think I've ever heard of it before. And I think for anyone who is struggling to speak up, and I and I'm picturing this in any scenario, asking a question can really help to open up the conversation so that you have the opportunity to share what you're thinking in a non kind of confrontational way.

Absolutely. And then sometimes you have to tell people things that you know that they don't want to hear. And I think it's useful to have some phrases for that as well. So, one of the things that comes up quite a lot is I'm in a room with senior people, and I need to tell them something that they're gonna respond very badly Yeah. To.

Do you have a specific example, either from your own, kind of career or from from one of your clients or something that's that's, happened recently?

Sure. So an an experience of my own, I was working for a charity, and I was a fundraising director. So I was responsible I was an interim fundraising director. I had come in to help them work out how much money could they raise and how could they do it. And I had to go to a meeting with the board. So this is the nonexec board. And there were about 60 of them, which is unusual. It's usually more like 10 or 50.

There were 60 of them in this room.

It was

a lot. And May, I had given a presentation about what the team could raise. And, honestly, it made no difference to me. I was gonna be leaving to go and have a baby. Anyway, I wasn't coming back. I was just trying to do the best thing I could for the organization. Anyway, collectively, they decided that they were gonna take the figure that I said we could raise and triple it. Oh.

And I was thinking, well, not only is that not possible, but you're gonna leave yourself with a huge deficit at the end of the year because you're gonna spend based on that assumption. And no one, and I I I raised my eyebrows, but no one was really listening. And the chief exec who should have been doing something did not want to challenge them at all. She found it really hard to challenge. And in the end, I raised my hand in front of this room full of people, stood up and said, look, I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't make sure I've been absolutely clear about the consequences of going down this route. And no one wanted to hear that, but they changed their mind, and they went with my suggestion in the end. And I just and people coming up to me, okay, you just spoke truth to her. And I was like, oh, is that what it's called? Okay.

Well, I told them what they needed to hear because what's important in that situation is that you respect their authority. So I was not saying you're wrong. I was basically saying, ultimately, it is your decision. Yeah. And I totally respect that, but I need to make sure I have really clearly communicated to you why we made the proposal that we did, and what could happen if you go down this route. And so I think you can challenge an idea, a concept, a decision without challenging people's authority. And they still might not like it, but it doesn't put their backs up in the same way. I think often what happens when people challenge is that they end up challenging someone's authority.

You need to respect that whoever's making the decision is being held responsible for that decision, and they have access to information that you don't have. But ultimately, it sits on their shoulders. So you don't wanna challenge that. You wanna respect their authority, respect the hierarchy, but that doesn't mean you can't have a different opinion and strongly advocate for that opinion. But you advocate it for it strongly, and then you leave it alone because, ultimately, it's up to them.

Yeah. I love that. I love that approach. And we kind of we're starting to talk about phrases, and I think I probably jumped in saying, do you have an example? But the phrase I took from that is I wouldn't be doing my job if have you got any other examples of phrases that you could potentially use in a situation like that where you have to deliver bad news?

I think it's things that add to your credibility. So it might be based on the data, or experience tells us, or from the research that we've done, however you want to phrase it, it's something that adds the credibility. You what you're basically saying is I am the specialist in this in the room. I am the expert in the room. And you don't really want to blatantly say, I am the expert. Therefore, you should listen to me. Yeah. But by referring to your job title, by by saying, basically, I wouldn't be doing my job properly as a marketing specialist or as a fundraising director.

You're reminding them, look. I'm the person who knows my shit on this.

Yeah.

Not you. And I am very confident in what I'm saying here, and I think it's important. And, also, confident in what I'm saying here, and I

think it's important. And, also, you pick your battles. If you do that all the time, it doesn't

mean anything, and you're just a a bit problematic. But picking your battles when you know it's a battle you need to win

Yeah.

Then that's one of the ways you can do it. Yeah. There's also a tool I have for giving feedback upwards because you have to be a bit more diplomatic, don't you? So when we're giving feedback downwards, we often talk about there's a few different models. I tend to use the BCA one, behavior, consequences, action. So this is the behavior that you've exhibited. These are the consequences, the negative things about that behavior, and this is the action I'd like you to take differently. So that works really well downwards, but it does not work very well upwards at all because it's not really respecting that hierarchy. So I came up with my own version, which is basically you start with the situation.

So this is the situation that we're talking about, then you talk about the consequences. And you wouldn't work use the word consequences, but you basically say, these are the problems that are arising as a result of this situation. Then you propose a solution. So I propose this solution. So you're very solution focused. And then finally, you talk about the outcome, how things will be different and better as a result of putting this solution into place. So situation, consequences, solution, and outcome. So it's a more diplomatic, less person based, more situation based way Mhmm.

Of providing that feedback upwards.

Yeah. No. I love that. And I think in all cases of feedback, it is we think of it as something really personal and a personal attack if we have to give developmental feedback, let's say. And if we're on the receiving end of developmental feedback, it can feel like an attack on our personality. Like, that's that's how I am. That's who I am, etcetera, etcetera. Like, when I've delivered feedback in the past, people have got really defensive around the types of feedback that I've given, which has been a real challenge, I think, as a an as an early manager, that was such a challenge.

But I love this idea of when you're feeding back up, it's about, like, what are the consequences which might be the problems or the challenges that you're encountering and the importance of being solution driven. Because, again, as a leader, so many people come to you with and this is a problem. It's like, okay. So what have you tried to do to solve it, or what have you investigated in as potential solutions to that problem? And what do you recommend as the best one rather than saying, oh, we could do this, this, and this, and this. It's like, well, now you're giving me extra role to choose what the best solution is for you. So if you can come and say, this is what I'm proposing as the one solution to this, let's try it, and here's what I think the outcome will be. Let's revisit that. And, you know, once I've implemented the solution or whatever, I think it's so important.

And I've worked with so many people who are not solution focused, which is extremely frustrating as well. They just come and they tell you all of the things that are going wrong or all of the problems, and you're like, okay. So let's focus on how we can fix this. How can we move forward? What might we what might we do differently the next time this happens? Yeah.

Yeah. We talked about that a bit last time, didn't we? Taking responsibility, and being solutions focused. So if we think about how this would play out, let's say you have a manager who every time they go into the exec board, come out of the meeting and vent their stress that you and give you a whole list of things to do. And, actually, that ruins your day and is not working well for your relationship. You can't just say that. So instead, you can say, I noticed that when you come out of that meeting, it's an intense meeting for you. There's a lot of actions. You're feeling tired.

We're not having the best quality conversation we could be at that point. I think I really wanna help you to put these actions into place. It would be fantastic if we could schedule a meeting the next day, then you know that you've got a chance to think that through and share with me what I can do, and I can be best positioned to support you with what you need and make sure that everything's running smoothly. Yeah. However you want to do it. So that you've you've kind of spoke talk them through the situation, consequences, solution, outcome. But in a way that makes you sound like you're really trying to support them as opposed to you are driving me absolutely crazy venting

Yeah. Yeah. The stress

on me. Yeah. Because people will take that personally.

Yeah.

Whilst they won't take personally, oh, okay. Right. They they will get a bit of a hint of, okay. I might be coming out, but they're reflecting on it for themselves rather than you telling them what their unhelpful behavior is.

Yeah. But it's brilliant, I think, as well, Carla, because rather than thinking and complaining to your colleagues that, oh, my boss is a nightmare because of this, this, and this, you're actually having the opportunity to express that directly. And I know I know how hard it is to have those conversations, but they need to be had. And from the boss's perspective, you would much rather someone share their frustrations rather than you receive their notice of resignation within a few months because they're feeling so frustrated that their, you know, their energy are is going down every time you come out of that meeting or or whatever it might be. Now we alluded to this at the start, but on the other side of that, you know, you had mentioned that, like, sometimes when you do speak up, it kind of falls flat, and you're not getting the reception that you wish you could get. Do you wanna talk to me a little bit more about that?

Sure. So one of the things that happens quite a lot for women is when we want to say something in a meeting, really nice Must be really nice to be able to say that without worrying about all that negative behavior based feedback that you can get. Like, they can be very sharp and to the point that no one sees that as a bad thing. If a woman shows up like that, we get judged so much. Apparently, we get something like 94% more negative behavior based feedback Wow. Than men. And there's a whole load of phrases. Like, no man is called abrasive, for example.

Mhmm.

The whole load of phrases that are only used for women. So it makes sense that when we have something to say in the meeting that might be challenging, we want to soften it a little bit. But the way we tend to soften it is through using what's known as qualifying statements or caveats. Things like I might be wrong, but or this could be a complete waste of time, or I'm not sure, but even though we know we're not wrong, we don't think it's a waste of time, and we are completely sure what we're talking about. And what all of those phrases effectively do is say, it's probably not worth listening to me on this. And we we start doing them in challenging conversations, and then sometimes we end up doing them habitually. Sorry is another one, apologizing when we haven't done anything to apologize for. So I encourage people to use different softeners instead because I I'm realistic.

I don't think we can just go in and in some places, brilliant. If you're in a psychologically safe place where you can just genuinely say what you think unedited, brilliant. Let's have more workplaces like that, but not many of us actually are. So it is, again, using, like, gentle questions like what if or I wonder about this or how about so you're throwing things in. So you're doing that little bit of a softener beforehand that says something different coming your way that that isn't what everyone else in the room is saying. So you're softening it a bit, but you're not diminishing the value of what you're saying. Because what they also know from research is that if a man is modest, then one thinks it's completely charming. So if a man said I might be wrong, but he'd be like, oh, how charming.

But he's, like, open. So I

can see that He's so in touch with his feelings or, yeah, whatever.

Exactly. And when a woman says it, we believe her. So a woman says, I might be wrong, but then men, in particular, believe that she might actually be wrong, and she thinks she might actually be wrong. We are taken at our word. It's not charming with us. They just go, oh, okay. Because they're trained by society to take other men more seriously. And, actually, as women, we're also trained to take men and authority more seriously than women in authority.

We naturally respect it more. So you're operating in the system that doesn't work very well, but we're not helping ourselves by using those qualifying statements. So use questions instead. The other thing, that's at the start. We also do things at the end that don't necessarily help us. So really common ones, saying, does that make sense? When we know it's made sense, we haven't explained anything complicated. What we're actually doing is saying, I don't like the silence that's just occurred. Can you please validate me and tell reassure me that

I

just made a good contribution to the meeting? So I have a client who an old client, and she was a head teacher. And when she was talking to her school, she never used any of those statements or said, does that make sense? But she was talking she was invited to talk to other heads in the cluster of schools because she'd been doing so well, and people wanted to hear about it. And she realized she was saying, does that make sense? Numerous times during her presentation because she wanted that validation. Someone to say, yeah. Yeah. No. That's great. You're doing great.

You're on the right track here. We respect you. This is what she needed back. And so we talked about her only doing it once or twice. And when she stopped doing it, she felt so much more powerful, and, obviously, she was presenting more effectively as well. So drop, does that make sense unless you've said something complicated? Another thing we do is that we've made our point. We're not seeing or hearing any response from people yet, so we just keep talking. Not really sure what we're talking about.

We're babbling. Sometimes it just kind of tails off at the end as we run out of things to say or we say, so, okay. Yeah. Like, we don't finish strong. And then the final thing we might do is we want people to stop looking at us, and we do that awkward shrug that says, please stop looking at me and move to the next person as soon as possible. And I used to do that all the time. You know, in team meetings where you go around and do your bit. I I still don't enjoy that, to be honest.

I don't enjoy that format, and I would be like, shrug, yep, onto the next person as quickly as you possibly can.

Yeah. Yeah. Almost a combination of the trailing off and the shrug, and it's like, move move to the next person, please.

Exactly. And so, again, that doesn't that's not owning the space. That's not saying that's not giving the message of I've just made an important point here. I'd want you to listen to me. So first of all, reposition in your head what we call awkward or uncomfortable silence. That's just people thinking about that fantastic contribution that you just made. And if you keep talking, then they're gonna forget that contribution because they can't think and listen properly at the same time. Mhmm.

And they're just listening to whatever it is you're now awkwardly babbling on about. So just allow them thinking time. A third of us are reflective thinkers. I really do need time to properly think about an accurate response. So don't assume if there's silence that that is bad. It could be you have just landed a genius idea that has blown their minds, or it could be they're thinking about the practical implications of it. And then another thing you can do is make your key point and imagine a full stop at the end of the sentence, and then take a breath. And you're done.

And then use your body language to say you finished talking. So it might be you leave board and pick up a pen. It might be you sit back. If you're in person, you might turn to the next person. You're indicating with your body language. Okay. I'm now done. I'm passing the mantle onto anyone else.

Or you can use a phrase like, I'm happy to take any questions now, or I'd be really interested in your thoughts on that, or ask a very specific question related to what you've said. However you want to do it, but swap that default, does that make sense, or babbling on things Yeah. Or one of those tools. And that should mean that people are listening to you more because you are presenting more con more confidently. Now it doesn't undo gender bias, but it just gives us a better chance.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I love that. And these there's there's other words that are softeners that I've become aware of and I've removed from mine. So just is one of them. I'm just following up. I'm just doing this.

And you're trying to, again, I think, soften the impact of, oh, I maybe this is bothering you in some way, but actually, I'm asking you to do your job because you said that you're going to follow-up. You said you were gonna do whatever. So I've removed just. And if I catch myself typing it, it's usually typing. I will be like, ah, caught myself, and I need to remove it. And I've seen it in younger women that I interact with as well. Oh, oh, I'm just doing this, or, oh, I'm so sorry. And it's like, you've nothing to apologize for, like, no need to apologize whatsoever.

But it's interesting that you were saying the difference between men and women in those softeners. Oh, I might be wrong. And again, it's I guess it's in the deep seated fear that maybe we're we are wrong, that maybe we're not right, that we haven't got it right, that we haven't got it all figured out, that our opinion is meaningless, that it that people don't care, whatever it might be. But we're putting that in, and we're almost giving them an out then by saying, oh, well, she probably is wrong. I'm gonna stop listening to what she's saying. I loved those suggestions about what we do at the end. I'm sure I do that as well. I have definitely definitely said, does that make sense? And I'm sure I continue to do that, but thank you for putting in the qualifier saying if it's something that's complicated.

Because sometimes I'm explaining something that's complicated. So I do catch myself saying, does that make sense? But I'm glad to know it's okay to use that if I'm explaining something that's complicated. I love the just an indication with your body language. Now something that is occurring to me as I'm listening to you talking about all of these things is it takes practice. And, really, it's about awareness, first of all. So catching yourself using those phrases, not berating yourself, but just being aware that this is happening. I'm like, okay. So maybe I need to practice using some of those or verbalizing my thoughts or using some of the phrases that you've mentioned at the end.

And I know it's really cringey to practice this stuff, but if that's what helps you to get better, then, like, maybe that's what needs to happen.

Yeah. And practice maybe start your practice in a meeting where you feel more comfortable. Get used to using the phrases there. And then once you're used to using them and they feel natural to you, then you move into it into the more challenging meetings. And just pick 1. I am not asking you to change everything that you do overnight. Like, as with anything with coaching and training courses, you can give people a whole toolkit, but don't go and use the whole toolkit at the same time. You only need 1 tool at a time.

Master 1 tool at a time.

Mhmm. Yeah. I love that. And, yeah, I share that all the time. And, of course, I'm thinking, oh, here's all of the changes that I need to make when I'm having these conversations. But, yeah, reminder, one step at a time. Just pick one thing that you might do differently. Stop saying, does that make sense at the end of something that is not that complicated because you're disqualifying what you said and replace it with, does anyone have any questions about that? Does anyone have questions about the implementation? Whatever it might be.

Carla, anything else to share before we wrap things up? Any any anything that maybe we haven't covered on today's conversation?

There are just a couple more things in terms of if you get interrupted. That's always a challenging one. So we get interrupted a lot more than men do. So when we're in mixed gender rooms, we get interrupted about 50% of the time. And the majority of those interruptions are by men. Now, we all know women that interrupt. We may well be women that interrupt. And we know that if someone has ADHD, sometimes it's very hard for them not to interrupt.

So the first thing is recognize someone is not necessarily being disrespectful, or it doesn't mean that you weren't saying something valuable when someone does interrupt. So first that because, otherwise, you're triggered and you've got unhelpful stories in your head and you're not gonna perform at your best. The other is work out right. Do I want to let them keep talking because they're more senior than me, for example, Or do I want to keep talking? So if you recognize, actually, there's some hierarchy here, and I can't say, hey. You've interrupted me. Then as soon as they finish, find a way to pick the microphone back up again, basically. So it might be yes and or building on that, John, and then make the rest of your point. Do not let the whole meeting then go off on their tangent if you can possibly help it.

But if you're talking and, actually, you just want to keep talking, then you can just say things like, I've almost finished, or one moment. So just something that says, still talking here. You will get your chance. I I flag that you want to add something as well, but let me finish my point. Yeah. And I think a nice gentle way to say that is I'm still talking. It's not I'm still talking. It's just a moment or almost finished, and I tend to use my hand to kind of indicate.

Yeah. I hear you.

No. That's really good. And and I'm thinking back to my corporate days and being in those meetings, and one of the struggles I had was finding a place to speak up. So it wasn't that I lacked the courage or the confidence to make my point. It was finding that opportunity. And oftentimes, the conversation was moving so quickly. I was maybe processing what was being said, also thinking about what I wanted to say. And other people seem to jump in much more quickly than I was willing to jump in until I missed my opportunity.

Any thoughts around that? Is that something that you've encountered yourself or that you find with the women that you work with?

It happens a lot. So the first thing I suggest people do is if they know they've got a point to make, instead of doing that rehearsing it in your head thing that I used to all the time Guilty. Write down your bullet points. Just write down 1, 2, at the most, 3 bullet points so that when you do get a chance to speak, then you can say, there's 2 points I want to make here. 1st point is this. Look down. 2nd point is x. So that you're therefore much more able to judge when you can jump in.

The other thing is if you have done the thinking later and the meeting has moved on, I think it is okay to say, look, having reflected on what Jane said earlier, we need to make sure we haven't forgotten x or however you want to do it. I think it's okay to do that. We have a lot of reflective thinkers in meetings. About a third of us are reflective thinkers. And we should get used to that. It's not taking people off a tangent. It's saying, okay. We need to do some more thinking on this.

Yeah. In terms of getting the space to actually speak, this is where allies and sponsors can come in really well. So if you've got someone more senior, whether it's your line manager or just someone that you know has your back, and you know you want to contribute to a meeting, tee them up beforehand and tee them up with this is what I I wanna make sure that I have a chance to put this viewpoint forward, or I wanna make sure they have this information. Then they can have that in their head and help open the door for you. And the more specific you can be, the better. Because, otherwise, they might just land on you at a particular point and go, have you got anything to say? They could be like, not right now because this isn't the topic I had something to say on. So pre brief people. And there's a strategy called amplification as well, which was created by the women in Obama's first I've never worked out the the word for it, not his cabinet, but the people who were in his presidential room advising him, basically.

Some of the smartest men and women in the world. And the women noticed that their contributions weren't being valued as much. They weren't being called on as much, that men were heap eating all over the place and getting the credit. So they got together and said, let's amplify Claire. And Claire. And if someone then he pees it, then you go, I see how you've built on Claire's point.

Yeah. But You're referring back to what Claire said earlier.

Yeah. Exactly. Or Claire gets interrupted and you're like, was there more you wanted to add? Oh, I'd love to hear more from Claire on that. So you don't necessarily have to say you were interrupted. Say, give me the microphone back. Exactly. It it

yourself. To say give me the microphone.

Exactly. It it can be really hard to do. And sometimes you create more attention and more attention on that than the point you were trying to make. So doing it for each other, like getting together with your peers or getting together with a few friendlier people in the meeting and saying that, what do you wanna contribute on? You know? Or can if I get interrupted, can you help me out? Just having each other's backs for any voices that are underrepresented in that room. Because it's not just some gender bias, but this clown.

Brilliant. I love that. Carla, the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, and you will have shared this before as well, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Now I forgot to rip up to look and see what I said last time, but this is what it is right now. So for me right now, it's about using my talents and skills and experience, working alongside great people to make a positive impact. That makes me happy. I get to use all of me. I get to hang out with great people. And making a difference, making a positive impact is a huge driver for me.

Brilliant. Love that. And if people want to connect with you, if they want to learn more about what you do, what's the best place they can do that?

So a few places, I'm always on LinkedIn. I'm far too active on LinkedIn. So do follow me and connect there. I've also got a free resource at the moment, which is my how how to say no challenge. So many of us struggle to say no, and then we're overwhelmed from saying yes too much. So if you head over to carlamillertraining.comforward/ say no, s a y n o, you'll be able to download that as well.

Brilliant. Love that. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. And, of course, you have your amazing podcast, and don't forget to mention your book as well.

That's true. I also so my podcast is called Influence and Impact for Female Leaders. It's a global top 2% podcast. Do go and check that out. Listen to Aoife's last episode, and there'll be a new one coming as well. And then, my book is called Closing the Influence Gap, a Practical Guide for Women Leaders Who Want to Be Heard. Thanks.

Brilliant. Love it. And I highly recommend the book. I thought it was so brilliant and the personal examples that you're able to share as well of a lot of the stuff that we talked about today. So thank you so much for your time today, Carla. Really, really enjoyed this conversation. Loads of practical stuff that people can start implementing straight away. Really, really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thanks for your great questions.