Your next promotion is within your control and this podcast shows you how to get there.

Welcome to episode number 138. In today's episode, I am starting part one of a three part series called Working with Assholes. This is a little bit more bold than my usual podcast episodes, but it's because over and over again, the women that I'm working with tell me privately all of the crap that happens to them at work and what holds them back from raising their hands and asking for more is often because of their peers. Because of their bosses that are actively trying to sabotage their career, and also because of the limiting thoughts that they have in their own heads about what they're capable of doing. And so I really wanted to spend some time talking about the different aspects of our environment when we work in corporate situations and literally just with other human beings at work and what we can do to solve it. Listen on.

Hello corporate badasses and welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, and halfway excited to be here with you this week. As you might hear in my voice, it sounds a little raspy. I've actually had quite the week. Despite my best efforts, came down with Covid this past weekend and have been recovering slowly, slowly, slowly, and wanted to record today's podcast episode. Not because I have to because I record my podcast episodes a couple of weeks in advance, but really as a challenge to myself because of a post that I recently did on LinkedIn. And so I wanted to share this post with you as an example and also why I continued to show up today despite having a raspy voice and frequent coughing fits. So this post that I did a couple of weeks ago, it actually was a video that I made where I was encouraging you that even if you have Covid, that you should still interview. And you know, it's a little bit tongue in cheek because obviously I don't take this illness lightly in any way whatsoever. And every single human being has different effects that Covid has on our bodies. And so I'm not saying anything to diminish the illness in any way whatsoever, but what I was noticing is I actually had several corporate badasses inside of my program, The Leadership Table, and an Executive Ahead of Time who were commenting that they had interviews that they continued to still do while they had Covid. And really, the interesting thing here is that they felt stronger in these interviews. They commented on how they felt like their "f"-it attitude was increased. And so before I get into today's episode, I actually wanted to speak to that "f"-it attitude a little bit and why these interviews went better for them than under the normal, healthy circumstances. And, then also why I posted that recommendation that if you have Covid to still do an interview as well, because your "f"-it attitude will go up and will increase. And I completely agree because over these past five days, my "f"-it attitude has totally increased.

So what do I mean by that? First of all, I also want to give another caveat that I do not mean to interview in person. I think that's obvious. These are Zoom interviews only. But what is happening for a lot of people when they're interviewing is they're trying to prove themselves. You notice that when you interview that you almost literally don't feel like yourself, right? Like whatever that means to you. It doesn't feel natural, it feels hard, it feels challenging. You feel like you're trying to prove yourself. And oftentimes when I'm coaching women, I'm telling them to treat the person interviewing them as if they were their peer. So that you're actually having a conversation with somebody versus trying to prove yourself.

So that's a technique and something that I will coach you through inside of Executive Ahead of Time is how to actually show up to those interviews with just that conversational style. And it goes such a long way because when you appear more confident in these interviews, then that's how they're going to trust you to lead at those higher executive levels. They don't need you to prove your execution skills, your subject matter expertise. That's not the goal of executive level interviews. They're like, do I want to work with this person? Do I trust this person? And so that's why you have to show up with that more conversational attitude. And I think that when our guard is down, when we don't feel well, then we just talk, right? We just communicate. We're also able to listen better because we don't have our defenses up. And so I think what was happening for a couple of these women. Not only did they report that they did better in the interviews, but they actually got offered the job. We had three women interview while having Covid and get offered the job. And it was all skip level promotions. It was the next level up for a promotion. It wasn't the role they currently have and I don't think this is a coincidence.

And so my recommendation is obviously if you have Covid, don't feel like you have to cancel the interview. But for any of you, when you start to think about how do I start to learn these skills? And you'll hear me talk a lot on this podcast about just practice. Taking action creates confidence. And one of the skills, one of the things that we can do to our brains and to start to realize where we're holding ourselves back is to put ourselves in different types of situations. So when you hear me talk about 15-Minute Ally Meetings and I'm saying have a conversation with your CEO, that's why I'm saying have a conversation with your CEO. It's because I want to challenge the way that you're showing up, because when you have a conversation with your CEO, even if it's only for 15 minutes, you're going to speak differently. You're going to notice where you're holding back or where you have this armor up or where things aren't working. And so when you're able to tear down that armor a little bit, where you're maybe not feeling 110%, then you're going to see the areas where I'm pushing a little bit too hard and just show up, do the interview and get out.

Now, a couple of other caveats to this whole conversation is I want to tell you that this is very different than saying that you need to work while you're sick because that is not the case. This is an interview. I don't recommend that we continue to show up at work and we hustle our way through and we pound the pavement and we show them how great we are even when we're sick, because we're already doing that.  As women were already doing quote unquote, too much. But what I am saying is show up for the interview. And then give yourself that space. Because now also, if you have that interview, maybe you were out of work that week. And so you also have a different type of space where you're able to show up to that interview and just do the interview without having to run to a meeting immediately following. So my recommendation, if you have Covid, is to do all of your interviews anyway, but don't show up for work. Take your days off of work as needed. And that's actually what I'm doing. I'm taking lots of time for myself and spending time with my family and recording this podcast is actually the first thing that I've done. And I thought this is actually perfect considering my post recently.

So the actual topic of today's podcast episode, which took a little bit roundabout way to get there, is I'm going to do a three part series for you called Working with Assholes. And I really wanted to talk to you. I came up with this way before my "f"-it. Way before my "f"-it attitude was launched into full effect with Covid and I wanted to really talk about some of the challenges that we face as women in a corporate environment and really spend some time over three podcast episodes dissecting what's going on for us and noticing and then figuring out what we're going to do about it. And so in this three part series titled Working with Assholes, I am going to be covering a couple of different areas. One is how to work with literally your peers, people that you don't necessarily get along with, maybe you wouldn't be friends with in real life. The second topic I'm going to talk about next week is going to be more about how to work with a toxic boss. Somebody who's actually trying to sabotage you, people who don't respect you very directly, who are actually limiting your ability to succeed in your career. And then in the third part of this series, I'm going to tackle the subject that is probably really near and dear to your heart, which is the asshole that is you. How do we stop failing ahead of time and really put ourselves out there, challenge ourselves to do better and to say yes to ourselves. So for today's episode, I'm going to talk about how to work with our peers and people who might not necessarily be our friends in real life, and then also our organization, which I think kind of falls under that.

So the first thing that I want to point out and I probably already alluded to this, is that your work does not have to be your friend circle. And I think this is leading up in your career for the first 20 years of your career, the people that you do want to hang out with generally are the people that you work with. And a lot of that is because it's your subject matter expertise. It's what you went to college for, it's what you're really good at. So of course you're going to get along with those types of people. And as you transition into leadership and they talk about how it's lonely at the top, it's also lonely because you stop needing to and wanting to be friends with everybody. Because the decisions that you're going to have to make at the executive level, you can't always make everybody happy.

So you want to be an empathetic leader, of course, a compassionate leader, not an asshole leader. But you're also going to have to make some really tough decisions. And so as you're going for those higher level leadership roles, it's really important to know that you don't have to be friends with everybody at your organization. And I think this matters, especially because, and this is the other thing that happens for a lot of women is when they get promoted, their peers are incredibly jealous and upset and angry at their promotion. And this is shocking for a lot of women. It can be really hurtful. You worked really hard to get promoted and now people are speaking out against you. They're mad that you got promoted and not them. And the biggest thing I want you to remember is that before you joined Executive Ahead of Time, before you started listening to this podcast, before you read my book, you were one of those people who would be pissed when other people would get promoted instead of you because it feels really strange. It feels like this impossible thing. How do you get promoted? And when I break it down for you, you start to see there's actual steps that you can put into place to get promoted. Well, when you start to do that, everybody around you is going to be incredibly confused. Why did she get promoted and not me? And some of them might be a little angry. Some of them might speak up, some of them might talk to your boss and be like, I don't understand. And it happens over and over again. And for the women who get promoted, they're literally shocked. Why is everybody being so mean to me? And now I might also mention that not everybody is going to be mean to you. It's just that we focus on the couple of people that are. And so I want you to know out of the gate that not everybody is going to be excited about your promotion. In fact, a lot of people are actively trying to sabotage your promotion right now. And it's not personal. It has nothing actually to do with you. It's just because we want to get ahead. Everybody wants to get ahead. And they think the only way they can get ahead is to put down other people and put themselves first. So what do they do? They push down other people and they try and put themselves first. And you might be saying, well, this is obvious, but the real reason why I'm pointing this out that we work with assholes is because you are choosing right now not to speak up, not to ask for something. Because of what your peers will think of you.

You are choosing right now not to have a conversation with your CEO because you're worried that people will think something about you. When in reality, having a conversation with your CEO has nothing to do with you wanting to get promoted. It's because you're genuinely interested in the organization. You want to build a relationship with your CEO and if you do get promoted you're going to need to have a relationship with your boss's boss or whoever that executive leader might be. But we're so worried about what other people think of us that we don't even put ourselves out there, that we don't raise our hand, that we don't insert ourselves into the conversation. There's a woman inside of the leadership table, and this literally broke my heart. She was excited because she had built over time this amazing relationship with their CEO. And then she's in a meeting and her CEO points out something really fantastic that she did recently. And she was so embarrassed and she actually shared with our group. She said, I felt like he threw me under the bus. And that was not the case at all. He was bragging about her. He was sharing her idea with the group. But as women were so ingrained to feel embarrassed next to our peers. But if you understand that they're in it for themselves and you're in it for yourself, it forces you to just raise your hand to do what you need to do to build the relationships that you need to build, to build your own career, to stay in your own lane, to worry about yourself.

And then, yes, some people are either going to like you or they're not going to like you. Again, this doesn't mean you can't be an empathetic leader. Of course you can be incredibly compassionate. You can be friends with your peers. But don't worry about them when it comes to making big career decisions, when it comes to building relationships at your organization. Because you can worry about them and worry about them and try and make them happy and please them all day long. And when you get promoted, they can still not be happy for you no matter what you do. But here's the other thing. 80% of the other people are all going to be excited for you. You're going to have those relationships. You're going to be successful in that new role and everybody else is going to have your back. And that's what matters to me. That's all I got for you today. Welcome back. Join me again next week as I start to feel better, no doubt, and I talk to you more about how to work with an asshole boss or people who are actively blocking your career. Take care and I'll see you next week. Bye.