Your next promotion is just the beginning, and this podcast shows you how to get there.

Welcome to episode number 151. Thank you all so much for supporting the rebranding of my podcast into this more mission-driven Women Changing Leadership format as we continue to celebrate women who are bringing their diverse voices to the leadership table.

And that actually segues into what I'll be talking about in today's episode, which is to stop using your diversity as a selling point when it comes to advocating for your promotion or interviewing for a high level leadership position and start being more diverse.

Listen on to figure out what I mean.

Hello, corporate badasses! Welcome to my second episode of Women Changing Leadership. I am so thrilled to be here with you again this week. It has been such an incredible lesson to me for the past couple of weeks since I announced this rebranding of my podcast into a more mission driven format.

And here's the #1 lesson that I want to tell you right off the bat that I've learned:

It is far easier for you as a leader to talk about your 3xed vision than it is for you to talk about your next promotion.

I'm going to say that again.

It is far easier for you as a leader to talk about your 3xed vision than it is for you to talk about your next promotion.

And it doesn't feel that way because, what are the conversations that you're already having as an executive? If you're ever meeting with executive leadership, you're always talking about that next goal. The immediate thing that you're working on, and maybe it's even the current project that you're working on.

It's really difficult to train your brain to talk about that future vision. And that's because we are very reactionary. If you're somebody who is in the weeds and finding yourself always mired in the details, it's because we are just as human beings, incredibly reactionary, what's right in front of us and reacting to that in real time.

But it can be so freeing when we have a conversation about our longer term visions.

So my longer term vision is to double the number of women in the c-suite each year worldwide. You've heard me say this before. It has always been my mission. Ever since I started my company, that has been the 3xed vision for the work that I'm doing. And up until the point of rebranding this podcast, I would communicate to you a lot about your next promotion.

Now, I've had lots of episodes in particular where I'll go into much more detail about your long term vision and why that matters to you and your next promotion, and then obviously the work that you want to be doing before you retire. But since I changed the name of this podcast, I realize that I'm really talking about that 3xed vision. I'm actually leading with the change that we're making to the leadership table. Do you see the difference?

So Maximize Your Career is about getting promoted. It's that next promotion. But when I talk about Women Changing Leadership, that starts a conversation. It's not a series of to-do's. It's actually: is this possible? What's the change that we're seeing? It sparks curiosity, It sparks connection. It allows you to be able to share this work with other women who inspire you.

So when we speak from that more long term, mission-driven place, other people can get on board with this. And the reason why I'm sharing this with you is not because that's what I'm going to talk about in today's episode at all. I'm realizing this needs to be a total other podcast episode by itself. But because I have experienced this in real time. So women are coming out of the woodwork who've been following Maximize Your Career over the last couple of years and really implementing the tools to get themselves promoted. But they haven't felt compelled to share this information with other leaders.

And the feedback that they're giving me is because it felt like it was about their promotion, their career path. Whereas now that I am shifting over into the change that us as women are making at the leadership table, they're like: Yeah, I want to share this with everybody.

So it's helping me in my career and my business to talk more about the mission. It makes me feel better to talk about the mission rather than to talk about your next promotion. Now, I feel pretty great talking about your next promotion. I get really fired up about it, but when you think about your next promotion or the project you're working on or the immediate problems that you're having at work, a lot of times you don't feel great. It feels hard, it feels heavy, you feel stuck.

But when you can shift to: what is my 3xed vision, where am I headed? What's the greater impact that I want to be making in the world? Well, now you feel lighter. You feel like there's possibility. Like I said, it sparks curiosity, connection, conversation. That's the type of conversation that I'm excited to be now having with this podcast.

So I'm just absolutely thrilled. Lesson learned. I'm going to forevermore lead mission first, and obviously give you the tools to get yourself promoted because we need you in a higher level leadership position so you can be that change that you really want to be seeing at your organization, or at other organizations in your industry, in your area of expertise.

I want you to be that leader leading that charge. Be that thought leader that brings her brilliant, amazing ideas to the leadership table. So frickin excited about this.

Now, in today's episode, I am actually focusing a little bit more on a touchy subject called diversity.

Now, if you are listening to this podcast, you are absolutely 100% in the minority. If you are a woman listening to this podcast, if you resonate with the work that I'm doing, you are not in the majority at your organization.

Now, I work with a lot of women who are in industries or fields that tend to have more women in leadership positions. And if you listen to my podcast from a couple of weeks back where I'm talking about how we don't have solid role models in higher level executive positions because women who got themselves into those positions more than even just five years ago. Have a different way of being in those higher level leadership positions.

And what I mean by that. You're like: they are kind of a jerk. Even though they're a woman. And that happens. And I'm not saying it's like across the board, but I'm just saying it's very prevalent for women, because they had to kind of claw their way to the top and and act more like a man, be more aggressive to get themselves into those positions, and the way that I teach you how to get promoted is through that connection, through that conversation, so that you're bringing your whole self to the leadership table.

In today's episode. I'm really going to spell out for you why I want you to stop using diversity as a selling point when it comes to landing your next promotion.

So whether you're having a conversation with an executive leader or you're interviewing for a higher level leadership position, a lot of times what I'll see women doing when they start to speak about their strengths, the first place that they'll go is to their diversity. What's different about them than the rest of the people who are interviewing them?

So they'll lead with the difference versus the same. Where they're the same as everybody else. They'll lead with that difference.

Now, I'm going to speak from my own personal experience now, which is ever since I was born, all I can remember is being different. I had bright red hair. My entire body was covered in freckles. I wore braces throughout my entire high school. I was a little bit louder, a little bit more. Not a little bit, actually. I was a lot louder, A lot more emotional. A lot more dramatic. A lot more creative, a lot more driven than most of the people around me in Kentucky. I was incredibly different and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a very loving family, people who supported that (besides my brother, who would just tease me all the time, but I like to think that he loves me).

But anyway, so my parents and a lot of my family would really support that, but they would use words. And now this is when we get into micro-aggressions. They would use words like: You're very different. And they would they would say that they loved that about me and that was really great. But they would actually point out that I was incredibly different all the time.

Now, this is happening for you at work, 150%. I guarantee it. People are pointing out to you that you're different, that you're unique. And they might even sing your praises about it. But that pointing out that you are othered. That you are different is a form of microaggression, because basically what happens to us is it seeps in and it tells ourselves that we don't belong, that we have to do things, continue to do things differently.

So for my entire life, I have felt like I didn't belong. And I've been searching for that belonging and seeking that belonging and finding weirder and weirder ways to connect with that belonging. And it's only been in more recent years that I have really come to terms with the fact that I am different and that therefore I belong. That I am just different. That is who I am. But it doesn't have this context to it. This additional shaming that different is bad or different even means that I don't belong. Different means that I can't be a CEO of my organization, that I can't coach corporate badasses, that I can't do really incredible things in the corporate world because I am different. Because I don't look and act and think like the rest of the room.

So because this difference has been the story that's been played to me, it's the story that I feel. It's it's who I am. It feels like such a huge part of my identity that I'm different, I tend to lead with difference when talking about myself. So if somebody asks me about myself, I usually talk about how different I am. So you can see where this is going.

Other people tell me my whole life that I'm different. And so then I lead with that difference. When I start talking about things that I am doing at work or in my. Business or whatever. I always talk about how different or unique I am. And sometimes that difference and unique is like emotional challenges that I face. Because I am so desperately wanting to connect with them and share with them my uniqueness so that I can see seem like I'm not othered. That we all are on the same page because we're all so unique and so different.

Anyway, this is getting very, very deep, but I wanted to just share that with you, if that resonates with you. If you're somebody who consistently feels different, then this is a challenge for you. And in order to...obviously it's a challenge you felt at your whole life, but in order to have it not feel like a challenge, what you tend to do is lead with that difference and embrace that difference very loud and proud. And so imagine you've heard me talk about Bozeman Saint John on this podcast before, and she was the former CMO at Netflix and she is a six foot tall black woman and absolutely powerhouse. Just incredible personality, incredible bold opinions. Just an amazing, amazing woman.

And she said in a prior interview that I read, she said that she was always seeking to meet people at her organization and to get along with them and wished that she could be more like everybody else. And a brilliant mentor of hers told her: you couldn't be more like everybody else if you tried. Look at you. You are a six foot tall black woman walking into a room full of white male leaders. You could not be more different. Before you even open your mouth, you are different.

And I really want you to understand this and take it to heart, because she said that was such a pivotal moment in her career, was that she embraced that diversity and that she was just different from walking into the room. So she didn't need to continue selling her difference.

So really, listen to this. You don't need to continue selling to people how different and unique you are. You are different and unique. And 90% of the time you look different and unique. So all you have to do is walk into the room and you are different and unique.

So the old way of getting promoted into executive leadership was to take that difference in uniqueness and to put it into a box and close that box and tape up that box and never let anybody see it. And then pretend to be more like a man. Pretend to be more like the rest of the room.

The only problem is, is that you can't hide it. It still lives in that box. It is. It is stuck in that box and it's screaming to get out of that box. And it's like, let me go, Let me go. And when you walk into a room, no matter if you wear the pantsuit or not. You are different than the rest of the room.

So you're trying to fit into a mold. You're shoving down your diversity. You're sort of saying, I don't want other people to see this side of me. I just want to get along. And so that's the old way of getting promoted into executive leadership. And it worked for a lot of women. And it also turned a lot of women off to executive leadership because they were like: I hate this life. If I can't be myself, then I don't even want to work here. And I quit. That happens all the time. And it still happening today. It's not like we've gotten past it.

But at least for me, in the work that I'm doing, I'm teaching you how to bring your whole self to the leadership table. So now let me show you how I coach women to work with diversity. So if you recognize that you just are different, that you are unique, that you are not like the rest of the room. We're not going to use that as a selling point to continue stating our case. So you can dress however the heck you want. You can be louder than the rest of the room. You can be bolder than the rest of the room. You can be more opinionated. You can have more bad ideas than the rest of the room.

All of that stuff is really, really great and you're going to keep that outside of the box. That is going to be who you are and what you do and how you show up in conversation. And then what you're going to do is when you're building relationships with people, what you're going to do is you're going to actually relate to them. You're going to listen to them. You're going to talk about how your ideas and what you're thinking relates, literally, relationship relates to them. So you're going to be leading with the commonality versus the difference.

Now, this is a lifelong process, and I'm still learning this myself because every day I get butted up against it, because I have, for over 40 years of my life, had a tug of war with my difference. But now that I am embracing my diversity and I realize that I just am different and I couldn't be the same as everybody else if I tried, there's literally no way in the world that I can be the same as you. Like, at all. Like, you have no idea. You may relate to my ideas and what I'm sharing on this podcast, but I'm so different than so many people that I see on a regular basis. Even if it's just a difference in the way that I view the world. But I'm often physically different than a lot of the people that I see, and I'm sure you must feel the same way as well.

So leading with your diversity, it looks a little bit like this. You you kind of tone down how you look and your ideas. Because we're sort of used to we have to physically look like the rest of the room. So you tone down all of that. But then when they say, tell me about your strengths, like in an interview, a more formal opportunity then what you say is that you really value diversity and inclusion and bringing empathy to your teams and you start to lead with, literally, diversity as a selling point.

You say I really value diversity and you spend the next ten, 15 minutes talking about how much you value diversity. But nowhere in this conversation do you say how you bring out diversity in others, how you actually make decisions based on diversity. You just sort of keep saying: I value diversity. I value diversity in various different ways in the conversation.

Because what you're trying to do is inadvertently, subconsciously, as you're trying to convince them that diversity matters. So that's the old way. This is how we would traditionally show up and talk about how different we are and just literally talk at them about how different and unique we are when they can literally already tell. And hopefully if you're being brought into the conversation, the person on the receiving end values diversity. They brought you into the room. They want you to be there. All of those things.

So know that you belong. You are invited into this conversation so you don't have to sell them. On how much diversity matters to you. It just matters. It matters. It matters to you in the same way that an equal rights lawyer thinks about diversity every single day. Because you are thinking about it, living it and breathing it, every single day.

And I guarantee you, I went to this women's conference and we were talking about lifting other women up. And when we get to the C-suite, we're going to lift other women up. And the woman who was talking about this was almost talking about it like, we have to remind other women to lift other women up. That's a thing that we have to tell them to do because so many women have gotten promoted and not lifted. Other women up have actually put women down, have isolated women.

And the only reason that we have to teach, that we have to tell women to don't forget, lift other women up, is because the way they got promoted was very different than the way we're going to get promoted. They got promoted in isolation. By tamping themselves down, by putting themselves in a box. And so, when they see a woman who's being herself, they're threatened by this and they want to put that person down.

But when we get promoted into higher level executive positions, when we're really changing leadership, we are bringing our whole selves to the leadership table, which means we just are diverse.

So we're not going to use diversity as a selling point in our conversations. We're not going to tell people more how diverse we are and how different we are and how unique we are. Ok? Please stop doing that.

But what you are going to do instead is you're going to engage in conversations about your unique ideas. You're going to relate to other people, ask them about their unique ideas. You're going to have conversations that involve difference of opinions.

So this is the difference between showing not telling. We're going to actively engage in conversation. We're going to show up in our full glory as our selves. Letting our hair down, let it be curly, let it be wild. Wear our big high heels, whatever that might be for you that makes you feel unique and stand out in your own skin because that is who you are. You just are diverse and then we don't have to talk about it anymore. We're going to engage in conversation with our unique ideas, with our difference of opinions, but in a relatable way in regular conversations.

So in this example, where a woman would lead with her diversity and her team, instead of saying: I really value diverse teams and inclusion, she's going to say. Every single week with my team, what I do is I have these group meetings and instead of leading the meeting so that I'm top down and making sure that everybody listens to me and follows what I have to say: I let a different leader lead that meeting every single week so that we can start to hear from them first before we make opinions, before we make changes, before we come to conclusions. I let every single person in the room have a voice because I believe that voices matter. The difference of opinions is what truly creates innovation and change.

Do you see how this is different? Do you see the difference between the two? In the second scenario, she's showing not telling. She's saying, how do I pull out unique voices on my team versus just I value that. That matters to me. And I say: no shit. Of course it matters to you. You live and breathe it every single day. It matters to you. But how you pull out those unique voices. And you're going to be doing it by relating to the other human beings in the room. Even if they don't look and talk like you, you're going to be actually trying to connect with them. Tying what you think into what they think.

That is relating to other human beings. When you start to do this, when you stop leading with diversity as a selling point and truly lead with your actual diverse ideas and engage in conversation with the other human beings in the room, that's when we start getting promoted. That's when we start getting that real voice at the table because they can see us as one of them. Not one of them, because we look and think exactly like them.

But one of them because we share inherent executive leadership traits. Those executive leadership qualities that are so true to us. We all can have a common language of executive leadership. That doesn't mean that we think and make decisions the exact same way as them. It just means that we think and make decisions in a powerful way. Do you see the difference?

Inside of Executive Ahead of Time, I'm coaching women on how to be seen as an executive leader so that they can be relatable to the rest of the room. Because once we do that, then we are able to truly be ourselves in those higher level executive positions. We have support and backing. The people who promote us know what they're getting. We're not going to bait and switch them when we get to the top. We are who we are. We are diverse, we are unique. We are corporate badasses.

They want that. But they also want to see that you can make tough decisions, that you can think and communicate like an executive leader. Start doing that. That is the ultimate combination of success in corporate leadership.

You want to change your organization from the C-suite out. You want to bring your whole self to the leadership table. Stop leading with your diversity and start being diverse.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week.

Bye!