Hello corporate badasses. Welcome to another episode of Women Changing Leadership. I am your host, Stacy Mayer, and super excited—as always—to be here with you again this week.

I’m going to be doing a three-part podcast series called Behind Closed Doors, where I reveal what it actually takes to get yourself promoted into a higher-level leadership position—and more importantly, how to gain the influence, authority, power, and autonomy you really want from your career once you get there.

This isn’t a straightforward process. It’s not obvious, even though it feels like it should be. In this series, I want to reveal why there's such a disconnect between the advice we’re given about how to advance our careers and what it actually takes.

My goal is to show you exactly what my clients are doing to get themselves into positions of influence and authority—and what you can start to do as you plan your next steps for the new year. Think of this as your 90-day blueprint for 2026. What do you actually want to achieve? And how are you going to get there?

So here you go.

First, you probably heard a lot of episodes at the end of 2025 where I said, “Hey, get it together and schedule those 15-minute ally meetings now.” And unfortunately, that was good advice. The best time to schedule those meetings would’ve been November or December.

That might seem counterintuitive. It feels like people are offline, checking out for the holidays. But the truth is, it’s one of the best times to meet—because people are more relaxed, more open, and less focused on deliverables. Once we hit January again, that’s when the corporate B.S. starts to pick up. People get busy. They’re thinking about their goals, not yours.

So yes, hindsight is 20/20. Maybe you didn’t set yourself up in Q4 like you could’ve. Oh well. What can we do except move forward?

And that brings me to why the advice we receive about success is so jumbled and confusing. First, the advice we’re given is filtered through the lens of the person giving it—and that person often has their own agenda. They may be busy. They may not be self-aware. And second, there’s the corporate facade. That polished, professional mask everyone wears.

We hate that facade. We want people to be real. We want openness. But the truth is... that’s not how the corporate world works.

The best executive leaders are the ones who understand the politics and know how to navigate the facade.

And the women I coach inside the Leadership Table Mastermind? We get it. We’ve pulled back the curtain. We know who’s running the show, and we choose to move differently. We choose to work smarter. Not because we like the game—but because we’re going to win it.

And here’s the thing: even if you leave corporate and start your own business—as many of my clients did in 2025—the game doesn’t go away. When you're pitching, selling, and building, politics still exist. So the more knowledgeable you are, the more aware you are, the better you’ll do—anywhere.

So, maybe one of your goals for 2026 is just this: Become more aware. Understand how things really work. Speak up. Embrace the fact that you’re smart enough to play this game differently.

Let me give you an example.

I had a client in 2025 who had been operating at a senior director level for years—even though her title was still senior manager. Her boss at the time was an amazing advocate. He helped her get visibility. He championed her internally. And she was grateful.

But here’s what happened: He left the company. And even though he may have gotten her one promotion while he was there, he didn’t have the authority to get her into real executive leadership. He liked her work. He believed in her. But he couldn’t actually promote her.

When she hired me, we quickly realized the real issue: Her area of expertise wasn’t seen as valuable to the organization at the executive level.

And here’s the kicker: She didn’t even care about her functional area! She cared about having influence. She had ideas that could move the company forward—and nobody seemed to care.

So I told her, point blank: “I don’t think anyone at your company cares about the work you do.” And she said, “Yeah… it really seems that way.”

This is what I mean by “behind closed doors.” No one at her company was ever going to say that out loud. But it was the truth. And as her coach, I said it—because someone had to.

You can keep doing great work. You can keep speaking up. But if no one at the executive level cares, it won’t move you forward.

And in her case, they needed her where she was—but they didn’t value her beyond that. Her work wasn’t seen as strategic by the CEO or C-suite.

So what did we do?

We built a relationship with her boss’s boss—the person who actually had decision-making power. That boss didn’t care about her current work either. But he did care about high-visibility initiatives. So we got her onto one of those.

She also did something vulnerable: She told her direct manager she was open to switching groups. Not because she was unhappy—but because she wanted to have a bigger impact on the company.

That move changed everything. Her boss and her boss’s boss ended up supporting her transfer. She moved into a more strategic department, gained more influence, more authority—and had to start learning a whole new set of executive leadership skills like delegation.

Why am I sharing this?

Because most advice you get sounds like: “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” “Keep hitting your numbers.” “People will notice.”

But you know that’s not true. You’ve done it. You’ve seen others get promoted without doing it. It’s not the path forward. So what is?

That’s what this series is about.

And now I want to give you three gut checks—three ways to evaluate advice you’re being given as you enter 2026:

1. Advice That Tells You to “Do More”
Work harder. Be better. Fix yourself. Get in earlier. Stay later. Hit the metrics.

Ask yourself: How does that advice feel in your body?

If it makes you feel stupid, ashamed, like a failure—or if your gut reaction is to create a New Year’s resolution to finally “get it together”—pause. That shame-fueled advice is rarely effective.

2. Advice That Makes You Want to Give Up
This one sounds like: “You’ve tried before. It didn’t work. Just be grateful. Focus on your family. This isn’t the year.”

If advice leads you to lower your expectations—not in an empowered way, but in a “what’s the point” kind of way—it’s probably not the advice you need either.

3. The “Crap, She’s Right” Advice
This is the advice that makes your stomach turn a little—but you know it’s the truth.

You might think: “Ugh. I don’t want to do that. But I know I need to.”

That’s what happened with my client when I suggested she build a relationship with her boss’s boss. She was uncomfortable. She didn’t know what to say or how to do it. But she did it anyway—and everything changed.

If you hear advice like that, and you don’t know how to act on it—that’s when you seek guidance. That’s where coaching comes in. That’s why communities like the Women’s Leadership Accelerator exist.

Because once you learn what to say… once you practice these moves… you get more confident, you open more doors, you understand the politics, and you start leading with real power.

You become the owner of your career.

So this is part one of the Behind Closed Doors series.

In the next two episodes, we’ll go deeper into how to build those key relationships and how to advocate for yourself in ways that actually work inside real organizations.

Because power, recognition, and influence? They’re your birthright.

And I’m so excited to help you claim them.

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next week. Bye.