#143 5 Power Phrases Every Aspiring VP Should Use

Lucy Gernon (00:05.646)
Do you sometimes feel like your voice isn’t being heard or you’re not making the impact you know you’re capable of? As an aspiring VP or director, you know that your words carry immense weight and knowing how to communicate powerfully will transform not only your confidence, but how you’re perceived by your team and peers and the subsequent results that you are able to achieve. This is a key part of building your executive presence as a leader.

So today we’re diving into five power phrases that every aspiring VP or VPE should use to command respect, inspire action, and propel your leadership authority. So whether you’re building your executive presence or asserting your viewpoint with your peers, these power phrases will become your go -to tools. This is a super short episode. I’ll be sharing examples on how you can use these phrases in action and keep these in your leadership toolkit. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Lucy Gernon (01:08.782)
there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I’m your host, Lucy Gernon, and I’m here with you again today for another episode of the show. Before I get into the show, I just want to remind you, if you’re listening to this live, we are currently enrolling for 360 Leaders Club right now. This is my membership for women in leadership who want to advance their careers without sacrificing work -life balance.

If you want networking, executive coaching, professional development and lots of fun and laughs along the way as well, lots of focus on health and wellness, you gotta come join us. I am so enjoying reading the applications that are coming in and talking to some of you about this opportunity that has presented itself. So if you’re interested in joining us, just head over to 360LitresClub .com forward slash reply. This is your final chance for 2024. This is it. So let’s go.

Now, before we dive into the paraphrases in this episode, I wanted to talk a little bit about executive presence, because one of the top traits of really strong executives and really strong leaders who’ve got that kind of presence and that gravitas is it’s about executive presence. according to a recent article from Harvard Business Review entitled The New Rules of Executive Presence, it’s way more than just looking the part. OK.

It’s about how you carry yourself, how you communicate, how you connect with others and all those things. like, I want you to know the good news, OK, the good news right now is that there’s never been a better time in history of the planet to be a woman who wants to advance her career because there’s so much focus on DE &I. There is a lot of focus and organizations about moving more women into senior leadership.

And from an executive presence perspective, I want you to know that that old, outdated, ideal of a white man in a blue suit with a pinstripe tie is not what people want from their executives anymore. It’s much more about authentic leadership, about being an excellent communicator, about diversity and inclusion. There’s so many different things, which is why I created my course, actually, the Executive Presence Blueprint, which you can grab at lucygarnon .com forward slash.

Lucy Gernon (03:31.05)
EP. It’s a self -paced digital course that’s getting unbelievable feedback. Side note, so you can go check that out. But for women in leadership, honestly, honing in on your executive presence is crucial. And it’s crucial because people can smell a mile off if you’re not confident in yourself. And when you work on your executive presence and it is a skill that you can absolutely master and you work on your communication skills and the language you use and the energy you show up with.

You’ll project confidence and competence, which in turn will influence how you’re perceived and how people respond to you. Now, recently, one of our 360 members is part of a one percent comfort zone challenge that we ran in the membership when we had our last cohort in back in. Oh, my God. When was it? I can’t even remember. Was it May? I think we brought in new people and we did this challenge in June.

where it was called the 1 % comfort zone challenge. And we are going to be running that again in October for our next cohort, which is super exciting because it was so much action taken. So as part of the last challenge, one of our members put herself forward by becoming more visible. And she realized, quote unquote, she said, I just had to ask.

And since she has put herself forward and started advocating for herself, she was honestly shocked. And as a result of this one initial conversation that she ended up having with a senior stakeholder in another part of her company, she felt really weird doing it. didn’t want to have the conversation. She was saying, they’re not going to want to talk to me. And I said, yes, they are. And she did it. But as a result of that one conversation.

It had this really cool snowball effect where she ended up having multiple interactions with other senior leaders as a result. And this lady is well on her way to getting her next promotion because of this whole strategy that she implemented. And this never would have happened if she didn’t have the courage to take action and to actually communicate with confidence. And here’s a crucial thing just before I share the five paraphrases that I

Lucy Gernon (05:44.448)
really invite you to pay attention to, and I think you’re going to love it. Which is executive presence. It isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about being the most compelling. It’s about striking the right balance between strength, empathy, authority and approachability. And this balance helps you to lead more effectively and build stronger relationships and really, really inspire not only your team, but your peers, your stakeholders too.

And one of my clients, I’m just thinking about her as I’m sharing this. She is the textbook version of an introvert, but she has this amazing presence because before we started working together, she really wanted to work on her communication style and her communication skills. And for me, one of my top strengths, it’s actually my second top strength, apparently, as per Gallup, is communication, which I didn’t even realize.

so I’ve been able to help her to influence a lot in her organization. She had a really, really impressive meeting with the board. The CEO was flying over and all of his tactical ring and she was invited to do a presentation and I gave her lots of communication strategies and we worked on those skills together. And as a result, like she absolutely killed it. But I want you to know that she’s not like, you know, I’m very, what’s the word.

talkative and outwardly kind of confident, if you know what I mean. This lady is more reserved, but my God, she has super presence. And when she speaks, people listen. So I want you to know that it’s not about being loud or extroverted. It’s actually about you being it’s about your presence. OK. And a lot of that presence comes from confidence work because that enables you to be a better communicator, too. That’s just a little side note.

But I know that you want the power phrases. So here we go. The first power phrase that I invite you to keep in your leadership toolkit, like literally write these down if it’s safe to do so, is I recommend. So the phrase I recommend is so powerful because it says so many things in just one word. Instead of I think we should,

Lucy Gernon (08:10.12)
Or I’m not really sure, but here’s what I think. What do you think? By speaking in those kind of language, that kind of tone or those words, it’s in that like permission seeking energy. Like, am I right? Like, what do you think? Whereas everybody wants a recommendation. So your recommendation may not be correct, by the way, because nobody you can’t predict the fecking future. Right. Nobody

predict the future, but you can make a recommendation based on the information that you have to hand at that particular moment. And based on that, you make a recommendation. And when you say, recommend, it shows you’ve thought about it. It shows it’s not just an off the cuff comment. You are recommending something and then you explain why. So you might say, I recommend that we split this head count.

over these two departments because based on the projections that I’ve read today, that makes the most business sense. I recommend we do this and we revisit it in six months. Boom. As opposed to not really sure what I think we should do. I know that we kind of are kind of screwed for head count. Maybe we could do this. What do you think? No, keep your power. OK, use I recommend. The second paraphrase that I invite you to

write down or to memorize is I’ve prepared options for. So here are some options I’ve prepared. So by using the word options and prepared, there’s the two keywords here, you are showing that you have prepared number one and that you’ve thought about the options. So as simple as it may sound like

Having it in some sort of a structure, you might say like, I prepared three options. As humans, when it comes to communication, we love numbers. So if you have three options, you would say, here are the three options. Like in this episode of the show, I told you I had five paraphrases. We’re on number two. So you’re going to be waiting for three and four and five. It’s just natural as humans. So you’ll say, I prepared three options. Here’s what I think. Here’s what I recommend.

Lucy Gernon (10:28.8)
If you’re ever in a discussion where you then might be in some conflict or you’re going to have conflicting ideas, firstly, I want you to know that everyone sees the world through their values, their belief system and their experience. And everybody is actually right. OK, nobody is wrong. So it can be really difficult if you’re in a meeting with a peer or a

and you’ve got all these different opinions. So instead of just throwing out a random comment like, think we should do this. What’s way more powerful is my experience suggests or my experience tells me or based on my experience, because again, you’re just subliminally seeding that you are experienced and experience builds trust. OK.

experience build trust. So you’re going to say my experience suggests or in my experience, here’s what I recommend. So powerful. And then finally, the last power phrase is let’s say, for example, you really want to get involved in a certain project because it’s going to give you more exposure, more visibility, more opportunity. Instead of saying something like.

I really want to do this. Like I’ve got this this initiative so far and now there’s an opportunity for me to step up. You know, is it OK if I do it? Or I think I’d be really grateful if you’d let me do it. You want to bring in more power than that and you want to say something like I believe I strongly believe I am the best person to lead this initiative. So instead of like I’d like to, I’d strongly believe

I’m the best person to lead this initiative. And what you don’t want to do is start talking about how it’s going to benefit you. You’re going to talk more about how it’s going to benefit the organization. So I strongly believe I’m the best person to lead this initiative because based on my experience, I recommend we and here are the options. Okay. I’m just going to weave them all in there because that instills confidence in instills trust.

Lucy Gernon (12:51.118)
It makes people go, OK, well, if she believes in herself, maybe we should believe in her. OK. So we have used these all the time in 360 when the ladies have certain situations, we would talk about language. We would talk a lot about, you know, how to communicate effectively, because sometimes, you know, our old patterns absolutely come into play. And it’s one thing I love. Love supporting the ladies with this is customized, personalized advice.

tailored to their specific needs. I’m able to direct them to worksheets or paraphrases or cheat sheets or communication training, or I’m able to just give them coaching in the moment to support them. And also having the perspectives of the group is just a game changer. Like you got to come join us if you’re not in there. And on that note, I think I said it already, but we are enrolling right now for our October cohort. If you’re listening to this live, we start on the 1st of October.

We’re running our 1 % comfort zone challenge again, which is in the first month we are going to be doing daily actions and you’re going to gain such momentum. Like, can you imagine by the end of September, if you invest in yourself, how much more confident you’re going to be feeling? You’re going to feel energized. You’re going to feel motivated. You’re going to be ready to go.

If you are ready to prioritize yourself, I would love, love, love, love to support you so you can submit your application to lucygarnon .com or sorry, 360LitersClub .com forward slash apply. Or if you’d like to book a call with me to have a chat to see if it’s a good mutual fit. absolutely, you can book a call. I will pop the link in the show notes below. Or as always, a great place to get me is LinkedIn and Instagram.

The only thing I’ll say is my team do monitor my inbox. So just avoid putting in anything too personal, as often my team are in the inbox. But even if they’re there, they will get back to you and organize a call with me because I would love to chat to you, my lovely podcast listener. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you showing up for yourself. So in summary, the five power phrases, do you remember what they are? Number one, I recommend number two.

Lucy Gernon (15:08.556)
I prepared options. Number three, my experience suggests or in my experience, I recommend number four. I strongly believe I’m the best person to lead this initiative. Fill in the blank. OK. And number five. my God. What was number five? That was number five. my God. I can’t even count today. I’m going crazy. So if you enjoyed this episode today, I recommend you check out another couple.

The first one is my executive presence series. So I did a three part training a few episodes back. If you just search executive presence in the podcast, you’ll find them or we link it in the show notes. It’s a three part mini training where you will learn the key to building more gravitas. You can command a room with ease. You’re going to learn the top attributes that all great leaders have that you must master and how to become a stellar communicator. And I also recommend that you check out episode one one three.

which is breaking through to senior director within 22 days with confidence. You’re going to absolutely love the story in this episode of the show. And like I said, if you are ready to take the next step, if you’re ready to stop wasting time and advance your career, I would love to work with you. You can submit your application to 360LitersClub .com forward slash apply. You can book a call with me at the link in the show notes, wherever you’re listening to the podcast.

or you can just send me a DM on LinkedIn or Instagram. I would be more than happy to have the chats with you. So that’s it for another episode of the show. I hope that you enjoyed those paraphrases. Be sure to have them to hand next time that you want to really feel good in your communication. And I will see you again, same time, same place next week. Bye for now.