#109 6 Surprisingly Common Challenges Stopping Many Women In Leadership From Reaching Their Full Potential

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Welcome to the 360 leadership podcast, the top rated show for driven women in senior leadership with new episodes released every Wednesday. I’m your host, Lucy Gernon, a multi award winning executive coach for women leaders and the founder of 360. Leaders Club exclusive high level membership for career driven family orientated women just like you. I created the 360 leadership podcast to share practical tips, actionable step by step strategies, and inspiring stories to support you to unlock the power and belief within to accelerate your impact and potential. So you can build a life filled with success, balance and happiness. So are you ready to achieve 360 degree success? No more excuses. No more waiting. Your time is now. Hello, gorgeous. And welcome back to another episode of the 360 leadership podcast. And I’m calling you gorgeous. And if you are a male leader listening today, I’d see you too, because I’ve been hearing from a few male leaders saying that you guys love my podcast too. So you are very welcome if you were here today. So today in this episode, we are going to be talking about six surprisingly common challenges your female talent face that stopped them from reaching their potential. So I am Lucy garden, your host for today I am a multi award winning executive coach and one of the most empathetic kind hearted women that you will ever meet, who also has a lot of fierceness, a lot of strategy a lot of science behind me. So I’m some people call me a unicorn because I’m one of those empathetic, heart centered people, people but I’m also a badass in business, if I do say so myself. And so I’ve been in business for the last three years full time. And I have been working primarily with women in senior corporate leadership. So women really from that associate director or senior manager level, who are trying to break through to director or I’ve been working a lot with directors, senior directors, Vice President, Senior Vice Presidents all the way up to sea level. And I have been working with them privately in my VIP one to one coaching, where I hear their innermost secrets, and I am there to hold space and to support them to move forward through their challenges, make better decisions, teach them different leadership tools and tactics to make their career easier to make, you know, I suppose to add more value to the organization to without burning out or missing out in life, which is the most important thing to me, because we can have it all. And the other way I’ve been working with them is in 360 leaders Club, which is my online membership for women in leadership who want to really progress their career, accelerate their career progression, without burning themselves out. Because there are ways we can do things. And and so I’m telling you this because I have worked with literally hundreds of women, not only in my own, I suppose late members club and in the one to one, but also in a lot of organizations. So I do a lot of like, masterclasses and training with women in leadership, I’ve done a with, you know, mixed leadership teams, I have done a lot for International Women’s Day in terms of panel talks and teaching and things. So I’ve, I’ve really been listening and learning a lot about the challenges really, that are stopping women from really progressing in their career on reaching their potential. And today, I’m going to share those six things because there are there still a massive amount of talent in your organization. So if I’m speaking to you today, I’m speaking to you as somebody who is leading a team. So you may may be male, you may be female, it really doesn’t matter. You might be you yourself can identify with these challenges, but I just wanted to share these challenges because I want them, I want you to understand what’s happening. Because a lot of it will never ever, ever be told to you because people just don’t want to appear like they need support. And sometimes they do. But there’s a massive cohort of aspiring leaders that are on top and they really need support. Or they may be in leadership roles, but they maybe don’t have the confidence and they don’t have the tools or strategies to really be as impactful as they calendar roles. Or they’re been super impactful in their roles, but they’re literally burn themselves out. And like life is way too short to live that way. You know, we can get smart and have it all. And what I’ve really noticed is a lot of the women before they work with me, they’ll have done degrees that have done, you know, maybe even MBAs that have done internal training courses. And they have tons of technical skills, but they don’t necessarily have the soft skills that they need to thrive. They’ve grown up in the age of good girl syndrome and a lot of them are in the brain this middle of a revolution where women are start to being respected more we are getting you know, we’re talking more about unconscious bias uses that we all have, and things like that, but lack of confidence, and I suppose the ability to really own their power. It’s costing organizations time and money. Okay? It’s costing organizations time and money, it’s causing a lot of frustration. So I’m gonna go through the six things right now with you and see, do you notice this in yourself? And if you don’t, I can guarantee you, some of your team will be experienced in this as well. Okay. So let’s get into it. So there are six big problems that many female leaders face that stopped them from progressing and reaching their potential. Okay. The first one is, can you guess what it is? It’s up, they don’t know what they want, or how to get there. So a massive problem that I see is that a lot of and again, when I say women, guys, I’m not calling out women as being weak or sex or anything like that. It’s just my experience in working with the women that I work with. Okay. There’s a lot of men that this applies to to okay. But what I see specifically with women is because we’re coming out of this good girl age and saying yes to everything, and being seen and not heard, and all of those things, we’ve nerdy come into the corporate world feeling like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m here, like, how did I, how am I in this much of an important position. And because we kind of go in feeling sometimes like,

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we don’t deserve to be in the role, or maybe we don’t deserve the success, or we need to work harder to prove ourselves, we tend to kind of take what kind of comes our way. And so what I see a lot is that women that I work with, they don’t know what they want, firstly, and then secondly, they don’t know how to get there. So they tend to take opportunities that come their way, instead of really pausing. Looking at their strengths. And I don’t mean a 20 page, Myers Briggs, or insights assessment that people read once and never look at, okay, I’m talking about getting super high level here. So I’m into high level, because I think sometimes we spend too much time and details. Whereas I’m all about let’s create the results. So they don’t under strengths, they don’t really know what lights them up, they have so much inside them to give. And a lot of the time they’re focusing on, you know, low value, add activities that really are draining their energy, drain their capacity, and then they’re not, they’re not creating the results of the need to create in their organization, and also to really progress and advance in their career. Okay, so the first problem, they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know how to get there. The second problem that I see with a lot of women who work with me would be that they lack self belief and inner confidence. So please don’t be fooled by the person who talks a lot, which would have been me, don’t be fooled by the person who appears to have it all together. Because inside, there’s a whole other thing that can be happening, I’m not talking about all women, again, I’m talking about my experience with how I used to be and how a lot of the women I work with even women guys who were at senior senior levels, this can affect them, too. And so when we don’t have, when we don’t truly own our worth, we don’t truly believe in ourselves. It affects everything. It affects decision making. It causes procrastination, it affects relationships, it affects women speaking up and given their opinion, it means there’s so so many things, it affects boundary setting. And ultimately, all of this leads to a sometimes a I suppose, on productive environment, which is I am all about productivity, the way I think is in like results focused thinking as opposed to tasks. And so what we want to do was, we want to start building confidence in women, we want to make sure that they, you know, understand the importance of having a growth mindset, the importance of, you know, taking that Imperfect Action, which is something I talk about a lot as well. So that can only happen when they begin to believe in themselves and believe that they’re worthy of it and all of those things that I help women with to the third challenge that I see then is they often try to fit in with the culture around them. And they’re afraid to be authentically themselves. So they haven’t really thought about their personal brands. They haven’t really thought about who they really are. They sometimes try to fit the mold. And you know, I’m under no illusion. I understand the corporate world very well. I worked in industries for about 20 years and American multinationals and all that good stuff. So I know the politics, okay, but what’s the only way we can ever change that is by people understanding who the hell they really are, what are their unique skills and talents? What are their values? What makes them different? How do they want to show up? And so when we all get clear on who we really are, and embody who we really are, that’s when we bring our best self to work. I remember a coach coming in years ago into a company I walked or worked for. And he kept talking about bringing your best self to work. But how do you bring your best self to work? Well, first of all, you’ve got to really strategically understand what that is. And again, that’s something that I can help with, I do a personal branding workshop, which is really, really powerful that all my clients absolutely love, where I help them to get clear on their elevator pitch, what their values are, their mission, their vision, and their tone of voice, how they want to be perceived, like all of these really, really, really important things. And when when you get clear on your personal brand, and you stop trying to fit in, and you start being yourself and bringing more of who you really are and your unique gifts and talents, that can only be a good thing for our culture, because it instills a culture, a culture of authenticity, of creativity, of innovation, or problem solving, and all that good stuff. The fourth challenge that I see, and this is an important one, and it links back to the self confidence on the boundaries and the self belief, which is they get stuck in firefighting, they get stuck in the weeds instead of being strategic with your time building related relationships with the right people to get the job done. Now, again, I am not under any illusion, like I came from the pharmaceutical industry, which is seriously fast paced, okay, I worked in manufacturing where there was problems every day, there was massive targets, there was a, you know, billions in revenue on the line. So I have been there, I understand that it is difficult not to get stuck in the weeds. However, when you get strategic about your time, and when you learn how to prioritize when you learn how to really empower your team, when you learn how to say no, when you learn how to say, you know, when you learn to shift your mindset from doing the doing to actually thinking about how we can improve processes. That’s how organizations grow. And that’s how you foster a lot of collaboration. And that’s how you, you know, really create massive paradigm shifts within your organization. So it’s really, really important that your female talent, number one have tools to be able to prioritize, you wouldn’t believe the amount of women who I’ve worked with who have never been taught properly how to prioritize their workload, because again, I’ve developed a process around time management, bringing lot psychology into it. So while Steve Cobis matrix is brilliant, the urgent important matrix, as one of my clients said, before she did my training, she would have thought everything was urgent, unimportant, okay. So it’s about speaking in their language and teaching them tools and tactics to be able to manage their workload, so that they can actually spend more time being strategic building relationships, improving processes, and all the things you want them to do. But in order to do that, they need the tools. Okay. The fifth thing, then the fifth challenge that I see that a lot of female leaders face, and I alluded to it a minute ago, which is they often have really poor boundaries. And they need huge mindset shifts around their boundaries. So they tend to have way too many meetings in their calendar, they tend to say yes to things that they really should be saying no to. And this all comes from, I believe, this good girl syndrome, right? It’s about doing the right thing. And it’s about not saying no, when coming across as you know, being cooperative, and polite, and all those, you know, gender stereotypes that we expect to women. But it’s Why is it okay sometimes for our male counterparts to say no, why is it why is that? Okay? Why do women have to say yes, more than men, okay, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna get lynched for saying that. But in my experience, and what I’ve seen, and in the research, it shows that women tend to say yes, a lot more because of our societal conditioning. And so I can help your team to get a break that pattern. You know, a lot of the time, we talk about boundaries, and organizations don’t like boundaries, because they want people to be collaborative and all of that. But I prefer to kind of think of boundaries as collaboration guidelines. So it’s about I’ve a three step method that I teach the people that I work with in organizations on how to set boundaries, but it’s more so the confidence to actually set them and it’s the confidence to implement the boundaries. That’s that’s the piece that’s missing. You know, you can have all the tools in the world but if you don’t have that mindset, and that momentum behind you to actually take imperfect action and feel the fear and do it anyway. You’re not going to see change, which is why it’s so important that organizations invest in coaches like me, who can really help people to take imperfect action. I I love it more than anything when I see somebody who’s been afraid to do something and then they they take my advice and they go into do it and they realize, Oh my God, it wasn’t as hard as I thought. That’s I just, it’s just so so rewarding for me. And then finally, the sixth challenge that I see many female leaders face that stopped them from progressing and reaching their potential is not speaking up, not knowing how to influence decisions and communicate not having the tools they need to be able to communicate effectively. Like one thing I had to learn massively when I started my business was sales, right? I was I wasn’t a salesperson. But as a CEO and a business owner, I’ve got to be able to sell my services. And so a lot of the stuff that I teach, the women that I work with, would be, I suppose tactics in terms of how to influence people. And this is not in a way that’s like, like salesy or nasty, I

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just mean, how human beings work, right? How they work, I have a training I called the magnetic influence method, and I have a lovely cheat sheet at the end of it. And when my my clients go through this training, they absolutely love it, because they realize they’ve been communicating all wrong. Okay. So it’s really, really important that your female talent, know how to influence decisions, know how to communicate, they have so many valuable insights they have, they know your business inside out. But sometimes they don’t know how to articulate that. They don’t feel that they can speak up sometimes because of maybe dominance around them, or they’re afraid of how they’re going to be perceived. And it all goes back to mindset, which is what my speciality is as well. So they are the six challenges that I see if you would like me to come into your organization, I have lots of different options for working with me, a lot of companies would hire me to do a series of different masterclasses that I can do in person I can do virtually, I am really, really good at engaging teams virtually. So please do not worry about that. I always get feedback that they can’t believe how much activity is happening in the chat. And people leave feeling as inspired, empowered as they would in person to so please don’t worry, I do work with people all over the world, from Australia, to Dubai, to America, to the UK to Ireland everywhere. So timezones don’t matter, we can always find a way. But if you do need some support, please, please reach out because I am looking at my corporate calendar for the rest of the year. And I’m only taken on a handful of clients because they just don’t have capacity. But if you feel like I am the right fit for you, please, please feel free to reach out. And if you enjoyed this episode, I would really recommend that you go and listen to episode number 78 of the 360 leadership podcast, which is five strategies to empower your female talent in your organization beyond International Women’s Day, and why it’s so critical. One thing I love is I love you all you make such a massive effort for International Women’s Day. And let’s talk more about that. Okay, let’s talk more about it on the Eighth of March. And again, actually, if you haven’t booked anybody for International Women’s Day, when this comes out, please reach out I may have capacity that week. And again, love, love, love love supporting these events. But what about beyond International Women’s Day, right? It’s really important. And in there, I’m giving you five strategies to empower your talents beyond International Women’s Day to so that is it. For this week’s episode, I’m going to quickly share the common challenges and let me know in your experience, reach out to me on LinkedIn or on Instagram and let me know Do you see this too. And as this land, quick summary, the first one is a lot of women that I work with don’t know specifically what they want, and they don’t have a roadmap to get there. Number two, they can lack self belief and confidence, which affects their decision making their relationships, everything. They number three, they try to fit into the culture around them and they’re often afraid to be authentically them. Which obviously impacts company cultures, it means you’ve got a culture of people walking around with masks on not being real. That is just not not the way we want to be. Number four is they often are stuck in the weeds focusing more on the busy work and firefighting instead of being strategic developing their team, building relationships with the right people so that you can really grow your your revenue or in your in your organization and have a good culture within your team to number five is they often have poor boundaries, they feel that they can’t say no and they don’t necessarily have the tools they need to be able to manage the workload properly, so that they’re adding the most value in the time that they’re actually there. And number six, not having the tools or the confidence to be able to influence decisions to be able to communicate their points effectively to be able to speak up and that is exactly what I apps Luthy love supporting them with. So if you are ready to invest in your team, or you’re curious to understand how I could support your organization, or if you are listening to this, and you are thinking, Oh my God, that sounds like me, my company don’t have budget, you can still work with me in 360 litres club or potentially privately. So if you just submit an inquiry to Lucy garnon.com, forward slash contact, just there’s a short form there. Let me know where you’re from, what specifically you’re looking for. And we can hop on a call, or we can have a chat and no problem at all. I would love to be there to support your female talent. So that is it for this week’s episode of the podcast. If you found this valuable, please, please just give us a little five star review, share it with a colleague subscribe to the podcast because all of this helps me to join the podcast more listeners, I see you I appreciate you showing up here every single Wednesday for these episodes. And I would love if you could share this episode. And like I said, if you are ready to invest in your female talent or you’re curious to understand how I can support your organization, either for International Women’s Day, this year or next year, or for any training or development work that you need this year, please reach out to us go to my website, Lucy garden.com forward slash contact and I can share more about how we can support you. So have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your week. I hope it’s given you food for thought and I look forward to being in your earbuds or in your car or wherever you’re listening to me Same time, same place next week. Bye for now