#150 Top 5 Leadership Lessons from Our Best Moments: Celebrating 150 Episodes

Lucy Gernon (00:01.4)
Today on the show, are celebrating 150 episodes of the 360 Leadership Podcast. And to mark the occasion, we have gone back through the archives and my team and I have pulled out our top five performing episodes. And in this week’s episode of the show, we have pulled out some of the golden nuggets from those episodes. So if you’re new here, you’re going to get a nice taster of what we do on the show. And if you’re a long time listener, these are going to be some powerful reminders. We are…

Bringing you Denise Kelly Burns episode, talking all about how to set your goals and have a vision board and how to achieve your goals. We’re gonna be talking about dealing with a micro monitor boss, asking for a salary increase and actually getting it. We’re talking about confidence building, executive presence and so much more. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show. And thank you again for being such an amazing loyal listener of the podcast. And just before I go.

Can you please just send this episode on to your female leader friends and help us to grow the show, help us to celebrate online if you see our posts, I would be so, so grateful. Okay, I’ll stop talking, enjoy the show.

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 Gurnan, a multi award winning executive coach for women leaders and the founder of 360 Leaders Club, an 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° success? No more excuses, no more waiting. Your time is now.

Lucy Gernon (01:58.23)
You spoke about something really, really important. So, Garen, if anyone’s multitasking, please come back to me for this bit. This is super important. You said about aligned action. So explain what aligned action means and what stops people from taking that action. Yeah. So aligning your actions is something that I’ve really had to learn the hard way throughout my career journey. And it’s something I’m very passionate about now.

So aligned action or inspired action is directly aligning actions to your overall vision or your goals, like the steps, like think of it as like the staircase up to the goal. Aligned actions are the steps up to the goals. So if your goal is to, let’s say,

get a mortgage, one of your steps might be to assess your finances. Another step might be, another lined action might be meet a number of banks. Another lined action might be decide what bank you want to go for your mortgage application with. Another step might be fill in the application form. So they’re all aligned actions to the bigger goal. And that’s so important because like what I said,

So many of us get caught up in other people’s plans, other people’s goals, and we become their stepping stones to their goals and we’re not thinking about our own. Amen. Amen. You’re making me think actually about I was on a call with my some of the girls in 360 leaders club yesterday and one of the ladies was trying to make a decision based on whether or not she did this particular thing in work or not. So the very first question I asked her was like, well, is this aligned to your goal and your vision and where you’re going?

And I think when you’re able to do that, it makes decision making so much easier. So much easier, Lucy. And I know I’ve said it already, but when you’re crystal clear and you have your vision and you know what your goal is, it makes it easier to say absolutely no to anything that isn’t a stepping stone to this. And what makes people do you think like, because obviously I’d see it too, like you hear a lot of women with like mom girls. So say I’ll have people who will

Lucy Gernon (04:11.234)
You know, they really want to maybe do something in their career, but then they feel like they’re never doing enough with their children. Right. And then all this guilt fits in, you know, they’re not helping my family and I’m not doing this for other people. And, you know, I was actually teaching last week about the sailboat metaphor in positive psychology. It’s a beautiful metaphor if you don’t know what it’s gorgeous. And it’s based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but it’s a more modern day version. And one of the things is things is that, you know, you’re

You represent the boat, which is like your security, your needs, all of that good stuff. The sails are like your values, your strengths. You’ve got your compass and all that good stuff. But in any ocean, you’ve got other people on their boats, too. And so many of us try to steer other people’s boats and try to get on other people’s boats and try to help other people on their boats. But it’s about coming back to our own ship and being like captain of our own ship. So how do you like

There’s so many wonderful women in particular, just I think are such nurturers and are so helpful. How do you like navigate that, like that balance of trying to be capsule of your own ship, achieve everything that you’ve achieved in the head plan? We haven’t even talked about that yet. And then not worry so much about all of this stuff over here. I think, you know, just before we went on air, you were asking me how I was. I’m obviously a new man. Well, how long do you say a new man? I’m 30.

months and it was a difficult journey to get into motherhood, I might add as well. So I feel like even my journey into motherhood, I was kind of stepping in and I had to re-prioritize a lot of things. I will say Lucy on something that we said before I came on air when you asked how I was. I think it’s just a season. I think to remind women that for me personally, I do find motherhood a juggle, a challenge.

but equally so rewarding and probably one of my most important jobs in my life. But I remind myself that it’s just a season and the time is going by so fast and I have learned to re-prioritize and maybe goals that I set before she was born because I naively thought she’d slot in. I bring her to that event and I do this and the other with her. I’ve learned to accept that maybe

Lucy Gernon (06:34.594)
some of the dates that I had set before she was born need to be pushed out and, and just to re prioritization. The mom guilt is real. I’ve absolutely felt it. And I continue to feel it. weekly, if not on a daily basis. And I think it’s something to just. Especially like women, particularly within Ireland are so supportive and anyone that’s in this.

hood of motherhood will support you in saying the way you feel is so normal and we put so much pressure on ourselves to achieve. But we’re comparing ourselves to people that mightn’t be in the season we’re in at this moment and we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves anyway. maybe just stay in your own lane, stay in your own season and appreciate it for what it is. Yeah, love that.

Lucy Gernon (07:27.96)
Tip number one is communication is key. If you’re feeling suffocated by a micromanager or you’re feeling like they’re taking away your personal power, the worst thing you can do is to keep quiet and let things build up. Instead, what I invite you to do within 48 hours of listening to this podcast is to schedule a meeting with your boss and have an open and honest conversation about how you’re feeling. Be respectful, be professional, be compassionate.

but make it clear that you need more autonomy to do your job effectively. Make it clear with them exactly what’s going on for you, how it’s making you feel, and promise you that is the very, very first step. The second thing to do then is in that conversation is set clear expectations. One of the main reasons that micro-monitors tend to do that is because they don’t

trust their employees to do the job right. So to combat this, you wanna make sure you’re setting clear expectations for your work and providing regular updates on your progress without them needing to ask. This will help make your boss feel them, you know, they’ll feel more confident in your abilities and hopefully that will give you some breathing room. So what you would do in the conversation then is tell them that and just go like, look, know, step number one, you’re gonna communicate, you’re gonna share what’s going on for you.

Step number two is you’re gonna set your expectations and your boundaries and you’re going to tell them that you will provide regular updates and check in and say, it okay, right, I’ll send you an update every Friday, does that work for you? So make sure you’re getting alignment with your boss as well. Tip number three then is to establish boundaries. So if your boss is a micromanager and if you’re constantly getting emails or texts outside work hours,

asking you to do tasks that aren’t part of your remit or they’re lastminute.com, it really is time for you to establish some boundaries. So if you haven’t already listened, I have a full podcast episode. It’s episode number two, I believe, called The Ultimate Guide to Setting Boundaries. And in this podcast, I walk you through my three-step method for setting boundaries. So definitely go check that one out.

Lucy Gernon (09:44.622)
There’s another one that I recorded, believe it’s episode 66, how to push back politely and professionally at work. And again, I take you through some things you can do there around setting boundaries. So you wanna just make sure that, you you let your boss know that you’re with them, that obviously you’re happy to help, but that you need to be able to switch off and have a work-life balance too. There has never been a better time than now to set boundaries because since COVID, I mean, the whole world has changed when it comes to work-life balance.

And again, that’s a lot of work I would do with my own clients who are struggling with work-life balance. It’s usually because of limiting beliefs they hold about themselves and about their abilities, as well as not being on top of their workload and not being as organized as they could be, which is where I teach them all my secrets on how to prioritize like a pro CEO and how to keep on top of your workload, which really helps too. Okay, so we’ve gone through the first three. So the first one is communication. So it’s about setting up a meeting.

don’t keep quiet. The second thing to do in that conversation is to set clear expectations with them and agree that you’re gonna provide regular updates. Number three then is to set your boundaries and again, go check out those episodes I mentioned earlier, episode number two and episode number 66. And then the fourth tip I would say is to build trust. So micromanagers often struggle with delegation and it’s just because they don’t trust that you’ll do the job right.

So to combat this, make sure you’re building trust with your boss by consistently delivering high quality work and taking ownership for your tasks and then being proactive about problem solving. And again, the other thing around building trust is really to really understand the ask and to try to gain some perspective on the pressures that your boss is under and what they’re looking for. Unfortunately, not everyone in the corporate world is good at communication. And one of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make is

We make assumptions that people understand the ask, but you can never be too explicit when it comes to communication. It’s like, tell it to them like they’re five. So if your boss isn’t doing that, you need to ask questions like a five-year-old to make sure that you’re crystal clear on the ask, because the more questions you ask, the more curious you are, the more you’re gonna get on the same page as your boss as well. And tip number five is to consider your options. So if all else fails and…

Lucy Gernon (12:09.41)
you’ve tried the first four steps and it’s not working, it might be time to consider what options you have. That might mean having a conversation with H.R. It could mean looking for another job or requesting a transfer. Ultimately, all you can do is do your best. All you can do is try to do the steps that I have suggested. But if it’s not working out, I mean, you only have two choices. You either stay and continue to be suffocated or you look at your other options.

Lucy Gernon (12:41.518)
So very first thing we are going to get into is when to actually ask for a salary increase, okay? Now, I have worked with a few women, obviously, in my business, and this kind of thing has come up. It’s come up with women in my mastermind groups, it’s come up in my one-to-one coaching, it’s come up all over the place where there are new opportunities that are happening and women are in that negotiation process. And I absolutely love inspiring and supporting you as you go through that process because you are bloody amazing.

I really mean that. Like you are so, like the impact you are making in the world, you don’t even see what I see. You don’t see what other people see of you. You see the problems. You see, you know, that you’re not good enough and you see the decisions you didn’t make right. And you say you’re not strategic thinker. You are, okay? So you’ve got to know your worth. So what you want to do is there’s two times when you can ask for a salary increase, okay? So if you’re multitasking, come back to me.

The first time is obviously in your annual performance review appraisal. Okay. And the second time is at any other time. Okay. So if you are right now listening to this, when it comes out, you’re obviously not going to be in the middle of your end of year. So you can take action on this right now. So if you are out of cycle, you are entitled to bring your dissatisfaction to your regular one-to-one with your manager.

Now, if your manager is not great, and as you as you climb the corporate ladder, one-to-ones tend to be less and less, which really also pisses me off because they’re so bloody important. You need to ask your manager for a one-to-one, okay? Now, in this meeting, you can talk about what’s going well for you, what’s not going well for you, and really raise your dissatisfaction. But you want to be well prepared going into that meeting and with data.

which is exactly what I’m going to talk you through today, okay? So are you ready to get into the five secrets? So we’re gonna be going through the five secrets that you need to know in order to get a salary increase. So secret number one, I’ve already alluded to it, it’s know your worth. Know your worth. So you wanna be looking at the value you create for your organization and not at your

Lucy Gernon (15:04.278)
self-worth. Now this is a really important distinction so if you’re multitasking come back to me. You want to be looking at the value you create for your organization not how much you think your work worth. Okay so you’ve got to do the work on your own money mindset. So as I spoke about at the start we all have a relationship with money and it’s based on your conditioning it’s based on your childhood.

So, I mean, I see it all the time with women, all the time. I see women who come in to me and they wanna work with me and they wanna invest in themselves and there’s not even a question that they’re just ready to go. Like there’s not even a doubt in their mind at all. They’re smart, they know that when they invest in themselves that they’re a sure thing because they’re in control of their investment and they just do it, okay? And that’s like several thousand euro depending on what it is.

then I see other women who like the thoughts of them spending or investing money in themselves like makes fills them with dread. They just don’t feel they’re worth it. Even though they have the money. This is the thing. It’s not that they don’t have the money. The money is usually there either in the bank account or it’s either there in shares, but they don’t feel that they’re worth it. So now let me tell you something. And again, if you’re multitasking, come back to me. If you don’t feel you’re good enough to invest in yourself,

you are not going to feel good enough to ask for a salary increase. OK, so you have got to realize that if you want to invest in yourself, be that getting boat dogs like I do, investing in coaches like me or investing in a course you really, really want to do or investing in you, I’m not talking about something material. I’m talking about something that’s going to fuel your personal and professional growth and development.

If you are not there yet, if you can’t just hand over your credit card or take money out of your bank account because you have blocks around your value and if you are worth it and can I really do this for myself? What about the children and what about this? If you can’t do that, you’re not in a position to go for a salary increase, okay? I can tell you that with certainty, all right? So you’ve got to do the work on your money mindset. You need to build your confidence and you need to really go in to the conversation with your manager.

Lucy Gernon (17:17.382)
knowing full sure that you deserve it or you’re not gonna get it, okay? You wanna really manage your energy and realize that they’re not doing you a favor if they give you the salary increase, okay? You deserve this, okay? You deserve this. So what you really don’t want to do is go in with an energy of looking for permission because permission-based energy is weak.

Okay, we don’t want you to be powerless and want you to be a powerhouse because you are. Okay. And it all starts with knowing your worth. Secret number two then is benchmarking. Now this is a really boring yet super crucial part of the process. You want to benchmark against other companies. So you can go onto the last door. There’s lots of different places you can go to benchmark your role. So what would you be getting paid in another company for a similar role at a similar level?

look at the male and female salaries, okay? If the companies have gender pay gap reports, go dig them out for other companies and do your research, okay? That brings me on to the second part of that is you want to look at the gender pay gap report for your own organization if you have it, and you want to leverage that hard. So one thing I want you to understand is that your CHRO or your HR leader or whoever it is,

they’re responsible for delivering the company HR strategy, okay? And a massive part of all of those strategies in most organizations is retention of female talent, okay? Retention of female talent, attracting top talent, it is always in there. And we know now that women are leaving the corporate world in record numbers, okay? Now it’s slowing down a little bit, thank God. But like this is probably on your company’s agenda, okay? So if you know somebody in HR,

have the conversation about what is the company’s strategic direction around female talent, okay, or the gender pay gap. Arm yourself with as much information as possible. Now, what you can do is you can actually request the benchmarking report from HR because they typically will do a benchmarking report within your organization. So if your organization is anyway credible, they should most likely have this.

Lucy Gernon (19:40.408)
And this will show where you fall in your salary, by your level, okay? It’ll show where you fall within your band and everything by gender. So request that from HR, okay? So what you wanna do is gather as much information as possible to see, first of all, if you actually are an outlier in terms of your level and your organization and beyond your organization. And obviously if you’re not, well, that’s a different conversation, okay? So this is all on the assumption.

that you are not being paid as much as your male counterparts and other people who have maybe come into your organization after you, okay? That’s the second thing. So step one is to know your worth, do the work on your money mindset. Secret number two then is to do your benchmarking.

Lucy Gernon (20:27.48)
You have talents. You are smart. You have ambitions. You have drive and anything that you want for yourself is possible. But the number one thing you need to do to create anything in your life is confidence to take the action required. And that’s what separates the most successful people in the world from those who stay in their comfort zone.

wishing they could achieve things like their peers or people you see on TV or whatever your aspiration is or your own heart’s desire. Unless you take confident action, nothing changes. Nothing changes. I know you’re ambitious and driven and you’ve worked so hard to get your to your level of seniority. And now you are ready for more. Right.

For too long, you’ve been the good girl and now you’re ready to show the world what you’re capable of. Well, at least you want to if that pesky imposter syndrome didn’t come calling, right? So, like I said, I want you to know it’s not your fault. I’ve been there. And the real reason you lack confidence, and this is what I want to share with you today, is because of your conditioning. So let me explain what I mean.

by your conditioning. As a little girl, when you grew up, you were trying to survive. So all of our beliefs about ourselves, others and the world are formed under the age of seven, typically. So when you were growing up, you were either a compliant child or maybe you were a rebellious child. I was the compliant one. I was the yes teacher, no teacher. I was the yes mommy, no mommy.

Three bags full, sir. Whatever I could do. I was the compliant one and I was conditioned by the environment I grew up in, which wasn’t a bad environment, by the way. OK. But as children, we all never look at like your siblings and wonder how you all turned out so differently. Even though you’ve got the same parents, the same school, potentially the same, a lot of things in common, it’s because we’re all individuals and societal.

Lucy Gernon (22:51.234)
conditioning and the environment that you were in as a child has shaped who you are today. In fact, as part of my executive blueprint course, which you can grab at lucygarden.com forward slash EP, there’s a module in there and personal branding. And I literally have just come back from a session with a corporate today on the power of telling your story. And there’s an exercise I do where I get you to write out your life kind of decade by decade.

So you can really understand what has molded and shaped you today. Some of the experiences will be negative, but they have made you who you are. Some of the experiences will be positive and they too have made you what you are. And you would not be who you are without either of those things. But it’s important to understand that

The lack of confidence comes from your conditioning as a child, which you’ve brought forward as an adult with your belief systems and all that good stuff. And that’s something that I can get into in other episodes. I’m pretty sure we did an episode with Pat Dively on limiting beliefs. And I’ve done an episode with Alva Harrington on limiting beliefs as well and childhood stuff as well. So I will link those both in the show notes for you. I recommend you listen to them.

Lucy Gernon (24:11.744)
Okay, so I want to start by saying you are a brilliant woman. You have studied hard and you have given your all to your organization. You’d nearly run through a wall for your company, right? You are hardworking. You’re conscientious. You are a great problem solver. But as a senior leader, this is only half the battle. And one of the biggest mistakes I see that money leaders make, especially women,

is that we think if we just work hard, we’re going to get the recognition. And unfortunately, that is not how it works. OK. Now, a question I’m asked a lot when it comes to executive presence is like, what exactly is it? And can I actually learn? This is not just something that you have. And the answer is yes, it can be learned. Yes, there are people who exude executive presence just by nature. However, like before you knew what you knew now, you had to learn it right.

So absolutely, please know that you can learn executive presence. So let’s start by talking about what exactly is executive presence in its most simple terms. It’s really about your ability to inspire confidence, because inspiring confidence in your subordinates and also in your peers means that people are going to want to follow you. OK, because if you don’t.

Believe in what you’re saying fully. And if you don’t show up with confidence and authority, how can you expect anyone to follow you? OK, so it’s all about, you know, you want to be the kind of leader that when you walk into a room, people go, she’s here or he’s here and we know we’re safe. We know we’re in good hands. I’d love for you to think about that, actually. Think about a leader that you really admire that when you’re with this person, you’re like, OK, you hang on their every word.

you look to them when you know the shit hits the fan. That’s exactly what executive presence is. It’s about being a leader, being an authority and it all starts with confidence. Okay. Now, why do you even need executive presence? what is it? So for me, executive presence really, you know, it’s a coin. It was a term that was coined for executives, but it applies to all leaders. It’s about having a leadership presence because if you’re an ambitious

Lucy Gernon (26:32.0)
woman or man if you’re listening to this in your mail you’re very welcome to. You have got to be able to hone in on your leadership skills okay it’s not just about getting the job done it’s not just about hitting the metrics in your own department it’s actually having a much bigger picture thinking and it starts with your people okay if you want to be a true leader if you want to climb the ladder if you want to be taken more seriously you have got to build your executive presence so.

It really does determine the opportunities that you get. And, you know, there’s a saying that you might have heard many times that all important decisions about you will be made when you’re not in the room. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me. I’m going to repeat that again. All important decisions about you are made when you’re not in the room. So whether that’s decision about an opportunity or a promotion.

Or to get you to be the leader on a particular important project. You’re most likely not going to be there when that decision is made. And the opportunities that present themselves to you largely depend on the confidence that you’ve instilled in those decision makers about your abilities. And the higher up you climb, the more confidence those senior leaders need to have in you to trust you with those opportunities. Okay. So when we think about great leaders.

What are the three top things that great leaders do? So in 2024, Harvard Business School released a paper on the new trends on executive presence because a lot has changed over the last 10 years. Okay. Now I told you, I was going to tell you about what’s changed and I’m absolutely going to do that. So over the last 10 years, we have gone through a lot as a population, right? We’ve had COVID.

We’ve had, you know, the LGBQ, I can’t say it, you know, I’m trying to say movement. Okay. That’s happening. We’ve had black life matters. We’ve had wars. Like so much has changed over the past decade. And as a result, the business world has changed too. And as leaders, what would have worked 10 years ago is definitely not going to work now with the generations that are up and coming. I’m hearing from all of my clients and my 360 Leaders Club members.

Lucy Gernon (28:53.888)
about the challenges that they’re facing when it comes to leadership today in the modern day. But essentially, there are three key attributes, OK, where you need to focus on over the next couple of episodes. We’re going to break it down. The first one is gravitas. The second one is having superior communication skills. And the third one boils down to polished appearance. OK, so today we’re going to talk about gravitas. And then over the next couple of episodes, we’re going to talk about.

communication, authenticity and appearance, okay? So how can you build more gravitas? That’s the question. Like what is gravitas? Gravitas is just having that gravitas. It’s such a great word. It’s about being in your power. It’s about certainty. It’s about when you walk into a room, people stand to attention in the most beautiful way, okay? It’s not about being a dictator.

A leader is absolutely couldn’t be more far removed from being a dictator. OK, a leader is somebody who inspires confidence. All right. So if you want to be taken seriously and if you’re multitasking, please come back to me. You have got to take yourself seriously. OK, you’ve got to believe in yourself and in your ideas, which such certainty that builds trust with those key stakeholders.

Now in the paper that I mentioned that Harvard published confidence was actually voted 76 % of respondents voted confidence the highest rate in gravitas. Okay. Because confidence instills trust. Now confidence is something that I am a pro at helping people with. If you knew my story, you can go back and listen to episode number one of the 360 Leadership Podcast and hear where I’ve come from.

but I did not have confidence in myself at all. I was so far removed from being confident in believing in myself. But through doing the work and a lot of that work is what I’m teaching you in my new course, The Executive Presence Blueprint, to build my self-confidence and build my self-belief. I’ve been able to change careers entirely, establish a big following on social media and on my podcast.

Lucy Gernon (31:05.09)
have the likes of Google and Forbes wanting to work with me. And I am now an executive coach for those senior leaders that I used to look up to, helping them with this stuff. And it all started with me believing in myself and my abilities. And that’s what I want for you too, okay? So you’ve got to be confident. The second thing in Gravitas is you’ve got to be able to make decisions. You have got to be able to make fast decisions. And…

That is something that I know to be true. think it was 71 % of people said for them to have confidence and trust in leaders. It’s about being decisive, right? And exactly in my course, that’s why I’ve included a lesson all on decision-making using my four-part to do it framework that is so simple, but so easy. I promise you, you’re going to be making decisions like a pro. A big shift though in Gravitas is that inclusion is now registering in 2022 when this

research was done, so they looked at like the difference between executive presidents in 2012 and 2022 and authenticity now is a huge thing. Okay. Authenticity is appearing in everything. So people want to know who you are. Inclusion is massive, massive, massive. Okay. So people want to be included. They want to be respected. They want to be seen and heard. The days of leaders being the dictators are absolutely gone. So it’s really, really important that, you know,

you become a more inclusive leader. Now, I know that that word inclusion can be quite fluffy and it’s quite a buzzword at the moment. And like, how do you even go begin to, you know, be a more inclusive leader? A lot of organizations have D E and I strategies, but it doesn’t have to be as big as you think. And in my new course, actually, I’m breaking down some super simple, easy and effective strategies so that you can be a more inclusive leader today.

You don’t need to wait for your organization. You don’t need to, you know, follow some complex training. You can literally just do these tips and I promise you, you’re going to stand out and be more inclusive.