#177 How to Speak So Senior Leaders Listen, Command Influence & Get the Recognition You Deserve

Lucy Gernon (00:02.562)

how to speak so senior leaders listen, command influence and get the recognition you deserve. That’s exactly what we are talking about on this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast because on last week’s show, we talked about why smart, capable women like you are being overlooked in meetings while your male colleagues get great point or the nods of approval for the exact idea you had in mind or try to share.

So now that you know the real reason why it’s happening and if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, go back and listen to it because you’re going to want to know it. Today, I’m going to be sharing with you exactly how to fix it, how to speak so senior leaders listen, how to command influence, how to get the recognition you deserve. Because here’s the truth. If you don’t shift this, you will still be in the same place next year, feeling frustrated, overworked and overlooked. Ready? Tune in to get all the juicy tips and strategies.

Lucy Gernon (01:15.886)

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Lucy Gernon, a multi award winning executive coach, mom of three, and ex corporate leader of 17 years, but really it’s actually 20 years. I don’t know why I say 17. And today we are talking all about getting recognition, getting noticed, and really stepping into your next level of leadership. Now, I am so, so excited to be with you today because

I really wanted to talk to you, first of all, a little bit about some mistakes that I see some women make. And I want to know which one resonates with you most.

The reason I’m doing this is because I want you to reach your potential. I want you to feel good because I know how tough the corporate space is. I know how tough it is if you’re a mom to have to leave your kids and the guilt that you feel. So if you’re going into work and you are there, I want you to really to own your potential and to step into the next level of leadership so you become the leader you were born to be.

but we’ve got to stop making some mistakes first, don’t we? So I invite you right now to reflect a moment, just as I share some of the mistakes, the common mistakes that I see. And let’s see which one resonates most with you. The first one is over explaining instead of leading with the headline. Now, this is something that I think I’m pretty good coach on because I am that person who

cannot take loads of detail first. I am literally the person. I was telling my team this week, we were doing a debrief on our last launch and we were going through tons of data and I’m not a data head. I have to be a data head because I’m a business owner and we know that the devil is in the data and that’s where we’re gonna make decisions from in a lot of cases, but I don’t like it. So I’m like, give me the information I need in an executive summary first.

Lucy Gernon (03:19.488)

And if I need all the detail before that, I will ask for it. Whereas sometimes if you are a data driven person and you like geek out on data and you’ve all this geeky data that you want to share, you’re actually not necessary speaking senior leaders language because senior leaders don’t have time for long winded explanations. OK, like a CEO of my own company, I can tell you I adore my team. Like I can’t tell you how

Lucky I am I have tier now I have Ali I have Katie I have Veronica I have Kim I have Kat I have amazing people on my team They’re all powerhouse women as well by the way I think I’ve forgotten someone because I don’t even remember who I said but anyway, this is my brain and Yeah, and like I love them but sometimes if these are giving me too much detail I get frustrated because I’m just like give me the top level

So I tell them nicely and I try to coach them in the moment because I want them to learn because I know a lot of these are younger in their career and I know they’re not going to stay with me forever and they’re going to move on. They’re going to go to big organizations and I want them to be prepared for the leaders who will not tell them, who will be rude and be aggressive and be abrupt. So I want to tell you here today, lovely lady, when you are having conversations with senior leaders, give them the executive summary first. Think about it being slide one.

What are the three to five bullet points that are stats or facts that they need to know? Start there and then you work backwards because if you start with too much context upfront, they tune out. So instead, use the strategic influence framework, which I shared back in, I think it was episode 173, which was five power phrases every female leader needs to sound more strategic and confident.

So go back and listen to this, that episode if you haven’t already listened, or even if you have, just go back and listen again, because it is packed with the exact phrases you can use to sound more authoritative in meetings. Okay? We want to position yourself as a strategic thinker and a strategic leader, not just a doer. Mistake number two that I see is this a big one. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me. It’s using soft language.

Lucy Gernon (05:39.916)

that weakens your credibility. Things like, I think, I want to echo, I just want to add, this mightn’t be important, I might be wrong with this, but…

Girl, that immediately diminishes your authority. You’re literally, in coaching, we call it discounting language, okay? So you are literally discounting your ideas as you are saying them. And what happens in the brain of the other person is if you don’t have confidence in your ideas and you don’t come across as if you’re certain in yourself, you are not going to establish a certainty in the other person, guaranteed, okay?

So instead of like all of this discounting language, I think I might, I just wanted to add, it mightn’t be important, I might be wrong, but here’s what I recommend. Based on the data, here’s the best approach. Or let’s take a strategic step back here and look at the bigger picture. Okay, you’ve got to stop all this discounting language. Stop that guys. If you do that one thing from this episode, if you just take this one thing from today’s episode, I promise you, you’re gonna be taken way more seriously. You’re welcome.

The third mistake I see then is not knowing how to manage power dynamics in the room. So if you’re constantly like a lot of the women I work with in 360 Litres Club, they work in male dominated spaces because obviously the higher up you go, the less females there are. And when I say females, as I always tell you, I mean female energy because dominance and action and confidence is what creates business results. OK.

So if you’re constantly being interrupted, overlooked or ignored, it’s not just about what you say, it’s about how you are holding space. So this is where understanding like ego states and the psychology behind leadership is a total game changer. And if you’re like, Lucy, what the hell is an ego state? This is exactly what I’m teaching in my free masterclass. I did this masterclass back in January. And to say that minds were blown is a total understatement. So if you are listening to this live, go over to lucygarn.com.

Lucy Gernon (07:48.994)

Forward slash master class. I’m pretty sure this episode is coming out around the time of the master class. So if it is, please go and check it out and come along. If not, DM me and I might just send you the replay so you can learn all about it. OK, so now we’ve talked about what not to do. We’ve talked about the mistakes that you’re probably making. And let’s talk now about what you can do instead, because when you master these shifts, you won’t just get hurt. You’ll get buy in and respect and recognition.

So when I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, I was always taught that I was no better or no worse than anyone else. My mother always told me that because when she was younger and she was 17, she left a really small town in Greygnamanna in County Kilkenny in Ireland, really small little village. And she went to the big bad world of London and she was working, I believe it was in, yeah, she was working, think, in Notting Hill.

And she came from like, like they didn’t, we didn’t have much growing up. And my mother certainly didn’t have much. And all of a sudden she was in this affluent London surrounded by all these businessmen at the time when, you know, there was a lot of like aggro between Ireland and the UK. There was a lot of signs everywhere in the UK back in the seventies that said no dogs, no blacks, no Irish. I don’t know if you guys know that. If you’re in the UK, you might know this. If you’re Irish, you will definitely know this. So she was up against like not only

being a woman, she was a young girl. She was in a time where like Irish people and British people, there was a little bit of aggro going on. We weren’t as accepted in the UK as things are today. So she was fighting a lot of different biases around her. But one thing she always taught me was that like her father always told her, you’re no better or worse than everyone else. Go over there and you do you. She’s a very driven mother. She’s a very driven woman, my mother.

She’s very certain she was the youngest of seven kids. So she kind of had to be seven girls as well, by the way. And yeah, like she she really held her own over there and she always instilled that in me. So I’ve always had this even though I deep down, used to share this with you guys before. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough. I still was always quite like a leader, like even when I was like seven.

Lucy Gernon (10:11.67)

I remember it was my first Holy Communion and the teacher asked me to actually coach one of the boys who was doing the first reading on the altar and I was doing the second reading on the altar and he was too afraid to go up. So she was like, Lucy, can you encourage him and all of this? And, you know, even when I was in school, I was what’s called I was like a prefect. It’s called a mehal leader where it was like leaders in the school who were, you know, towards senior cycle who would take the younger ones and, you know.

be their mentors and stuff. So I’ve always had this kind of thing where I’ve just never felt like anyone is better than me or that I’m better than anyone, because I just believe we’re all the same. And I think when you master that kind of a mindset shift and you undo the conditioning that you’ve been brought up with most likely, that’s where you’re going to start to get the buy in and respect when you like the first thing we’ve got to do is like you’ve got to brings me to step one, which is to own your space before you even speak.

because if you shrink in your chair, if you avoid eye contact or if you hesitate or like your body language gives away so much. If you’re watching this video right now, I’ve had my Botox done. My face is still moving, but that’s why I my Botox done as well. It’s not really. Botox helps though to stop the expressions being known. Let me just tell you as well as it helping you make make you look younger. But honestly, like you’ve got to be careful of your body language because your body language gives everything away.

because if you’re doing, avoiding eye contact and doing those things, you’re actually signaling that you don’t fully own your authority. So instead, before you speak, I invite you to pause, to breathe, to like roll your shoulders back, claim your second space and hold that eye contact and deliver your point with certainty. Because honestly, leaders recognize other leaders who command presence. And that’s one thing I’m very proud of is that I am not ashamed that I take up space.

I am not ashamed of the fact that I own my worth. I own what I’m good at. And equally, I own what I’m not good at. Like, I’m terrible at data. I hate analytics. It’s not my thing. I’ve worked in science. But what I’m really good at is I know I have good executive presence. I know I’m really highly emotionally intelligent. I know I am a good leader. I know I can hold my own. And I own that. I want you to do the same. You

Lucy Gernon (12:36.344)

claim the space that you have earned because you did not go to college. You did not work your way up that corporate ladder just to play small. Did you? Didn’t think so. OK, so the second thing then I invite you to do is to use the confident messenger when delivering tough news. So this is a technique I first shared back, I think it was in episode 173, which is all about the commanding phrases. So this is where if you ever had to deliver difficult news or set boundaries.

or handle tough conversations, how you say it matters just as much as what you say. So definitely go back and listen to that episode as I share that technique, because it’s going to position you as a leader who takes ownership, who provides solutions without over apologizing or minimizing the issue. The third thing then that I invite you to do is you’ve got to understand the power dynamics and the psychology behind those dynamics.

If you’ve ever been shut down in a meeting, interrupted or dismissed, this is the missing piece. I give delivered this training in depth in 360 Leaders Club, where one of the very first modules that we do is you look at we look at mastering your mindset and we look at the psychology of ego states and we look at different scenarios and we look at all of the behaviors that are happening, why it’s happening for you and most importantly, the simple shifts that you can make to overcome it.

And while I know that, you know, listen to podcasts is amazing, what’s probably missing for you if you’re listening to my podcast for a long time and you’re not really seeing changes, you know what I’m saying is helpful and maybe you’ve even implemented, I’m sure you have some of the things I have taught. What’s probably missing for you is that accountability to take action. And that’s exactly why I create a 360 leaders club, because we have so much fun with.

role play and breakout rooms and challenges. even give you guys Amazon gift cards in our challenges when we do it to gamify it, to help you to take action. And as one of my clients, Terry, who’s been with us, gosh, when this episode’s coming out, she’s probably like definitely well over a year. She just enrolled with us for another year is that she said that she made she’s a director in IT and financial services.

Lucy Gernon (14:58.828)

And she said she’s made more small incremental changes in the last six months than she had in the past five years. And why is that? Why is that? She’s a smart woman. She’d read the books. She’d listen to the podcast. It’s because she has the accountability, the momentum. She’s with a community of women who want what she wants. she it’s like this little like I feel like 360 is like. It’s like a little secret weapon.

in your back pocket that you’ve got this space for yourself where you can go to ask the stupid questions, you can learn, you can up level, you can get the coaching. We look at mindset, we look at all of it. And the most important thing to know when you work with me is I’m all about action. I’m not a fluffy coach, so I’m not the coach who’s going to be into the theory. If you want that brilliant, that’s not me. I’m all about helping you to create transformational change.

and transformational change does not happen from reading books. OK, so just make sure that, you know, you. You’ve got to understand power dynamics and how to actually shift them, which is something that I love teaching now. I can teach you all the psychological hacks in the world, both without none of without like having mindset shifts around, open your eyes to what’s possible and really.

Realizing that your belief systems are probably holding you back. Nothing is going to change. OK, so I really invite you to. Reflect after this episode on your behaviors like who triggers you, what triggers you, like what makes you shrink, what makes you get angry, the more self aware you can become, not only as a leader, but as a woman in your relationships with your partner.

children, your sisters, your brothers, like all the dynamics that happen are all due to psychological positioning. so self-awareness is absolutely key. So that is it for this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I just want to say to you that I.

Lucy Gernon (17:16.406)

You deserve to be heard and you deserve to be respected and recognized and to get that sense of accomplishment and reward be rewarded for your hard work. But to do that, you really have got to work on your executive presence. You’ve really got to work on your communication and how you view yourself. You’ve really got to believe that you deserve the support. And that’s why I would love for you to head over to 3sixtyleadersclub.com and

apply or join the waitlist. I’m not sure exactly whether or not it’s going to be open while you’re listening to this episode, but please submit an application. Come work with me if you’re feeling called. I would love to be in your corner. And a lot of the women who join 360 will invest in themselves. But we also have a guide that we give you on how to position your membership in 360 as an investment for your organization if you want your employer to reimburse you.

And 92 % of our members who actually use this actually get a yes from their employer. So please know that even after you invest in yourself, like most of our members actually get their money back from their employer. So honestly, I think it’s a no brainer if you’re feeling cold. So head over to 360Leaders Club dot com. Check it out. And if you have any questions, always, please feel free to reach out to me and ask. So that is it for this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast.

I’ll see you again, same time, same place next week. Bye for now.