#164 3 Tips to Speak Up in a Senior Leadership Meeting to Get Your Point Across

Lucy Gernon (00:04.806)
Have you ever been in a meeting bursting with ideas but found yourself staying silent? Or maybe you just mustered the courage to speak only feel like your words have vanished into thin air? We have all been there. But do you know what the one thing is that makes some voices resonate in the corporate world while others just fade away? In today’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast, we’re going to talk about this crucial element.

And I’m going to be sharing three actionable tips to ensure your voice is heard and valued as a senior female corporate leader. And stay tuned because later I’m going to reveal one thing that if you just do this one thing, it’s going to transform your communication meetings. So I hope you enjoy the episode. And for those who are eager to get in deeper, I am going to be sharing additional strategies in this week’s Sunday night newsletter.

All you’ve got to do is head over to lucygarden.com forward slash newsletter and you’re going to get some exclusive insights from yours truly. All right, let’s get into the episode.

Lucy Gernon (01:15.546)
Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I’ve been reading some of the reviews that you guys have been leaving for us on Apple and on Spotify, and I am so, so grateful and I’m so thrilled that you are loving the show. If you haven’t already taken a moment, please. And I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you, the person who’s out for your walk or you’re in your kitchen or you’re driving.

I am talking to you. Can you please go and leave me a little review on the show because it helps push the content to more women in senior leadership. And we know that when more women in leadership are armed with the tools they need to succeed, that is how we change the world. So all you’ve got to do is grab the link right now, send it to a female leader colleague, and then just go in and just leave us a little five star review. It would take you like 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me and my team.

So thank you very much in advance. And as always, we will be sending out our Sunday night newsletter, which is going to dig in a bit deeper into this topic, giving you more tips that you can save and have for the future. So all you’ve got to do is go to lucygarden.com forward slash newsletter and you can sign up there. Okay, let’s start with a few stats and facts because I know you ladies love a good start and a good fact, just like I do. Did you know?

that studies revealed that women are interrupted 2.3 times more often than men in meetings. And additionally, 75 % of women feel their ideas are ignored unless they’re repeated by someone else. I remember before one of my clients in 360Liters Club telling me this. She’s like, why is it that when I speak, nobody listens? And when Niall

spoke about my idea in a slightly different way. Everyone thought it was a great idea. Does that sound familiar? If it does, again, you’re totally not alone. And I remember one time myself sitting in a meeting. There was a huge problem. Now it was early enough in my career and I could see the solution like so clearly and so quickly.

Lucy Gernon (03:30.822)
That’s one of my top strengths is I’m highly strategic on the Clifton Strengths Test and I can literally like see solutions so fast, but it takes me a while to bring people along. Something I need to work on is explaining my thought process, right? So I could see the solution. So I shared the solution, but I didn’t explain my thought process behind the solution. So lo and behold, it fell on deaf ears. However, one of my colleagues about 23 and a half minutes later,

decides, I could see him looking at me going, and he nodded as I said it. So he got it. What did he do? He explained the thought process behind my solution, reiterated the solution and everyone thought it was a great idea. So that really, really taught me in that moment that, OK, not everyone thinks the same as you. Not everybody understands how you’ve got to this solution. So as a leader, it’s so important that you’re able to speak about the

thought process behind it. So that’s just something that always has stuck with me. And it’s something I still have to work on because I’m quite fast. I can, you know, very quickly think of solutions. And I think if you’re the same, I think it’s really, really important. there’s a bird flying by the window. It’s really, really important that you explain the thought process. Okay. So I’m going to give you three tips in this episode. You’re going to want them. You’re going to want to listen and pay attention closely.

because they are simple tips and usually we disregard things that are simple because we’re looking for something more high tech convoluted when actually the easiest thing to do is implement simple tips. Wouldn’t you agree? And then I’m going to be sharing the one thing. And if you’re not doing this one thing, ladies, I promise you, this is why your voice is being lost. So tip number one is before you’re going in to a senior leadership meeting,

Where it’s important, I’m not talking about every meeting, but you know the ones where you’re presenting a business case, you’re looking for resources, there’s a huge challenge where there’s a lot of conflict, there’s a new initiative and you wanna have your say. Tip number one is so simple, but it’s to prepare and practice. Thorough preparation instills confidence. So you’ve got to know your material inside out. Don’t just rock up.

Lucy Gernon (05:55.674)
you know, the night before stick together a few slides and go in unprepared because the most successful leaders know their stuff, right? They’re prepared. And that’s really, really, really important. So you want to think about before you go in, like, let’s say you’re presenting on something. And again, if you’re multitasking, come back to me. I know a lot of you guys work in STEM and I worked in. sorry, I hit my mic.

I worked in pharma myself for a long time. It used to be death by PowerPoint, right? Death by PowerPoint, hundreds of slides for business cases, loads of data. And I was just delivering a training on this recently where I shared the biggest reason business cases don’t actually get approval or you’re asked to go back and forth and back and forth for approval. And when I shared this with a group I was training on my magnetic influence method, all the pennies dropped because they were like, I was missing this thing for my presentation.

So you’ve got to prepare and practice. You’ve got to know your material and you’ve got to have your kind of key points prepared. So what do you want your audience to actually take away? How do you want them to feel? And if you’re multitasking, please come back to me. Think about this is the questions you need to be asking yourself. And in 360Liters.club I have this training in here on my magnetic influence method with questions like this that you need to be asking.

yourself before you go in? How do you want them to feel? What do you want them to take away? What’s the call to action? Are you looking for a decision? Are you looking for approval? Are you looking for guidance? Are you looking for input? And what’s the deadline like? You’ve got to give even executives love deadlines. Like we all love a good deadline, right? So you have to get super prepared. And then in that preparation phase,

It’s something that most of you will overlook. And if you are not doing this thing, this is why when you were speaking up, you were not being heard. Are you ready?

Lucy Gernon (08:02.798)
It’s that you do not consider potential objections and questions. Real power comes from knowing your stakeholders and knowing that if you say a certain thing, you’re probably being spoken over because they have an objection. What’s an objection? It’s something that they’re dismissive of. They don’t agree with and they just want you gone. Whereas if you’re strategic enough, this is where strategic leadership comes in.

What I invite you to do is think about, okay, like I know before I go into any company to present or I go on anything to do with business, I always know my audience’s objections. So what are they likely to say? What are they likely to do? You know their behavior. Are they likely to talk over you? How are you going to handle that? So it’s preparing in advance, right? So, so powerful. And then practice like your key statements. So how do you want to show up? What are the key things? Tip number two.

This isn’t a really, really, really important one. So if you’re multitasking, come back to me. Use confident body language. Body language is actually more important than the words you say. Did you know that? There’s so much research out there to show that your body language and how you present yourself is more important than the words that you say.

Think about Donald Trump. I’m using him as an example a lot right now because I watched that Netflix documentary on his rise to where he is today. Like the guy doesn’t know much. He doesn’t. He doesn’t have a cause. He just wanted the power. But boy, is he able to talk. He is so confident in himself and his abilities. He has got elected again as the president of the U.S. Right. It’s the same for you.

It’s all about using your body language. And if you’re watching me right now, this is some small things you can do. I’m going to do them in the chair if you’re watching the video. And if you’re not watching the video, I’m going to explain what I’m doing. You’ve got to set an intention to walk in as if you are a confident person. So a confident person will stand tall. They will roll their shoulders back. They’ll walk in with intention to be confident.

Lucy Gernon (10:28.112)
You will walk in with calmness. You’re not going to go in with a scrunched up face. You’re going to go in with a warm face. Right. So I was watching the diary of a CEO podcast recently, and I can’t remember the lady’s name, but she was excellent on communication. And she said, in order for us to kind of build trust with people, there’s two main factors. One is warmth and one is competence. And competence looks like us, you know, relying on stats and facts and data and presenting and showing that we know our stuff.

And warmth is very, you know, more engaging, welcoming, using body language, you know, smiling, being blah, blah, So a lot of women, especially women in STEM, and I don’t mean to generalize, but it’s the truth because I’ve seen it, tend to rely more on the competence factor and they don’t bring in enough warmth. So where you can use your body language to your advantage is you want to be open. You want to have your arms open. You want to smile. You want to greet people. That is immediately going to build trust, which is a huge factor. Okay.

You want to use purposeful hand gestures and movements to emphasize key points. So if you say something like, are three things that I want to do, I want to speak to you about today, you will put up your hand and you’ll just say three, because we love to kind of compartmentalize and categorize things as humans, right? Like if I say, I’m going to give you three tips today, you’re like, ooh, where’s the next one? Like we’re on tip number two right now and tip number three is coming soon. Use numbers and use your body language to actually

say those numbers, okay? Really, really important. And then again, another one is managing nervous habits. Personally, I have a terrible habit of moving in my seat. And I think I’ve spoken to you guys about this in the podcast before that I’m pretty sure I’ve ADHD and I’m waiting for an assessment. I’m saying this very blasé, but it’s actually quite a big deal, which I’ll talk about again later in the year. But

I’m very restless person. I’m constantly fidgeting in my seat and I notice that when I’m watching myself back sometimes I’m like, why are you doing it again? So sometimes I just have to set a powerful intention or write a note on a post it or something just to like stop fidgeting. So right now I’m actually making a conscious effort because I know I’m being recorded not to fidget because actually it even though it’s just my body, I’m very confident in what I’m speaking about today.

Lucy Gernon (12:49.004)
Any signs of nervousness can undermine your message. So things like avoiding eye contact, know, sitting down with your body language like this or looking defeated. Please don’t do that. Please don’t do that. Just channel your inner Donald Trump. Channel your inner Lucy. As some of the girls say to me, they’re channeling their inner Lucy. Or just find your own power within because it lives within all of us. OK?

And then finally, number three, I’m putting my hand up to say it, number three, super important is to engage early in the discussion. I had a lady on my podcast last year and her name was Mary and she is a head of HR in, I think she’s an SVP in Dell and she’s been in the HR game a long time. And that was one of the tips she gave on the podcast, which I will link in the show notes for you.

where she said, always get in first. So if you walk into a meeting and you know the stakes are going to be high and the meeting opens, you start first so that you actually contribute early to the discussion and establish your own presence and engagement. You’re signaling, I’m here. I’m here to lead. I’m not here to be led. I’m here to collaborate. I’m here to be engaging. I’m not here to be passive. And that’s what screams leadership. OK.

Connect your points as well to the meeting’s objectives. So whenever you’re communicating, I think there’s a magic statement. And again, if you’re multitasking, come back to me, write this down. It’s a statement of you’re inserting why you should do a certain thing. I think we should hire 20 new people.

The magic statement that you need to go after that is, so we can, or so the company can. So what’s the tangible result that hiring these people is going to create? Don’t assume they understand and know, don’t understand everyone’s on the same wavelength as you. You’ve got to explain the so we can statement, all right? So just to summarize the three tips before I move on to the one thing, and please listen to these. Number one is prepare and practice.

Lucy Gernon (15:05.444)
Know your material, think about their objections and setting a powerful intention about how you’re showing up in that room. Number two, use your body language to your advantage, maintain an assertive composure, make eye contact, be warm, but also be competent in your data so that you build trust. Number three, engage in the discussion early. Contribute your point, show that you’re there. And I promise you guys, if you do these three things, you are going to be golden.

All right? And finally, just before I finish up, I told you I’m gonna share the one thing, the one thing that differentiates women in corporate leadership who are heard from those who are not is assertive communication. That’s it. The only reason you’re not being seen and heard is because you’re probably not communicating assertively, love.

And lucky for you, is one of my strengths is communication. Again, in the Gallup Strengths Strategy, communication are my top strengths. The first one is achiever. So if you want to achieve your goals, if you want to be more strategic, if you want to be more confident communicator, you got to come work with me at some stage, because I promise you I’ve seen it over and over again. The women who in my 360 Leaders Club, it’s all about like 1 % improvements every day. You can listen to a podcast, you can read a book.

But where most of us fall down is having that army or that community or the ongoing support and tools and training to really make quantum leaps. So if you’re interested in working with me, just go to 360LeadersClub.com forward slash waitlist and you will be first in line to know when we open up the spots again. OK, so go to the waitlist and pop your name down there. So just to kind of summarize, the one thing is

you be more assertive. OK, so that really means using clear, direct language. Avoid like disqualifiers that will really diminish your message. So things like, listen, sorry, can I just make can I just make a point? No, no, no, no. We’re not saying stuff like that anymore. We want to be heard. You’re going to say, sorry, Brian, I’d like to make a point on that. And you’re going to continue speaking or.

Lucy Gernon (17:31.29)
Brian, I just need to just pause for a sec. I really love what you said there. I would love to add blah, blah, And then you just kind of keep going. What it’s about, literally, I want you to imagine like a surge of energy rushing through your body as you’re saying it. And you’ve got to channel the energy most, most important. So if you enjoyed this podcast, couple of things I invite you to do. There’s a couple of, excuse me, more podcasts. Sorry, there’s like, why am I burping on my podcast? I’m very sorry, girls.

One of them is episode 149, which is why stepping outside your comfort zone is key to accelerate your career. So definitely go check out that one if confidence is a thing for you. And then episode 151, which is how are you playing small in your leadership career? Because most women are and you do not need to. So please go and listen to those two episodes. Pop me on as you’re cleaning the house, going for a walk, commuting, whatever it is.

stick them on and binge the podcast. You’re going to get so much value from the episodes. And then finally, if you are not already on my email list and you do not get my Sunday night newsletter, you are missing out. So head over to lucygernon.com forward slash newsletter. It’s called the 360 Sunday newsletter and it is specifically designed because I know what it’s like on a Sunday to be going, my God, I work next week. How am going to set myself up? What do need to do?

I release it every Sunday at half eight in the evening, just as you’re getting back into work mode with some mantras for the week ahead. We give you tips and tools. We give you the latest podcast episode. And I often send valuable resources and you’re always first to know when I open up spots to work with me as well. So just head over to lucygern.com forward slash newsletter. And if you found today’s episode valuable, would you please share it with some friends and colleagues who might benefit? Because honestly,

I cannot grow this show without you girls. And I know so many of you listen to it every single week, but have you ever sent it on to a friend? If you haven’t like even send it on to your women’s network. If you have an email list of female leaders, if you know the ERG leads, just get this out there because I know how valuable that you guys find this and we put so much effort into it. We want to really grow the show. So thank you so much in advance.

Lucy Gernon (19:51.952)
So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. Remember, your voice is valuable. And if you implement these strategies, you can ensure that it’s actually heard and respected. Until next time, be safe, have a great week, and I’ll talk to you then.