#190 The Real Reason Why Smart, Capable Women Leaders Stay Stuck in Execution Mode

Lucy Gernon (00:02.049)

Why is it that smart, capable women leaders stay in execution mode? That’s exactly what I’m going to be covering on this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I’m going to be diving into something that I see in nearly every woman I coach, brilliant, capable women getting stuck in its execution mode for far too long. You see, you’re not just doing the work. I know you’re running the show. And here’s the thing.

 

Sorry, Ali, I have this turned on silent after I do this again.

 

Lucy Gernon (00:36.13)

You can use this for the real, I’d say.

 

Why is it that so many smart, capable women and senior corporate leadership get stuck in execution mode despite having a team, despite having everything that you need to actually thrive? Now, that might sound controversial because I know that you’re probably thinking, I don’t have enough resources. I never ever have enough time. But there’s a reason that is way deeper than that, which is the thing that is keeping you stuck in execution mode.

 

And if you want to find out what it is and most importantly, the next steps to break through, tune into this week’s episode of the 360 leadership podcast.

 

Lucy Gernon (01:17.262)

Hi there and welcome back to this episode of the show. My name is Lucy Garnon in case you’re new here. I am an award winning executive coach, mom of three and ex corporate leader of 17 years. And today I wanted to talk about something that I see a lot with the most talented, amazing women, brilliant, capable women who just get stuck in the weeds. Can you relate? You’re not just doing the work, you are running the show. But here’s the thing.

 

You shouldn’t be doing it all. What should you be doing? You should be leading it. And the reason I know this is because I’ve been there too. And I have got caught in execution mode. And I was thinking about this recently when I found myself in the weeds solving problems that my team should have been solving. And I realized that my need to control was starting to creep back in again. Now, as a coach, I have done a lot of work on myself and I have a lot of self-awareness.

 

So I was able to catch myself, take a step back and step out of the weeds, step out of that so I could get into more strategic leadership.

 

But some of my clients, until they work with me, can’t actually do that because there’s a deep rooted mindset issue that’s actually happening. There’s deep rooted patterns. We’ve got saboteurs and all of those things that I work with my clients on in 360Liters Club. In fact, a recent client of mine, she’s an incredible VP in, I believe she’s in Pharma. She probably killed me now if I’m saying it wrong. be Medtech. I think it’s Pharma. And she said to me, she was like,

 

Lucy, I’m just constantly in back to back meetings. I’m firefighting and making sure all the priorities happen. But I really don’t feel like I am leading. I feel like I’m not holding my team accountable. And if you feel like that, I just firstly want you to know that you are not alone. And chances are that if you’re listening to this, you have probably felt the same either now or at some point in your career. So today on the show, I’m going to share three

 

Lucy Gernon (03:21.166)

Probably little known reasons why high achieving women leaders stay in the doing and what actually needs to happen so you shift into more true strategic leadership, which is something that I know you want. And make sure that you stick around until the end because I’m going to be sharing a free tool that can help you start to make the shift today. Does that sound good? All right. So first, let’s talk about the execution trap. Most of the women leaders I work with

 

You guys didn’t get to leadership by coasting. You were the one that people rely on. You deliver. You’re known for results. But that reputation can become a trap. Because when you’re the one always executing, you’re not seen as the one who should be driving strategy. This isn’t a time management problem, usually. It’s actually way deeper than that.

 

Because I hear over and over again, I’m in triple book meetings. People see I have meetings on my calendar. They book over it anyway. There’s always last minute priorities. I got pulled by the CEO or my boss to do this, this and this. And they feel overwhelmed and they feel like they’re fixing problems that their team should be and saying things like it’s faster if I do it myself. And I know you’re nodding along, right? But this isn’t a time management problem, lovely lady. It’s not a resource issue.

 

It’s actually a confidence and boundaries problem. So let’s jump into those reasons. I’m going to give you, I’m going to just count on my fingers. I’m going to give you three reasons, okay, that I see that it’s keeping you stuck in execution mode. The first one is what I call leaky boundaries. You say yes because it’s quicker or because you don’t want to be seen as difficult. But every yes,

 

you say yes to is something low value that you’re actually saying no to something strategic. So every time you say yes to something that’s a low value or low priority, you’re saying no to something that’s more strategic. And what does that mean for you? It means you stay stuck in the doing. A client of mine in 360, she was attending meetings. She came to our leadership and life reset session that I do for our new members.

 

Lucy Gernon (05:46.126)

where we look at your perfect day. We map out your non-negotiables. We look at your boundaries. We look at where you’re spending your time. We look at the mindset behind all of this. And she was actually a podcast listener. And when she came and joined 360, the first thing she said to me was like, I absolutely love your podcast. I was listening to it for so long. And she got so much value from it, which I absolutely love to hear. It makes it all worthwhile sitting in my office today for six hours recording batch recording episodes for you.

 

But what she realized was that there was a lot of mindset work that obviously I don’t cover on the show that she needed. She came in to that exercise. She said she looked at her calendar. She was attending meetings that she didn’t even need to be in. She thought they were expected. But what we did was she literally mapped out her perfect day. We did a calendar audit and she found seven, I think it seven or eight hours a week, not a month, a week that she could reclaim. Why?

 

because she took that step off the hamster wheel, she showed up for one hour with me and left with more time than she had coming in for that hour. She actually gained 7x time back, right, in just a week. And that’s going to obviously pay dividends over and over again. So that’s just an example of when you step off the hamster wheel and actually get strategic and intentional, first of all, about your own time and where you’re spending your own time. It’s going to be so much easier for you.

 

And I’m not saying you should say no to everything, right? You’ve got to be flexible. And again, cover all of this in 360, where we look at all the, you know, all the prioritization, how to prioritize more effectively my executive efficiency system and how to be more efficient, all that good stuff. But you’ve got to protect your role as a leader, right? When you’re saying no to everything, you don’t have to say no to everything. It’s about you protecting the fact that you’re a leader. OK, so that’s the first reason. That is the first reason. Leaky boundaries.

 

The second reason then is confidence masked as competence. What do I mean by that? If you are at a senior level and most of the women who listen to this show would be directors or executives or super ambitious driven senior managers and associate directors and you don’t get to that level by being a wallflower, you? No. You look confident on the outside. But if you find yourself triple checking your work,

 

Lucy Gernon (08:09.484)

Hesitating to delegate, second guessing yourself, avoiding certain conversations. This is your sign, lovely lady, that your confidence might not be as solid on the inside as it looks on the outside. And I’ve created a free guide and it is all about getting rid of imposter syndrome and boosting your confidence. And you can grab that at lucygernon.com forward slash imposter.

 

I’m sharing my PCR method, which is my professional confidence reamplification method. Because if you’ve had confidence knocks in the past, which we all have, we can carry that baggage with us. And this PCR method does exactly what it says in the tin. It’s a little nod to my bioinformatics and DNA and analysis days when I did my master’s degree. It really does help you to reamplify your confidence. So if you are struggling with confidence and you don’t have this guide, please go and grab it. It’s totally free.

 

lucygarren.com forward slash imposter. Even if you don’t have imposter syndrome and you want to just a confidence boost like this tool is so useful. And as always, I’m giving it to you for free. So just head over and grab that. One of my clients who used it, she was saying to me first, she was saying, I’m afraid if I, you know, if I stop all of this doing, I’m going to become invisible. And that belief she realized was actually keeping her stuck because real leadership means trusting your voice, trusting your decisions and letting others carry more weight.

 

because you cannot lead and do at the same time effectively. Right. So it’s up to you to come up with based on your level of seniority. How much time do you think you should be leading versus doing in an ideal world world? And then it’s about just setting an intention to do it. OK, so that’s the second one. Confidence, mass, competence. And then the third reason I see is what I call external validation addiction. I’ve been there.

 

I know what it feels like and it sucks. it’s the thing that’s keeping you so stuck you would not believe. You’ve been praised your whole career for being the fixer, the dependable one, the high achiever, and it feels good. But if you’re still chasing external praise, you’ll keep choosing doing over leading because execution gets noticed more quickly, right? You’re in the thick of things.

 

Lucy Gernon (10:33.048)

But if you’re strategic enough, you can get so much more visibility with even more powerful stakeholders than you ever could if you were in the weeds constantly executing. Now, validation needs to come from within. And that is one of my favorite things to work with you guys on in 360 is when we start to look at mindset and saboteurs and inner critic and we dig into where it all came from and help you to break through and give you tools. So

 

You finally see yourself how others see you because that MSC or that MBA or those lovely letters you have after your name. If you’re relying on them to feel valid, that tells me that there’s something deeper we need to work on, right? You don’t need any numbers or letters or accolades to be valid and worthy. I want you to know that.

 

If nobody has ever told you that before, I want you to know that your career and your achievements do not equal your worth. You are worthy. You are valuable. And I appreciate you being here today with me. I know if you’re listening to the show, you want to develop, you want to learn, and that is commendable because there’s so many people out there who will just coast through their lives. And you are here with me today for a reason. Listen to this message.

 

and I’m sending it from my heart. You are worthy and you are valuable. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. I’m going to recap on the three things. If you are stuck in execution modes, despite how smart you are, it is probably because number one, you have leaky boundaries. We’ve got to tighten those up. Number two, you’re not as confident on the inside as you appear on the outside. And number three, you’re addicted.

 

external validation. Okay. You’re addicted. Now, if you want to boost your confidence, please head over to lucygarden.com forward slash imposter. Grab that PCR method. is so, so good. I promise you, if you download the guide, I’ve made it available so you can do the exercises. It’s going to really, really help. And just know that I’m in your corner. Just know that I appreciate you. And even if you’re sitting there going, my God, this one’s crazy. Like she doesn’t even know me. How can she say she appreciates me and she cares about me?

 

Lucy Gernon (12:58.38)

It’s because I was you. It’s because I did all of these things. It’s because I looked for external validation for too long. It’s because I said yes to prove my worth. It’s because I didn’t have boundaries to support my well-being and my mental health and my career. It’s because I felt I needed to be a people pleaser and put other people first. It’s because I linked all of my self-worth to my achievements at work. I see you.

 

I know I’ve been in your shoes. I speak your language and I’m sending you so much love and light today. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. Final reminder, these are not character flaws. They’re patterns that can be broken and they’re so common among women in senior leadership, especially in high achievers like you who listen to my show. So you have a choice. You can stay stuck in execution mode or you can choose an easier path.

 

to lead with confidence, to lead with clarity. So I invite you to ask yourself these three questions. Where are my boundaries the weakest? Where am I over-functioning to feel in control? And where am I relying on others to reaffirm my value? Because these are the real questions that begin your transformation. And obviously, if you want to join 360Litres Club, all you’ve got to do is join the wait list.

 

And then when we open up spots again, when our members transition or we have extra capacity, because we are packed right now, we are full, you will get an invitation to apply. So being on the wait list doesn’t mean anything. Just if you are offered a opportunity to apply, you’ll submit your application. We will screen it. And I’m not going to say it’s a bell curve like, you know, those bell curves. But we do calibrate and we do try to get the best women in who, when I say the best, you don’t have to have the numbers or the letters after your name.

 

I know why I keep saying numbers because there are no numbers, but you know what I mean? It’s all about your willingness to work on yourself. It’s all about your willingness to invest the time that is required and that you’re going to bring something to the community. Right. This is a very sacred space I have built over the last couple of years. So not everyone who applies actually gets an opportunity to experience the 360 magic. So please, if you ever apply in your offered place, just don’t procrastinate and grab it with both hands. And I will be there to welcome you with open arms.

 

Lucy Gernon (15:24.578)

But in the meantime, get on the waitlist and then go download the Impostor Syndrome Guide if you want a confidence boost or you struggle with second guessing yourself at work. LucyGarnon.com forward slash imposter. All right. So that is it for this week’s episode of the show. If you found this thought provoking or you know another woman leader who you think would find this thought provoking, please share it, because today I’m really speaking from my heart and

 

Yeah, I want to just get this message to as many women in senior leadership as I can because you guys are awesome. So until next time, safe, safe, same time, same place. Bye for now. See you soon.