Lucy Gernon (00:04.804)
Do you want to know how I set boundaries with senior leaders and clients without appearing unprofessional or uncommitted? In this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast, I am sharing, vulnerably and openly, how I set boundaries. I like to call myself the queen of boundaries because I’m pretty good at bounding up while also being super committed to my clients and my customers. So in this week’s episode of the show, I’m going to be sharing exactly how I do it. Go and check it out.
Lucy Gernon (00:35.0)
Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Lucy Gernon, and today’s episode is a special one because it’s all about how I set boundaries with senior leaders and clients in a way that I believe enhances my professional reputation rather than damaging it. And I’m also sharing how 360 Leaders Slob has been designed to help women like you to master these very skills.
So if you’re somebody who feels overworked, underappreciated or scared to set boundaries for fear of looking uncommitted, I have been there. This episode is for you. But first of all, I wanted to give a shout out to another amazing podcast reviewer who left us a gorgeous review. And this says I must listen to the podcast offers so much great advice across a mix of real stories and topics that are varied and interesting.
Amazingly, all of this content is offered totally free of charge. You are welcome. I must listen for anyone who is interested in developing their business and leadership skills. Thank you so much. And yes, I love to provide this content free of charge to you, but it’s not free of charge to me because it takes a lot of time. I have to pay a team to do this as well. And we really can’t keep up the quality of the show unless we have the support from our listeners.
So all I invite you to do is just to rate and review the show, subscribe, follow it, sign up to our newsletter. I link everything in the show notes. You would really be helping us to ensure I can keep showing up here for you every single Wednesday producing this totally free content. So let’s get into boundaries.
I used to hate boundaries. I hate a conflict. was a people pleaser. Can you relate? I didn’t want to let anyone down. I didn’t want to look unprofessional. Until maybe about, I would say about 10 years ago, I burnt myself out badly. Maybe it wasn’t 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago. I burnt myself out really badly. And I realized that no matter how hard I tried to please or get everything done, I still didn’t seem to get the recognition or the
Lucy Gernon (02:45.88)
like the dopamine hit I think I was craving. So I kind of decided, right, I’m going to get superstructured and I’m going to boundary up, as I say, and I invite you to boundary up as well. So let’s talk about why boundaries matter so much for women in leadership. I talk about this all the time in 360, where we really emphasize that boundaries aren’t just about protecting your time.
They’re about creating a space for you to lead strategically and effectively, thus achieving the goals that your organization wants you to achieve. so time, worked and hours put in does not equal results. And that’s one of the principles that we live by in 360. So when you join, you get access and media access to my 10 golden rules for work life balance. And one of them is the whole 80-20 principle.
The other nine are very important. need to do all of them. But the 80-20 principle says that the Pareto’s law, that 80 % of your efforts produce just 20 % of your results and 20 % of your efforts produce just 80 % of your results. So what that effectively means is for 80 % of your week, it’s actually like not create not value at right. So it’s about really getting
strategic and putting your big girl pants on and making an empowered decision to set boundaries for the good of not only your organization and its growth goals, but also for your own health. Because as women, we often feel the pressure, don’t we, to say yes to everything and to prove our worth by being constantly available and agreeable, being the good girl. You know, I’ve talked with the good girl syndrome before.
But what I’ve learned is constantly over committing does not make you a better leader. Like it makes you an overwhelmed one. And an overwhelmed leader is not somebody anyone wants to be around. It’s not somebody who is going to be able to lead a team through crisis. It’s not somebody who’s going to even be able to like hear the team when they’re telling you the crisis is coming because you’ve so much on your plate. You can’t seem to take it on. And I love talking about boundaries and I love supporting you to set boundaries. So
Lucy Gernon (05:08.196)
That’s the first thing is that you’ve got to realize that it’s really important for you to set boundaries because leadership is about leading and it’s about you leading as opposed to you being the follower. Now you might be thinking, but Lucy, how can I set boundaries when my boss is constantly pulling out of me and changing priorities and yada yada yada? Your boss needs you to set boundaries. In fact, so many of my clients in 360 have told me that
their bosses now look to them for advice on how to like set boundaries and how to manage their time because of the strategies that they’re learning. And I told them this, said, I promise you, once you follow the frameworks and the tools and, of course, I’m there to give you personalized advice and hold you accountable and cheer you on. I can see that when you are strong and certain in yourself and you are have the leadership ability to lead yourself and to know
the boundaries you have so that you can achieve the goals your organization wants you to and your own career goals, you actually become an inspiration. You become a role model for others. So it’s not only important for your health and for your wellness and for your bloody sanity. It’s also really, really important so that you can actually deliver on those initiatives that your senior leaders want you to deliver on.
So next I wanna talk to you a little bit about how I use strategic communication to set boundaries. Now back in episode number two, I did an episode called the ultimate guide to setting boundaries. So I invite you to go back and listen to that where I teach you my three step framework called the dad method, DAD for setting boundaries. And it’s really easy, really simple. And it just gives you a little framework to actually do it.
But one of the biggest problems I notice with boundaries is you might know what to do, but it can be very difficult to hold yourself accountable to keep the boundaries, which is why there’s me, which is why there’s 360L Slub. But what I do is if I need to set a boundary, I’ll say something like if somebody asks me to do something or to meet like I remember I was.
Lucy Gernon (07:28.012)
was a senior leader in a large organization wanted to have a call with me one evening at like five o’clock. Now, I don’t take calls at five o’clock in the evening. I I set my work hours and I just don’t do it. And even though this contract, you might think I’m mad, was worth quite a lot of money. My health and my family and my boundaries come first.
And you might be going, what? You’re crazy. This is a great opportunity. What I’ve learned is that if you’re valuable enough and if if if it’s meant to be for you, it will happen anyway. So in that particular situation, I just explained to this person, this person was like very senior, someone I would have been like, my God, I can’t say no to this person. I just said something like, unfortunately, I can’t support at that time because I’m focused on X, whatever it was.
And that was it. And I said, but here’s when would suit you. Here’s the three times that suit me or even better still, what I try to do is I try to give a link to my own calendar so they can actually see my availability. And I’ll always say, look, if this doesn’t suit you, come back and let me know, because it’s about trying to collaborate. And if I say yes to one person, that’s a boundary broken. That means if I do it for this person, I’ll do for the next person and the next person and the next person.
So I think it’s really important that you get clear on your boundaries and communicate it in a way that is, you know, coming across as you’re not doing it just to be rigid. Like I was very flexible in that particular situation. I said, look, it just doesn’t suit for whatever reason. So that’s just something I invite you to consider that even with potential clients, for those of you who were in revenue generating roles. Yeah, like I know you don’t want to piss your clients off, but if they really want to work with you and you are, you know, you should never have to connect.
convince or sell yourself, sell your soul. I believe anyway, the right customers come to you at the right time. That’s just what I believe. for you, then you might say something like, like, let’s say you were asked to do something from your boss, a new shiny project that’s come down. What I invite you to say is something like this. That sounds like a really exciting opportunity.
Lucy Gernon (09:47.716)
However, my resource strategy for 2025 was linked to the company’s strategic goals of X. So explain what they were. This request, you know, it isn’t in line with what our team are working towards, but perhaps you could and then insert something helpful, which might be help me to reprioritize our strategic initiatives, or here’s what I suggest we could do so we could do both.
or if it’s another department or somebody asking you, could just give a suggestion as to what other team might be able to take it. But remember, like people aren’t just asking you to do things because you are the best. They this is like if you’re multitasking, come back to me. Usually they ask the people who say yes, I’m sorry, but they usually ask the people who say yes, we all do until you like, know, until you set your boundaries and.
I think what’s really important is you remember that boundaries are not about being rigid. I believe boundaries are like prefer to call boundaries collaboration guidelines where you set the rules with your colleagues and your boss around your ways of working. So, so important so that everyone gets to work, go to work, do their job as best as they can without absolutely killing themselves or missing out on their life. OK. And I would say so little shift to kind of do this to start to
be a little bit more bounded up, but it’s incredibly liberating and it’s incredibly powerful. And when you do it, like I said, it helps you to stand out as a great leader. And one of our members actually, like in 360, she was worried about this particular person on her team. And what I love doing is giving personalized support and training.
for our members when they need it. So I like to kind of think of it like on the job training in the moment when you need it. So instead of it being, you know, very generic where you might do a leadership development course, which amazing, by the way, absolutely do it. But what’s different about 360 is you not only get the leadership strategies, you get the self leadership, you’re getting the mindset as a free bonus, you’re getting all the tools you need to be more efficient. So it’s kind of helping you with everything.
Lucy Gernon (11:59.488)
She said it was a really good win in our weekly wins. She had this conflict with one of her directors and he really disagreed with her approach and he really wanted her to do something that she really didn’t want to do. And this particular director that reported to I think the my client is a senior director, I believe she is. And this guy was a little bit intimidating and she kind of sometimes would like not bow to him. But you know, that energy that kind of comes at you. But
She asked for support around communication and executive presence, and we worked on that and gave her some power phrases. And she said that when when she kind of spoke to her him about the boundaries and she explained a little bit better, he said that he literally said to her, OK, I can tell that you know what you’re talking about because of the way she explained it. And he literally changed his mind on the ask. And she said she used my power phrases to support her to set that boundary. So.
What’s really important for you is just to remind yourself that communication and boundaries like they don’t have to be scary. Something we talk about all the time in 360 is more effective communication. Being able to say no, being able to lead yourself. So, so important. So again, we are taking on new members right now. And if you’re interested in learning more, you can just reach out to me, lucygarnon.com or you can grab me on social media.
And I can share anything because it’s really important, I think, isn’t it? When you’re investing yourself, that you feel like it’s a good fit for you. So always feel free to ask me anything that you want. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. Are you ready to go set some boundaries? Send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. Let me know what what is one boundary that you could set today that would make a huge impact for you. Think outside the box.
Remember, you’re going to make assumptions. You’re going to have limiting beliefs. You can’t do it. Remind yourself of last week’s episode where we talked about the impact of not having boundaries. You don’t want to be overwhelmed. You don’t want to be exhausted. Don’t want to get stuck in the hamster wheel. Set your boundaries, lovely lady. And whenever you are ready to move forward and if you are looking for a coach, you want to work with me in 360, you know where to find me.
Lucy Gernon (14:18.68)
So that’s it. I hope that you enjoy the episode. Short and sweet. I’m off now to go collect my kids from school. Mom duty calls. So until next time, same time, same place. Bye for now.
