LA Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Lead with Confidence

[Music] Well, now we are going to go to our next presentation. So, Martha, can you turn your camera on and say hello? Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here and I want to first just say thank you to Liz for that amazing presentation. I feel like I learned so much. I especially love Liz how you really encouraged everyone to be their authentic self and to and to lead with their strengths and not try and be someone else or sound someone like someone else. We're going to talk about that um shortly. So, and thank you also to every all the team here, Ginger and everyone for hosting this marvelous webinar, inviting me to come spend some time with each of you. So, um, what we're going to do here, I understand I have about 25 minutes just to give you an overview, is I am going to share a short story about, um, something that's fun from my past and then I'm going to give you something you can start using right away because I'm speaking about finding your authentic voice, which is something Liz touched on as well. And I want you, as she said, you you've spent the time coming here today. you've carved out. We know what it's like to have busy schedules. So, you've shown up and I want to give you some tools you can start using right away to build your leadership confidence and to find your authentic voice. But first, a brief story about me. When I was a little girl, I knew right away that I wanted to be a singer. And I knew specifically what type of singer I wanted to be. I wanted to be share and there was some stuff going on at home as there often is in families and for some reason I hooked into her and I developed this sort of a visualization for myself when I was laying in bed falling asleep and I would see myself dressed like Sher. I had a white halter satin dress on. I had big rhinestone hoops. the long hair, although mine would have been red, not black because I was a red head. So, I had long red hair, platform shoes, standing on a T-shaped platform singing Shar's songs. And what I found out by doing that visualization was that I started to feel calmer and somehow more confident. I didn't know it at the time, but looking back on it, what I was picking up from wanting to be Sher was her confidence and the fact that she leaned into what made her unique and different. So, she was performing at a time when women really needed to be a little shorter and have sort of light, airy voices. She was none of that. She was tall, way taller than Sunny. She had a deep voice and she was a woman of color. And so instead of shying away from all that, she went more towards who she was. She built a brand from her authentic self that lasted an entire lifetime. And as you all know, she's had an amazing amazing career. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that today. What is your authentic brand? But first, I have a question to ask each of you. And you can place your responses in the chat. And that question is, when you were young, what did you want to be? Or who did you want to be when you grew up? Let's just go ahead and see some answers in the chat from that. When you were very young, what did you want to be? Who did you want to be? Go ahead and put that in the chat. Oh, I love that. dancer in the show of cats. A fashion a singer, a fashion designer. I love this. A a dancer, a ballerina. These are wonderful. These are wonderful. And it's often these childhood dreams that of course they don't end up manifesting in the way we think they're going to manifest, right? I didn't turn into be a pop singer. I turned into be a musical theater performer, which is how I got into coaching about voice and helping people find their authentic voice. But it's so a vulcanologist. I love that, Michelle. I actually know what those are because I saw a Netflix special on that. That's a fantastic and unique thing to want to be. So, let's talk about what we're going to do today. We're going to focus on your three words. There's two parts to this exercise. We only have time to focus on the first part. These are the three words that you want people to use to speak about you, describe you, especially when you're not in the room. So, this would be your personal brand. And we're going to do an exercise to help you dive into these three words. And again, we want them to be authentic, right? Liz talked a lot about them. We want them to flow from your innate strengths. I use a lot of uh work with the Clifton Strengthfinder. I encourage each of you to take your Clifton Strengths if you haven't done so already. It's the most well- validated personality profile available. It's the Clifton Strengths. You definitely want to take that because when you know what these are for yourself, you can start to leverage them. You can start to speak from them. You'll understand how to use them in meetings and how to build really along with your three words, how to build more authority, more confidence, more upward movement, and that clear road map that really helps you have more influence. So, I'm going to take you over to a worksheet. Grab a pen and paper if you have one, and we'll do an exercise together. So this is your three words and this is all about again finding your unique leadership brand. Remember there are no wrong answers here. You want to brainstorm in your mind what three words you want people to use to describe you when they're speaking about you, especially when you're not in the room. First thing to consider here is your core values. Not your company's core values, but your core values. And I've put mine here so you can see them. I like to be energized. I I really open with with openness, authenticity, transparency, truthfulness, and I really need to feel when I put my feet on the ground in the morning like I'm being serviceful to other people. That servant leadership is very important to me. So, take a few moments. So, I'm going to give you a few minutes here to just think about you're you're not going to dive completely into this. We don't have time, but just jot down a few ideas about your core values. I also founded the Women's Voice Network last year, which is a group of women executives that come together to support each other, to share and learn from each other's stories, and to have each other's back outside of your own organizations. And we do a lot of work on the core values at the Women's Voice Network. We also work a lot with the three words. So take a minute here and just jot down gut response. Don't overthink it. Gut response. What might my really my three core values really be? I have a whole worksheet for this exercise just on the core values. I'm going to give it to you. So don't worry about that. You're going to have it. Um but just jot down some gut responses. Daria, the quiz I referenced was the Clifton Strength Finder. I'll put it in the chat while you guys are thinking about your core values. Okay. So, this is a fivestep worksheet. We are not going to get to all five steps today, but we're going to go to one through three. So, the second item here to think about is what are your innate strengths? If you know your Clifton strengths, jot them down on your piece of paper. If you don't, go ahead and write down some of the things you know about you yourself that you do organically. Your strengths are with you from age 14 on. This is not something you have to work on. They're innately yours. So if you know what you do well, you know something about yourself, jot those down. Take a minute for that. Okay, let's move to step three, which is defining your three words. So again, we're still finding your brand here. And this is where you need to think about how you want others to perceive you and talk about you, especially when you're not in the room. So you can see mine there. empowering, compassionate, and innovative. I love empowering women executives to solve really difficult problems with a compassionate approach. So, you can see how I just used my three words when I was talking about what it is I actually do. So, take a stab at it and don't worry because I'm going to give you the opportunity to connect with me after this call if you need more help with your three words. But just take another minute to jot down again gut response. What's coming in for you? We're building that brand with your core values, your strengths, and your three words. Again, there's no wrong answers. The only thing that would be wrong would be if it doesn't align with something for you on a gut level. Like Liz spoke to so beautifully. It has to be authentic to you. One more minute. Okay. So, you should have at least the bones of your thoughts on your core values, your strengths, and your three words. I'm going to go ahead and stop this share. That's really your passport. That's your passport. This is who I am. This is my identification. This is how I want to be seen. This is how I feel in alignment with my leadership style. The second part of this work is okay, you've got your passport. Now, where are you going with it? How are you going to navigate? Use this information about yourself to navigate a way forward, a clear aligned path forward. So again, you can gain that upward momentum. You can come to the table and really feel like you have more authority and more confidence. If it's you, if it's really you, let's connect back to share here. If you're really being authentic and you're really leaning with your strengths and you're really coming out of the gate with some transparency as to who you really are, it you will establish your authority. You will feel more confident and you will have more influence because the second you try to sound like someone else, look like someone else or be like someone else, it will never ever work. you have to be you. And so that's exactly what Sher did, right? Instead of trying to be short and petite and airy, she stood up even taller. She sang even lower. She came out with such a bold, unique brand. So that's what I want you to that's that's the invitation here is to start thinking about how can I move more towards who I really am? And in the Women's Voice Network, we're working on that all the time together because that's the journey. You have your passport and now we have to figure out where you're going. So, I know. Okay, let's see. I'm just checking our chat here. I think we're good. Okay. I would love to help each and every one of you with your three words. I know you can all appreciate how it is to have a very full schedule. So, I only have five slots open, but I'm going to post a link in the chat. If you want some help with your three words, grab this link right away. I'll post it right now. And jump on my calendar because once you have those three words, you're going to have that passport and then we can talk about an aligned path forward. Again, I wish I could help everybody and I can't. So grab the link right now because there's only that link shuts after shuts off after five. But so the learning can continue. I'm going to put another link in the chat which will help with this and everybody can use this. Copy this and put it in. Okay, that is my free bundle and it has that worksheet we just looked at in it. It'll go right to your inbox. It has the whole worksheet. It has steps one through five, which we couldn't get to today. It also has your core values. It also has my favorite exercise for busting self-limiting beliefs, which is the mindmap exercise. And it has the living your leadership story. So, it's really a complete bundle that's going to help get you off the starting blocks. Again, I can't help everybody on this call, but everybody can grab that bundle and it goes right to your inbox. And that's so that you can keep learning and keep building these tools so that you have the road map, right? You have the core values, you have the um mind map exercise, you have the living your leadership story, and you have your three words. It's going to give you a lot of tools to move forward. Um, let's see what else do I have to say. Um, I think that's it. Uh, somebody says they can't see the links. Ginger, can you help with that? Can you see those links? If you can see those links, Ginger, grab them and post them from your end or Shellyley. Yes, thank you. Okay, wonderful. Um, let's see what else did I want to share with you. Basically, dive into that bundle and work. I would definitely say for the Clifton StrengthFinder, only open up your top five because they're going to try and upsell you. It should only cost you $29 to open up your top five. If they try to upsell you to open up all 34 strengths, do not do that. It will cost you more money and it will confuse you. You only need to know your top five. That's really important to know. And the other thing I'll say is um basically I appreciate what Liz said and that is be you. keep moving towards more who you are, defining that in deeper and deeper ways and spend that time with the bundle. Go slow. I would suggest you do one worksheet a week because the second you try and rush through it just to get it done, you won't be giving yourself the self-reflection time you need. Go deep. maybe one sheet a one worksheet a week so that you you don't feel rushed when you're taking the Clifton Strength Finder. Also, don't overthink it because the second you start over and analyzing everything and saying, "Well, is this thing going to get me right if I don't answer correctly?" It messes everything up. Go with those gut responses and it I promise you it will it will get you. So any questions before we end today? Yes, thank you so much. Yes, um we've had a few questions that have come in through the chat. So we'll go through a few of the questions before we move to our panel discussion. Great. Um I'll start with this one from India and she says, "How should my values evolve over my career?" Oh, that's a great question. I do this exercise in the women's voice network which is this group of women executives and women leaders that I work with. We come back to this material quite frequent quite frequently with that core values worksheet that you're going to get in the bundle right to your inbox. I would do it now and I would do it again a year from now because what I find is that women's the women executives that I work with to find their authentic voice and to help them navigate these really complex challenges at work. Their values are evolving and the reason they're evolving is because they are evolving. We are not the same person that we were even a year ago. We are here to grow. And so you might find that what you really value this year shifts a little bit next year as your experiences and your challenges and all the things that you deal with, all the things we're all dealing with all the time. You might say, you know what, this year this is what's really important to me. Well, thank you for that. All right. Our next our next question, it says um talk about instances when I should not be authentic. I'm not authentic at work. Oh, that's a great question as well. So, one of my clients is uh a VP at Ingram Micro. And for those of you who don't know Ingram Micro Row, they are the largest tech distributors in the world. They are a $50 billion company. and she has this situation at work where she is authentic with her team, when she's working with her team, but when she's with her higher up, which is just one step away from the CEO, she shuts down and she's completely inauthentic because the situation with her higher up is that she doesn't feel like she can she's in alignment with her. They don't have the same vision. And so she's constantly adjusting herself to fit with her boss essentially. And the impact it has on her is what she says is it's exhausting. So I think you have to work with it. And the more you understand what your strengths are and your three words are, the more you can build that road map forward. So in the in the women's voice network, we build an authentic voice road map and that map will it will help you use different strengths at different times depending on the situation you are in. So you as you understand your strengths, you can start to leverage them differently depending on the situation you're in. But you need to get yourself to a place where you do feel like you're at least coming from your own strengths and you're at least feeling authentic because otherwise we're really wearing a mask and that's that's fatiguing. So I it's a complex question and a complex answer, but basically I think the more you go within and understand what you really what your superpowers really are, the easier it is going to feel to be authentic. That's wonderful. Thank you. I think we have time for one more question before we move to our panel discussion. And this question says, "What happens if my core values conflict with an organization's values?" Ah, that's such a great question. I think that's where that deeper dive really helps. get the bundle and go into the mind map exercise and it's going to help you see where do I have a limiting self-belief because it may be that you're limiting yourself or it could be that the organization in you are just at opposites and at odds. So it and it can take time to discern that. Again, I think I think knowing your strengths and I think diving into your three words, you'll help to see, wow, I'm where am I out of alignment? Always look for the misalignment in yourself first. And if it's truly like my company and I are mismatched, right? Like maybe they don't have an inclusive culture. Maybe they don't have a culture that really values what women in particular bring to the table. Maybe they don't have uh maybe they're not employee focused. Maybe they just don't care about their employees. And in that case, you may need to look for opportunities outside the organization because you can't change the consciousness of the leadership. That stuff all trickles from the top down. But there is a wave right now in the executive space and that is towards people are wanting women especially are wanting to work with organizations that are employee focused that are inclusive that do care about quality of life and work life balance and getting that voice heard and getting that seat at the table because if you don't have that and you're and it's you're bumping up against it. So, I had a woman client at Yahoo who bumped up against that for years and she ultimately had to move on because it was apparent to her that the leadership was not going to change. I mean, thank you. Yeah, Liz makes a good point. Sometimes people can change, but they have to be receptive and open to change. And if they're not, fantastic. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. What a great Do you have any Yeah. Do you have any final words of wisdom to share with our audience today? Yes. I would say give yourself the time. Give carve out the time. You know, women are masters at taking care of everyone else and then whatever's left over they grab a little bit for themselves. I would encourage you to prioritize yourself and that is not being selfish. That is actually being very strategic because when you give yourself the time to really dive into self-reflection exercises, you are going to start to understand more and more of who you really are and what you can really bring to the table and your messaging gets clearer, your impact grows, your influence grows, and you you can avoid some of that burnout that so many women really feel. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for speaking with us this afternoon. You're so welcome. Thank you for having me. What a great conference. Yes, this is wonderful.