From enrolling your team into a vision, negotiating conflicts, or marketing your company to the big potential client, how you communicate is crucial to your success and influence. We can’t lead alone. When you speak as a leader, it becomes easy to magnetize team, new possibilities and even other leaders to help you fulfill your mission.
Yet communicating clearly and effectively isn’t always easy, particularly for women in leadership. It’s that genetic wiring that can trip us up. Let’s face it, for millennia women have been programmed to be the nurturers who tune in to the collective well-being of those around us. When we have a perspective to share that might make us stand out from the crowd, those old primal impulses get activated.
When you speak out, you risk judgment, disapproval and – egads, people not liking you! The internal People Pleaser gremlin if left unchecked or unnoticed often peppers our words with lots of verbiage that can sound inclusive and empathetic, but at the end of the day undermines the message.
Despite the strides women have seen in leadership, there is still a very long road to go in terms of promotion, acceptance of your authority, opportunities and pay rates. If a man speaks with unequivocal conviction, he is viewed as decisive. If a woman delivers the same message with that same conviction, she is as likely to be seen as shrill or bitchy instead of a strong leader.
The fear of not being liked and approaching potentially contentious situations and people with great caution has been a huge part of my own personal soul curriculum. The entrepreneurial journey has been a great laboratory to confront and make peace with some of my own limiting beliefs, but it’s astonished me how much some of the old minimizing and self-deprecating habits still lurk in how I communicate.
Thankfully, with awareness and then a decision to claim your own brilliance, you can avoid these potential pitfalls.
Mistake #1 – Offering an Energetic Mismatch
Speaking as a leader effectively is not just about WHAT you say, but the ENERGY you bring to your communication. In the game of influence and leadership, content is not king (or queen). When you are powerfully aligned with your message and how you are communicate it, people feel that resonance.
Helping others solve the energetic mismatch was actually the catalyst to me starting Brilliance Mastery years ago. Too often I was encountering wonderful and visionary business owners, lit up with purpose and passion but their message was cloaked in an energetic veil of self-doubt, hesitation and fear.
If Martin Luther King had said “You know, I have a dream I keep having. Maybe you’re on board with me if I describe it a bit,” would we have achieved the level of civil rights in the USA that we have today? Absolutely not! His “I have a dream” speech is a powerful example of the impact you can have when your energy and your message are absolutely aligned and tapped in to your unique brilliance.
Mistake #2 – Using Waffle Words
Waffle words are the verbal fillers and throwaway phrases and words you use when you feel uncertain or are afraid of silence. They create energetic disruption and distraction from your message.
Here are a few of the top waffle word culprits out there:
“Just…” – A classic way to minimize and try to offer something that keeps you off the radar of conflict. Examples: “It’s just an idea I had…”, or “Can I just get your input..” Once you put this waffle word on your “Speaking as a Leader radar,” you’ll be surprised how often it gets used. Strip it from your communication and notice how much more confident and clear you will feel.
“I’ll try…” – This is often code for “No I don’t want to” or “I’m not convinced.” It’s a phrase we use when you hesitate to say “No thanks!” outright and it feels safer to stay on the fence. Yoda summed it up well: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
“You know” or “Like” – I hear these phrases peppered in the speedy conversations my children have, but when I’m feeling under pressure or not entirely clear I use these too! The “you know” is often used as a way to get buy-in or acceptance of the idea. I also notice it being used to fill a silence instead of simply speaking and letting your words land and reverberate. “Like” is a waffle word that makes your message meander and diminishes your conviction.
For a very entertaining example of waffle words on overdrive, you can watch Taylor Mali’s poetry slam “Like_You know” here.
Mistake #3 – Minimizing and Qualifying
Another communication pitfall is to continually minimize yourself or throw in qualifiers or caveats around what you are saying. Here are two of my favorite culprits:
“I’m sorry” – This is such an engrained habit, particularly for women. Apologizing when there is no need to whatsoever is a verbal throwback and waves a flag of submission while you are communicating. The #shinestrong viral video Pantene created illustrates beautifully how the “I’m sorry” automatic response impacts your contribution.
“I might be wrong about this…” – This can also be variations of “I may not be sure, but…” or “I’m not an expert, but…” It’s an energetic take-back before you have even offered. It can be very confusing to your audience and undermining to you leadership when you use these verbal security blankets, especially when you actually DO know exactly what you want to offer.
Communicating powerfully is critical to so much of our daily lives, yet there are all these insidious ways many women leaders continue to minimize their wisdom and give their power away. If you tackle these 3 mistakes, you’ll be well on your way uplevelling how you speak as a leader.
STEP INTO YOUR BRILLIANCE
Create a post-it note as a reminder for yourself with the question: “Is my energy matching my words?” Keep a notebook handy to jot down some of the phrases or words you use in everyday conversation as well as when you are speaking more in a work or professional setting. Using the 3 mistakes as a guide, start to practice more clear and aligned communication. You can enlist the support of trusted colleagues or friends to help you!
