Obstacles into Opportunities

Honesty is Our Influencing Ace in the Hole

By Alexia Vernon | May 8th, 2013

ace in the holeHave you ever told someone something you knew she needed to hear but you weren’t sure she was going to like? When I was starting out as a coach, the answer for me was “no.” I had a natural affinity for the question-asking and the empowering pieces of coaching, but I really struggled with delivering feedback I knew would be difficult for my clients to hear.

Fast forward a number of years later, especially after one-month of The Honesty Experiment, and I’ve taken giant leaps–although I’m not quite a Jedi Master–toward mastering how to deliver critical feedback.

Between a number of leadership trainings and getting my Moxie Mastery women ready for their final performance, over the last month I’ve been steeped in developing high performance in business and community leaders. There have been a lot of behaviors to laud. And there have been a lot of lingering not so productive habits to break. For one emerging leader, after a lot of coaching, I wasn’t seeing the growth she and I were looking for. There were no more opportunity-centered, discovery questions to ask. No more frames to open up to enable her to see anew. In order for growth to happen, she needed to hear some specific, direct feedback. And apply it!

Afterwards, she cried. While my husband jokes that I haven’t done my job if someone in one of my groups hasn’t had a tear-producing ‘aha’ moment, these were definitely not tears of recognition. These were tears of disappointment. And until a few days ago, I also thought they were tears of shame. Fortunately, for her and me, I had gotten this one wrong.

This week I received an email from said person thanking me. She wrote, “I wasn’t playing a big enough game, and as a result I was going through the motions but I wasn’t really playing to my edge. You called out my mediocrity and in the process showed me that I don’t want to just get the job done. I want to be exceptional when I speak. You’re the first person who has ever really challenged me, but I see now that you did that because you know what I’m capable of. Thank you for, as you say, helping me to ‘shatter my glass ceiling.’”

Whether or not you are engaged in talent development, there are likely people in your life whose success you want to support–and in pursuit of being their cheerleader–you reserve delivering critical feedback to. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” I’m not suggesting you identify and communicate everything you see as an area for growth to your people. However, when you can unequivocally communicate from a place of equal parts empathy and desire for that which is best for them–and when you have their trust, respect, and permission–one of the greatest gifts you can give them is your honest feedback. As influencers, it is our ace in the hole.

 

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3 Keys to Unlock Your Influence

By Alexia Vernon | May 1st, 2013

key unlockingI am so delighted by the response to the launch of the Influencer Academy website and application process. Thank you for taking the time to watch the preview video, learn about the carefully crafted curriculum and extraordinary guest experts, and for considering the opportunity for you and your high potential women. Please get your application in early as admission will be rolling but seats will fill quickly. (If you are on Twitter, you can share the program HERE and directly from the website to LinkedIn and Facebook.)

Over the last week I’ve reflected on what most activates my ability to use my influence to bring about the results and solutions I seek. And while everything I teach and preach is about dialing-up one’s influence, I’ve found three overarching strategies or keys that most keenly unlock potential.

1. Keep the message simple.

I initially picked up the wrong message from Sr. O’Dea in my 11th grade British Literature class. The woman is wicked smart, and I was frequently brought to my knees by her vocabulary and capacity for literary analysis. As a result, each time I would craft an essay I spent as much time using a Thesaurus as I did honing my idea and building it into a persuasive case. I thought this would be my secret sauce for garnering respect. Until I learned better, it earned me some painful scowls and my first B’s.

Whether you want to inspire people from the podium or are faced with a bunch of scared employees looking to you to lead them out of a dark and messy time, the key is to distill what you want to get across into as few words as possible. Use language that is clear and evocative. And say what you’re saying again. In different ways. Each time appeal to where your audience is, give them time to feel the myriad emotions they are usually feeling, and lead them step-by-step down a coherent pathway towards where they want to go.

2. Get the right people on your team.

As the sole full-time employee in my business, who previously ran a department that just prior to her departure was gutted to only her, I’ve become a martyr–I mean rock star–at pulling big things off on my own. And that’s the trouble. I don’t want to pull something off. I want to explode the paradigm for what others and I think is possible. Quadruple the impact I make. Leave something bigger than my blood, sweat, and tears behind. I can never do that alone.

As an influencer, you always want to have sponsors and cheerleaders for your initiatives–people whose enthusiasm will be contagious. People whose critical eye will be lifesaving and ability to get you and your idea in front of the right people deal changing.

I’m still working on this one, but you better believe that one of the first things I did when designing Influencer Academy was assemble a powerhouse Board of Advisors.

3. Role play in advance much more than you think you will have to.

During my acting days, I was always a pretty weak improviser but when I found my home with the Stolen Chair Theatre Company, a damn solid actor. A typical rehearsal period for one of our co-created  ensemble theatre pieces…6 months!

Role play should not simply be reserved for actors and speakers. Whether you seek to influence through the written or spoken word, don’t reserve your communication for showtime. Give yourself more opportunities than you can fathom needing to negotiate a mutually agreeable solution. Identify all of the possible objections and speak out loud what you will say to reset the conversation. The same goes for facilitating a potentially contentious meeting. Providing critical feedback to an emerging leader. Or entertaining questions from the media at one of your events. As Vince Lombardi is credited with saying, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.”

When you think about the moments where you have most affected change–whether it was shepherding a critical project from germination to implementation, playing a role in spearheading or eliminating a workplace policy, or convincing a loved one to get that check-up that proved lifesaving–what have been your keys to harnessing your power?

And when you find yourself in both everyday and remarkable situations, are you clear on how to reapply these strategies in order to step up? Or do you find yourself going at them anew…and as a result, struggling to consistently be an influencer?

For a long-time I had an on again and off again relationship with my personal power. Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time and self-flagellation on wondering why. And it wasn’t rocket science. I simply wasn’t giving myself the space to remember what was true. About me. While it’s important not to get in our way by staying stuck in old stories or casting the people in our professional and personal lives in reoccurring roles, we do want to be clear on what makes us tick as influencers. How we communicate best. Who we need in our corner. And how to rehearse so that when were are in it–irrespective of what it is–we are ready to shine.

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The Voices of the “Little People” Matter

By Alexia Vernon | April 17th, 2013
http://www.stargroup1.com/blog/are-people-tuning-out-advertising

http://www.stargroup1.com/blog/are-people-tuning-out-advertising

As so often happens, a problem, idea, or experience shows up in my life a few times within a week, and my processing of it spawns the musings I share with my virtual community. And so it is this week.

First, last weekend I read an article about Majora Carter in the New York Times. As some background, Majora is the founder of the environmental justice nonprofit, Sustainable South Bronx, and for the last 5 years she has run her own consultancy, the Majora Carter Group—offering pioneering solutions to large-scale environmental problems. Recently, Majora has come under fire for her decision to champion FreshDirect in the South Bronx without taking a complimentary meeting with the residents of the neighborhood she grew up in. (She allegedly wanted $500 to hear their concerns.) Many South Bronx residents are worried that the introduction of FreshDirect—specifically their delivery trucks to their community—will exacerbate the area’s already high asthma rates.

Next, while leading a pre-conference workshop earlier this week, I connected with one of my participants who shared his mounting frustration about the executive leadership at his company. Both during and after the workshop, we brainstormed strategies for getting fellow leaders in his organization to set boundaries on their institutionalized privileges—from $400K+ credit lines to preferred parking—that he sees alienating them from the rest of their employees.

Whether we want to engender respect, commitment, enthusiasm, or high performance from members of our community or our companies, one of the chief strategies we can employ is the simple act of eliciting opinions and feedback from the people we serve. It’s vital to remember that whether we are elected, hired, or self-chosen as spokespersons for a group of people, we will fail at representing their interests if we don’t step into the vulnerability that’s necessary to hear where they are coming from and what they think about us and our leadership. We must be open to hearing what they want. What they don’t want. What they perceive as fair. And that which is downright distasteful to them.

Whether it’s right or wrong to introduce FreshDirect into the South Bronx—or to have the capacity to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars on a company credit line—is secondary to the need for the leaders in these circumstances who are seeking to sustain their influence to understand how such opportunities are impacting their people. Our actions will never be right for everyone. Nonetheless, it’s critical we show that we genuinely care about how our behavior impacts others by receiving feedback without defending who we are and what we have done. We must express true empathy for others’ struggles and concerns. And if we are as serious about leadership as a verb as we are with it as a noun, it’s vital we let our people know how we will factor in and apply their viewpoints in future decision making—and we honor such verbal commitments with the same level of commitment we honor the needs of our most high-profile clients and stakeholders.

My hope for you is that you get honest about any resistance that comes up when you think about meeting your people where they are and giving them the microphone. When you own the fear, you diffuse it. And whether what surfaces is worry that you might have to give up a lucrative contract or leave home 10 minutes earlier each day to walk across a crowded parking lot, remember that your loss of money or convenience while uncomfortable in the short-term may be the catalyst for more employee/community trust and credibility, a more dynamic and transparent culture, and increased wholehearted communication and collaboration over the long-term.

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How One Word Can Make Big Impact

By Alexia Vernon | April 10th, 2013
from http://alasdairstark.blogspot.com/

from http://alasdairstark.blogspot.com/

For the last year, I’ve been dating churches. While my religious upbringing has been a bit of a hodgepodge – I was raised Greek Orthodox, attended Catholic school, and have a sweet spot in my heart for attending synagogue with my dad on Yom Kippur (the holiday that most embodies my spiritual identity because of its focus on forgiveness) – lately I’ve been yearning to have a new, physical community to grow my faith with.

A couple of weeks ago I found what I believe will be my church. The pastor used his Palm Sunday sermon as an opportunity to ask us if we would risk crucifixion for speaking out against that which we know is wrong before segueing into a difficult conversation about child sex trafficking. He brought up a woman who has done exactly that, telling her story about her experience being trafficked by her own family. Scared and committed to action, this woman is now on a mission to pass AB 67 here in Nevada to protect other vulnerable children and change the act of selling children’s bodies to a sex offense. (You can read the bill, and if you are in Nevada, express your opinions HERE.)

After the service, I walked to the parking lot with a woman who was sobbing. While the story was potent and definitely elicited  tears from many of us in attendance, I sensed from this woman’s walloping that she needed to talk. And release. After some quick self-talk, “Lex, how do I meet this woman where she’s at, quickly, without making her feel more vulnerable?” I began, “My heart is hurting, and yet I feel inspired that the pain can be a springboard for some action. How are you feeling?”

I was hoping she would feel she was in a safe space to release whatever thought or memory had gotten a hold of her, and she did. It just wasn’t what I had intuited. Yes, she confessed she had been a victim of sexual violence. What pained her, though, was her guilt surrounding how she had unintentionally hurt another child on her daughter’s sports team several months back.

“I’m the assistant coach,” she explained. “And I was trying to get one of our girls to change strategy. So I yelled to her, ‘cover the big girl.’ The moment I said it, I knew the word had come out wrong. I meant the tall girl. She’s almost six feet tall. But all anybody on that field heard was ‘big.’”

My new friend then went on to relay what happened next. The ‘big’ girl started to cry – although not overweight, she was battling an eating disorder. Both teams’ parents condemned her use of the word ‘big.’ Ultimately, she left her coaching position – something that she adored. And her relationship with her daughter, she feels, hasn’t been the same since. Hearing a woman give voice to her experience of being traumatized as a young woman by the reckless behavior of adults’ in her life had triggered her to re-experience her own shame.

Each word we use matters. Whether it’s using ‘big’ instead of ‘tall’ or adding words like ‘think,’ ‘feel,’ or ‘believe’ in front of what we’re saying – which weakens our claims – the addition, omission, or substitution of a word can facilitate big time impact.

As I implore my clients and Step Into Your Moxie Mastery learners, when you communicate – interpersonally as well as publicly, slow down your rate of delivery so that you can find the exact words and phrases you intend to use. Whenever you sense that there is a lack of alignment between what is in your head and what is coming out of your mouth, remember to stop. And smile. Find your idea. And then, and only then, carry on.

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My Month of 100 Percent Honesty Begins

By Alexia Vernon | April 3rd, 2013

Screen shot 2013-04-01 at 1.41.57 PMThis month I agreed to be a part of Tech Cocktail writer Kira Newman’s ambitious project, The Honesty Experiment, where I have vowed to be 100 percent honest with myself and others for 30 days. Each week in April, 7 other participants and I will blog about our experiences. Less than 3 full days in I am already supercharged by the experience. Here’s why I embarked:

I get paid to teach people how to tell the truth – in their interpersonal communication, public speaking, negotiation, and in those super uncomfortable and necessary difficult conversations. And yet here’s the rub…I struggle to use direct communication. A lot. Whether it’s giving feedback to a team member or telling my honey we need to increase contributions to our retirement plans, when I have to communicate stuff I know others aren’t going to like I am effin’ brilliant at finding 101 excuses not to do it. What a great opportunity this is to dial-up my truth telling and inspire others to the charge!

I began Monday by initiating a conversation with one of my champions where I knew I was going to hear about a colleague who is not a fan of mine. I like to be liked. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. While I can count on one hand how many people really don’t like me (at least I think I can!), it hurts that each finger is taken by somebody who was really close to me and who pulled away as a result of me being honest. One person rejected me in high school after I refused to stop being friends with someone who she felt was a bully – my rationale being that I don’t throw away anyone in my life, particularly those who are hurting and “acting out”. Others are people who have wanted me to stay quiet about issues that are important to me or play small so as not to draw so much attention to myself.

What I realized Monday, learning about this newest person with The Honesty Experiment at top of mind, is that being in our truth – whether that’s aligning our purpose with our work or giving voice to the darkest parts of ourselves and our experiences – is often initially painful work. While honesty is supposed to make us feel better, in the short term it can sting. Yet the long-term payoff is blissful. Living in our integrity always is. We must simply train ourselves not to overestimate the duration of this discomfort and keep our focus on who we will be on the other side of it.

If you’re anything like me, there have been moments in your life where you have chosen the short-term over the long-term and quieted what your intuition was telling you. You have stayed mum when you knew your life and work were inviting you to step up and speak. And while playing it safe might have kept you at peace in the world, it likely created a war within. My life is richer when my head, heart, and gut are aligned and I use my body’s inner knowing to shape how I show up and communicate with the people in all spheres of my life.

Having, “Am I being 100 percent honesty right now?” as a filter question for how I choose to behave is going to be more than a 30-day project. And I hope that it’s a question you will take from your computer or smart phone screen and apply in your own life.

Here are 4 additional ways I have stayed committed to honesty this week that I invite you to try.

1. Released a prospective work opportunity I was uninspired by.

2. Ate outside my self-prescribed diet when my body signaled it was craving red meat.

3. Provided feedback to a loved one on how to strengthen communication with me.

4. Paused myself in a moment of frustration before communicating. (This one is big. For me, honesty is not opening my mouth the moment a thought or feeling emerges. Rather, it’s taking a moment to ask “What do I want to see happen?” and allowing that answer to dictate my next steps. In this instance, that meant giving myself a moment to giggle, correcting somebody’s oversight, and getting back to who I want to be – someone who operates from a place of gratitude and wholeheartedness.)

If you were to be utterly honest with yourself today, what truth would you speak – both to yourself and to the people in your world?

And how might your transparency be bigger than you, and create the space for the people around you to root themselves in their truth?

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Does Somebody’s Success and Privilege Make You Trust Her Less?

By Alexia Vernon | March 20th, 2013

I doubt I’m surprising anybody when I say that I’m a big fan of Sheryl Sandberg and her bestselling book, Lean In. Not only am I a practitioner for and advocate of developing female leaders, but I’m also passionate about many of the subjects Sandberg talks about: teaching women how to effectively negotiate in all areas of their professional and personal lives; the importance not only of mentorship but also sponsorship (having someone with power and privilege championing you); and playing nicely with your fear – when you know it’s serving you – by labeling it as the voice of your power or “moxie” so that you don’t talk yourself out of stepping into new opportunities.

There are a lot of wonderful pieces on Lean In. Two of my favorites are from my good friends Selena Soo and Emily Bennington, author of the new book Who Says It’s a Man’s World, that I discussed a few weeks ago. NPR also has a great segment.

What I’m more interested in this week is unpicking what some of the backlash against the book tells us about our own blind spots regarding privilege and success…and how it plays right into what Sandberg is saying.

According to Sandberg, based on research in 2003 from Columbia Business School professor Frank Flynn and New York University professor Cameron Anderson, “success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.”

Whether one agrees or not with the study, which has repeatedly been erroneously attributed to Sandberg rather than Flynn and Anderson, Sandberg’s reception by too many thought leaders, cultural critiques, and Amazon readers certainly seems to support it. “This privileged author has nothing of value to say to women like me, who work out of necessity,” from Karen G. Brown, sums it up best.

Why are privilege and success, when acknowledged as they are by Sandberg – again and again – seen as a credibility disqualifier for women? I don’t recall anyone accusing Jack Welch of having no place in cultural conversations about business and leadership when he began his publishing career. There was no outcry from the self-improvement community when Tony Hsieh published his advice on how to be happy at work in Delivering Happiness and launched his own movement, much like Sandberg is doing, to bring his experience and work to the masses.

The fact that a smart, hard-working, trailblazing woman like Sandberg has the courage to admit she has moments when she questions her worth and still feels the burn of criticism shouldn’t make her elite. Or naive. It should make her all the more trustworthy. She’s not speaking as an expert, but as a woman doing the work she invites us all to do in order to more consistently “lean in.” And the proof that what she recommends works, well, that’s in the results she’s achieved for herself and most recently Google and Facebook.

Furthermore, her transparency should heighten the need to talk about the issues she addresses that, until this month, have often been relegated to niche women’s studies programs and documentaries/books/magazines or women’s happy hours and spa days. For if privilege has not protected Sandberg from the real and self-imposed professional obstacles she chronicles, than shoot, what does that mean for the rest of us?!

My hope is that when the sensationalism surrounding the launch of the book subsides, we can individually and collectively recalibrate. We can both look to Lean In as a practical guide for stepping into our power, however we define what power for us looks like, and honor privileged, successful people who dare to pull back the curtains from their seemingly obstacle-free pathways to success.

Just as importantly, may we choose to critically examine rather than criticize. Seek to challenge our biases rather than look for evidence to substantiate them. And use our communication to enable people to see their light rather than their darkness. Opportunities before obstacles, yeah?

Want to learn more about Lean In, how to reframe negotiations as creative and confidence-building activities, and why men benefit from women in senior leadership positions? Watch my recent interview on NBC’s Vegas Inc. below for my musings.

Alexia Vernon Discusses Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In on NBC

 

 

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There are No Do Overs…But There are Do Forwards

By Alexia Vernon | March 13th, 2013

Alexia Vernon, Mock SentencingIn the last 3 weeks I’ve had the opportunity to go to several prisons and a jail as a part of my participation with the extraordinary Leadership Las Vegas program, facilitated by the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce. As evidenced by the picture on the left, I’ve even had the opportunity to preside over a mock sentencing at our Regional Justice Center. (Notice how hard I have to work to look serious. As those of you who have seen or heard me in action know, I like to have a good time and harness my playful energy as much as possible.)

There is nothing as sobering as hearing people take responsibility for some pretty significant mistakes – like robbery. Manslaughter. Or murder. And I don’t mean take responsibility by merely acknowledging they did what they were convicted of. Rather, my soul is still stirred as I bring to mind a twenty-something man whose desire to “be cool” drove him at fifteen to commit home invasions, one which went terribly wrong and means he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. To hear a young man like that say that he takes responsibility for the shame that allowed him to betray the love of his parents, his love for himself, and his love for life – and that every day is both a reminder of the pain he caused and just as importantly an opportunity for him to try to earn back his place in the world by investing in developing himself and the men serving with him…makes me ache that time travel and “do overs” don’t exist.

We know that regret is one of the most useless of behaviors, and yet we ask it of so many. Whether it’s our men and women in prison who we encourage to stay stuck in their crimes by foreclosing jobs, housing, and so forth based on   convictions that tell us very little about who they are or how likely they are to reoffend. Or, we do it in our families and in our schools. We ask the young person aka “offender” to over-explain what went wrong – get him or her stuck in the story – drawing further attention to what not to do rather than working to identify and heal from the catalyst that caused the acting out in the first place.

And of course, we can also do it with the people in our organizations and the people that our companies seek to serve.

Why didn’t you get that report in on time?

How could you forget to follow-up with that prospect?

Why won’t you take a chance and try our [product or service]?

While there is utility in ensuring people understand what they did wrong – when wrongdoing legitimately occurred and we haven’t simply projected our own misstep onto someone else – what’s more important is for them to take responsibility for identifying what understanding, resources, and so forth they need moving forward in order not to repeat their lapse in performance. And rather than shame them into such an “aha,” we want to empower them to shine a light on their worthiness, the foundation for stepping into the mindset and behaviors that change is predicated on.

Here are 3 of my favorite ways to ensure that we are engaged in communication with ourselves and others to create cultures of “do forwards.”

1. Identify how your organization might be institutionalizing shame through its policies, feedback structure, etc., and bring stakeholders into the conversation to make necessary adjustments.

2. When you notice people “acting out” (i.e., hiding out, checking out, yelling, blaming, or defending) consider that internalized shame might be at the root. Keep your focus on helping the person practice self-forgiveness in order to activate higher performance.

3. When you find yourself replaying a mistake, stepping back from an opportunity, or avoiding a difficult conversation, identify how shame might be creating the unnecessary paralysis. Remind yourself of who you are at your core – underneath past events, relationships, or choices you have made.

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The Douchey Side of Making Impact

By Alexia Vernon | February 28th, 2013

embarrassed-womanI was embarrassed. I had shown up as a sponsor to a local screening of Jennifer Siebel’s documentary, Miss Representation, and as I re-watched one of my favorite documentaries on the impact of the media on girls and women I realized I was part of the problem.

Moments like this are uncomfortable. Especially when we realize that the area in which we are wrong is one in which we dedicate and pride ourselves on being right.

Let me back-up for a moment and give some context. My femininity has gone through a lot of stages. Although I was wearing make-up to school by the sixth grade, even though it was all-girls, by college I had chopped my hair off, stopped shaving my legs, wore clothes that clung to my body like a burlap sack, and was adamant that I would reject traditional notions of femininity and be a positive role model for the next generation of young women. Brains over beauty. Confidence over gender conformity.

Watching Miss Representation in my little black dress, 4-inch heels, and eyeliner, I was keenly aware that even if my work is about empowering people – frequently women – to step into their power as communicators, my performance of femininity has an impact on other women. And it may not always be good. While my days of androgynous dress are over, and there are times when designer dresses and BCBG pumps will continue to come out and play, I want to take better responsibility for how my clothing makes people feel. I want to be more intentional about posting Facebook messages that celebrate my wins without making other people feel insecure with who and where they are. And most importantly, without undermining my credibility or apologizing for my success, I want to convey that I make mistakes, am open to feedback, and am constantly seeking to develop myself – professionally and personally. Some of my most treasured moments have been when my mentors – hotel presidents down to millionaire entrepreneurs – have shared that they have days where they call in sick, get in bed, and pull-up the covers because even at the pinnacle of their success they still can be overcome with insecurity that they will be found out as frauds or lose everything they have created due to an oversight.

The more influence we have, the more responsibility we have to ensure that we are putting good information, products, services, etc. into the world. We know this. We also, though, have a responsibility to model how we are working on our imperfection in order to inspire other people to reach for their greatness – rather than use our success as a way to unconsciously shame and hold back others from taking the risks our success was predicated on..

I share this most recent “egg on my face moment” as an invitation for you to think about the unintended impact you may be having on others.

Does your presence make people feel good about themselves, or does it make them feel competitive? Less worthy? 

When people have the opportunity to collaborate on projects with you, does your collaboration style support the values you profess? Or might there be some misalignment between what you believe in and how you behave?

While standing in your power and your expertise, are you opening yourself up for feedback?

And one of the questions I see so many of my clients forget to ask – and answer - What are you communicating in between the words that you speak? It wasn’t until I started going on camera that I realized my neutral face looked equal parts sad and uninviting. While I could rationalize the reason, I listen intensely and when I’m thinking my face automatically contorts, I knew that if I wanted to invite people into conversation, communicate accessibility along with friendliness, it was going to be vital for me to learn how to be still and shift the expression on my face.

As you think about the impact you seek to make on others and potentially identify areas for behavioral change, be gentle with yourself and embrace the opportunity to model that which you want for the people in your company and community. And if you are somebody who is often treated as an expert or thought leader, I invite you to let go of the mask of “having it all figured out” in order to create a pathway for the people who follow you to better access their own knowing, creativity, and moxie to do great things.

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Emily Bennington and I Gab “Who Says It’s a Man’s World”

By Alexia Vernon | February 20th, 2013

“Ambition gap, schmambition gap, ” begins Emily Bennington in her new, must-read book, Who Says It’s a Man’s World. “Women aren’t 16 percent of board directors and corporate officers because the other 84 percent don’t want the job. Obviously, there’s something else going on.”

Emily has triggered a new and necessary conversation about how to best activate women’s career success-and it’s all about starting with a big shift in perception. Between her illuminating research, probing questions, ferocious wit, inspiring examples, and practical activities, Emily has ensured that women of all ages will have the know-how and a step-by-step pathway to become influencers, or as she says, ‘rock stars,’ at any stage of our careers.

Whether you are an ambitious woman looking to sustain playing at your edge of performance or the supervisor, brother, father, or husband of a woman who is, Emily’s book pulls strategically from best principles of self-improvement and career and leadership development to cut the bullsh*t out of an age old dilemma that has yet to be resolved. How do women navigate through the real and self-imposed barriers to integrating leadership with life satisfaction?

I had the chance to sit down with Emily, and in the video interview below, we gab about our friendship, the book, and the critical shift in defining success that empowers women to answer the aforementioned question. Click on the video, pick up a copy of Who Says It’s a Man’s World, and kindly tweet/share with women you know can benefit from Emily’s wisdom and wit.

Alexia Vernon and Emily Bennington

 

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