Power vs. Status in Business

84. Sevana and Tiffany explores the differences in how men and women approach power and status in business. There is a very fine balance between being competent and likable, how your power and status is impacted of cultural influences, and the necessity of self-awareness in navigating the business landscape.

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00:00 Understanding Power and Status

01:49 The Gender Dynamics of Power

06:16 Defining Power and Status

10:24 Historical Perspectives on Gender and Power

12:34 Men's Approach to Power and Status

15:21 Women's Unique Communication Styles21:36Building Influence Through Collaboration

23:16 Understanding Communication Styles Between Genders

25:40 Risk-Taking and Business Strategies: A Gender Perspective

29:15 The Role of Warmth and Competence in Business

31:06 Navigating Gender Dynamics in Professional Settings

34:52 The Evolution of Communication: Passive Aggressiveness and Mansplaining

40:29 Navigating Gender Dynamics in Conversations

43:12 Cultural Influences on Power and Status

45:55 Self-Awareness and Business Leadership

48:51 Hiring for Success: Balancing Personalities

52:30 The Importance of Accountability in Business

53:03 Resources for Business Growth and Learning

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Got questions or have a topic you want Sevana and Tiffany to cover? Email us at thebusinessbehindsmallbusiness@gmail.com and see your question answers or topic of interest discussed on a future episode!

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About BBSB - We are two business owners with two very different perspectives on building business, and the business behind that in order to achieve your goals. One of us built to sell, and will continue on the serial entrepreneur path, which means your focus and drive should include very particular tools and tips in order to achieve your goal. The other, is building a generational business, one that can go on long after she’s let go of the wheel. This type of business also requires very specific tools and platforms to achieve this goal. Both women have been successful in their own right, but in honesty - haven’t scratched the surface! 

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Disclaimer - Details of today’s story was inspired by true events but are not based on proven facts. Also, we are NOT licensed financial experts, nor do we give financial advice. Anything we share with you here on our podcast, whether it be a personal experience or submission, or advice/tips that have worked for us, or that we believe would work for you should not be viewed as either financial, business, or tax advice. We ask for you to do your research, have open and honest conversations with your company’s own support providers and make decisions based upon that. Throughout this broadcast we will share our knowledge and give suggestions and hope you will receive them as part of your overall research to better your own company.

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Reference/Resources Used In this Episode:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-paradigm/202406/on-the-power-and-roles-of-men-and-women

https://www.axios.com/2022/04/05/elon-musks-power-grab

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/11/dual-tracks-top-men-often-linked-power-women-status

Alternative Titles:

• Navigating Power and Status in Business
• The Gender Dynamics of Leadership
• Background and Culture in Business

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay. So power and status. What do they mean to you? Well, I guess that depends on whether you are a woman or a man listening to us. Hmm. Well, what do I mean by that? Uh men and women often approach the acquisition of power and status in differing ways. Men and women are highly, if not subconsciously, influenced by socialization, psychological differences, and societal expectations. While men may focus on assertive leadership and competition, women often leverage relational and collaborative strategies to attain influence and credibility. We are going to have an amazing discussion about these differences and examine how understanding them can contribute to more effective navigation of your business's landscape. And with that, welcome to our show, The Business Behind Small Business. In every episode, we dive into an area of what you need to build a lasting business, and we're gonna talk it out. Just gonna talk it out. We are your hosts, Savannah Stone and Tiffany K.O. No one gets to a million without getting a little dirty. There's a lot of business behind small business, so let's get to it. All right. So uh today we are going to talk about the differences between how men and women approach power and status, how they acquire it. And this was something that you, Tiffany, had wanted to talk about. And um, why don't we give our listeners a little insight as to why this was an important topic for us to discuss?

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah, so power and status, I think is two parts of two, I guess uh I won't even say parts, I suppose. So power and status are two things that I think every business owner has to be aware of for themselves and for the people that work with them and the people that work for them. And I was super inspired by a uh podcast interview I heard of Alison Frigail, who was basically talking about the difference between power and status. And then she broke it down between, you know, the difference of how each gender approaches power and status. And it just blew my mind. And oh my God, this is so exciting, Savannah. We have to talk about this. Because it neatly like put together everything that certainly we experience as women business owners and as business owners in general, that has this like powerful, like dynamic play in any relationship that you go forth and have in business. And, you know, when she talked about it, I was like, oh, this makes so much more sense now. Because I don't know about you, but I would say that the one thing I've always struggled with is this is gonna sound such easy, but being liked in business. Because, you know, as women, we have always grown up been, you know, taught that being liked, like ability is such a huge factor. But then like in business, you have to be, you know, you have to be serious, like you have to be strong-willed, you have to be able to know how to obtain and wield power in a sense, which will break down what power means. And when you do stuff like that, like I feel like, you know, you kind of lose the likability oftentimes. And not by, and I have to say, not by usually like so much men, but you lose a lot of likability with women. And it's like you can't win. Like somehow you can be really good at what you do, and then you're extremely unlikable for some reason. And I never could understand that. And so over the years, through like just trial and error, I think I figured out a way to kind of balance it so that I don't lose the likability while trying to get stuff done. But it's a tightrope. And when I listened to what Alison Frigail was saying, I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly like my 20 years of experience in business had been. And she, you know, neatly encapsulated all of that in one interview, in several interviews that she has, because this is kind of her her you know her theme.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

So did you struggle with being did you struggle with becoming more likable or you were already you felt you were already too passive and you needed to be less less likable? That didn't make any sense. One more time. Let's rewind that again. Did you did you struggle? Okay, let me let me explain why I'm saying what I'm saying. English is not my first language, let's just point that. Mine neither, so you know, you know. Give us a break. Just saying. Okay, so what I'm saying is is that I struggled with becoming more likable because my personality, believe it or not, my personality is very punch you in the face. And I I always struggled with becoming more likable. I have a tendency of speaking with no filter. It's genetic, what can I say? I'm very influenced. I was always very influenced by the personalities of my family members, and they always had no filter. They would just say whatever was on their mind, and that was kind of who I was. So I struggled with not saying what was on my mind to filter myself a little bit better, to become more likable so that people would want to work with me. That's what I'm saying. So I didn't have a problem with I didn't have a problem with being too nice. I had a problem with not being nice enough. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Okay, so before we go down that road, I think we should kind of explain first who Allison Frigail is. So sorry about throwing out the name out there or not explaining who she is.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So and also apologize. I also apologize if we are all over the place with this episode. We're just so jazzed about this topic, and we have a lot of opinions. So we want to make sure we get it all into one.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So she is uh a professor at the University of North Carolina in organizational behavior. And she came uh, well, most recently, I think she's kind of making her rounds on the podcast platform, which hey, if you want to come stop by, that'll be great too. That'd be great. But she's making rounds because she just wrote a book uh called like uh being a likable badass. Yes. And the whole idea is really understanding this power versus status dynamic within all of us that we have to balance very carefully in order to be successful in any any field. But of course, you know, I think it speaks even louder when you're in business. And so, rather quickly, the definition of power and status for the sake of this conversation is that power is more of controlling resources. So whether that resource is money, whether that resource is something kind of tangible that you can have that other people want, the more you have of that, the more power you have. And then to balance that is status, which is um a combination of your competence plus your likability, or warmth, I think she had said particularly. Okay, that makes more sense. Warmth is a better word than nice, right? So it's warmth. So it's warmth and competence, and that creates status. And status is both um objective and sub well, no, status is subjective. Power is objective and can be subjective because power can be your control over money per se, or your control over some kind of asset, something that somebody may want, but then it's subjective because nobody wants that thing that you really have no power, right? Right. There's no value that they place on that. And then status is completely subjective, which I think is why it is so hard to nail down. And hence this is why we're talking about this today, because I think if you've been in business even for a minute, you probably have felt this. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

As a man and as a woman. I mean, for men and for women. Gender neutral, I would say. Yep. Absolutely. And uh I, of course, uh took but when you mention this to me, you know, I'm a history buff, so my brain always goes deep into history. Like, hmm, how far back has this been like this? Have women or men evolved for the better or for the worse? Are we any different than we were a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago? And you know what? This may just be my educated opinion, what I summarized, but nope. Women have been acquiring their power and status in the same within the same ways as men have been acquiring power and status for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And okay, so first of all, do you agree with me? Because where I'm going with this is women who sought power before women had any rights to work, uh, wine and dine, the right people would marry their children uh very strategically, would uh, you know, buy the right kind of clothing, have the right kind of seamstresses, they would they would position themselves next to the person that could give them what they needed. Like I, as a woman, I'm not allowed to buy X, Y, and Z. But if I marry this guy, um, then this guy's gonna give me the things that I need so that when I have a kid, and then you know what I mean? Like that's how women were were that's how they they obtained power. Right. That's how they use power. Yeah. Right. However, it it's almost as though it became so programmed in us that we no longer have to do that, right? We can buy anything we want to, but we are still very strategic. And maybe this is controversial of what I'm saying, so you can edit this out if you if bells and whistles start going off. But I feel like women are still very strategic in how they obtain their power and their status. They still think very critically about what they're going to do different than men, because it's something that has been ingrained in us for so long. And that warmth that she spoke of, I think is a part of that. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

I think it is and that's the thing is to be clear. Okay, first of all, one, every business owner needs to know the balance between power and status. Otherwise, you will just not succeed in what you do. And you may stumble your way through and you get lucky, but if you really think about it, if you don't clearly understand the importance and the dynamics of these two items, power and status, then you will find yourself fumbling through a business.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So let's talk about some examples of how men approach or how men approach acquiring power and status. So research has shown that men tend to pursue power through assertive leadership, competition, risk taking. It's often, you know, needing to beat someone else. I mean, these are the kinds of, I think, verbiage or vernacular that tends to get utilized. They value what they often value uh direct communication, assertiveness, uh, independence. And sometimes this can get translated into uh aggressive strategies in business, you know, risk taker or um uh tree disruption. So men's approach to gaining power is oftentimes centered on overt displays of competence, authority, achievement, and the traditional, oftentimes traditional definitions of leadership. What say you? Would you say that that's sounds about right? So we're saying power and status. Power and status.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Power and status, because we're saying that there are two different objectives at this point. And so I would say yes, I would say that for men, they typically obtain the power through those type of approaches, which also elevates their status. And I think the one only is not advantage, but really different. And again, you know, it this is not to say anything is right or wrong. This is just a fact of life, right? So this is not men bad, women good type of uh the conversation at all. And I don't even go down that road. But it's just the fact that men and women are different.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

We are different people. There's a lot to be said for risk takers, and there's a lot to be said for those who measure first and then cut. So there's nothing wrong with any of the things that we're saying here. It's just that it's very interesting as to how most men approach what most how they approach it psychologically speaking, and um the and um you know, evolutionarily speaking. Is that a word? Evolutionary making up words.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Well, so I think what I like to say is the fact that some of this just this approach comes more natural to men. And again, I just don't want to get into the you know he versus she kind of debates because I feel like I hear that way too much about how, oh, women have some kind of advantage and dominance because they do this kind of stuff. And it's not as women we can't do it either. And in fact, if anything, I would say that maybe women try to do that a little too much. And I think it kind of hurts us as women because that is not our natural approach, and nor is it our advantage in business to come out of the gate that aggressive and basically act like a man in the boardroom. I just don't think it works. And why would you, I mean, I don't know about you, I don't want to be a guy. I like being a girl, totally clean being a girl.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

This is the way it is I am exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

And I will say from personal experience, I think when I was starting to learn how to be a business owner, you know, a lot of the books and references and things I was listening to are mostly uh were mostly provided by male speakers and male business owners because, you know, until recent, let's again, I'm not gonna debate why there's less women business owners right now, but there just are less, right? And although that number is changing and it's starting to flip the other way, uh give it a few years. But, you know, a lot of the role models per se that I could seek out there were mostly men. So what they were teaching is from their point of view, rightfully so. And so I feel like I absorbed a lot of that and kind of took that to with me to the business world and realized, you know, after so much trial and error that, yeah, it doesn't quite work for me. I gotta find my own flavor and my own way of doing things. And I want to say the difference is this is that if we adopt, if, you know, at least I found in my opinion, when I adopted kind of the male persona, which is the aggressive, direct talking, power fluxing, I suppose, approach. You know, again, we go back to the whole status. Yes, that may acquire me the power, the resources that I can control. But I feel like for our women, it tends to drop our status because maybe we're competent, but we absolutely lose that morph factor, which is also equally important, if not even more important, I feel like, for women to exist. And so that ends up hurting us more so than helping us in business. You know, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

I I don't know if I've mentioned this before, maybe I have, uh, but before I started my company, uh, I took two classes in um at my local community college. Um because I I knew how to talk. I worked in Detroit for many years. I lived in Michigan and I worked in uh I worked in Detroit for many years, and my clientele fit my personality because they liked my directness, my assertiveness, and I could be myself, no filter, right? I moved to Virginia and I'm like, oh my god, no one says anything that they mean here. Like it's so, so passive aggressive and so also like for example, if in Michigan you say whenever you get to it, then it's whenever I get to it. However, here, when someone says whenever you get to it, it means by the end of the day. So, you know, this is I feel like a difference in communication. There is definitely. So I felt like if I were going to be able to communicate with people, because communication's a huge thing for me. I am almost obsessive about linguistics. I took an intercommunication class and I took a public speaking class. Now, did I need help with public speaking? No, because I'm already really good at speaking in public, but I needed to learn how to speak in public less like myself and more like the kind of business person that a person here would hear me, here, or H-E-A-R would hear. I didn't feel like I had the right kind of personality at the time before I started my business, at the time that other people would find pleasing and would want to work with me. So those two classes helped me learn how to change my vernacular, change my tone, use use more uh descriptive words in how I articulated things and um how to approach people. And I recommend that to anyone who starts a business. Like go out, get your business license, like get your insurance, but also take an inner communication class, because it made a huge difference in how I communicated with men and with women. So that goes back to the whole me trying to find my warmth.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, and I think that's what it is, is ultimately is recognizing what you need to be more conscious of. Because all of us have things that we're naturally good at and things we're just not good at and requires a lot more attention and thoughtfulness to be able to be good at it. And in business, um, being well-rounded goes a really long way. And communication, like you said, is a huge, huge, you know, part of any type of business you're in, whether you're communicating with your employee or you're communicating with partners, you're communicating with investors, you know, you're communicating with your customers. Like this is all about communication. And you hit on a good point is the fact that men and women kind of have to recognize that they may need to adjust the way they communicate. Now, all for the, you know, go be yourself, you know, why should you be anybody but yourself, right? But again, we're in business. That's like saying, go go be in business, but don't, don't, don't think about money.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

One of the most interesting things that the professor in this intercommunication class said is that we have different versions of ourselves. And that different version of ourselves speaks differently to our parent, to a professor, to a person of authority, let's say, to a child, to our pets, um, to our best friend. We have all these different versions of ourselves. So, as to your point of go out and open a business, but always be yourself, be a version of yourself, be the professional version of yourself. And what does professional version of yourself mean when you're speaking to a man or when you're speaking to a woman? How do you well?

SPEAKER_02 19:01

I would even say a step farther, I mean, not e like I would say be a version of yourself that gets you to your business. Absolutely. All right. So maybe you don't have to be professional, honestly, it depends what industry you're in. Yeah. Uh it's just kind of like if you walk into certain offices, you know, you don't want to be the only one that's dressed in a three-piece suit or like in, you know, in like very much boardroom attire. If you're working in an industry where, you know, people are dressed in shorts and like you know, jeans. So I would say be the version of yourself that gets you to your end goal. And that being said, so interesting that you said that I know that I have a version of myself, how I speak to a room full of men and how I speak to a room full of women, completely different. And I learned that the hard way, that that is necessary. And so when they say, hey, read the room, like really, read the room, right? How I communicate with men is something I try to communicate in a way that they're familiar with. So to your point earlier about being straight to the point, about being clear, about being, you know, it's kind of somewhat blunt, right? They kind of appreciate that. They don't want to have a lot of fluffiness in their conversation. Now, I don't sit there and that does not mean that I sit there and cheers and agree with them when we talk about baseball and football because I don't know any of that shit. So, no, I'm not gonna pretend. So I'm not inauthentic to myself by any means, but I simply switch to a vernacular and a way of communicating that is familiar and gets my point across. And the same thing on the flip side to a room full of women, I'm a little bit less blunt. Like you, I tend to filter what goes through my head because I do know that how you say it is very important, especially in a group of women. And I want to make sure that I come across in the way that they would be open to and that they would accept so that I get my point across again to the end goal, right? And nothing right or wrong about how two groups of people react. But like I said, if you want to be successful in business, you just want to be adaptable and just be conscious of what you need to do to get to get to the goal at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Well, and there's science that backs that the research shows that women will adopt more um relational and collaborative strategies to gain power and influence. And uh research also shows that women so are socialized to prioritize relationships. This is where that whole evolutionary thing comes in. Yes, yes, prioritize. And this leads them to build influence through trust, collaboration, and effective communication. Again, I can't help but tie this back to how women achieved their power and their status hundreds of years ago has not really changed that much to how women approach power and status now.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Yes, I think for women, I think the warmth component of status. The warmth and competence is a much more weighted value. I don't know if there's any science behind that. This is just my personal opinion. But I do like for women, I think that's much more weighted than it is for competence. Now you have to be competent in what you do. Oh, yeah. But I think with men, men tend to respect the competence first, whereas I think with women, we tend to respect the warmth first. That's okay. So like even an easy way of uh distinguishing between the two is, and I do this consciously, is that when I speak to women, I use the word let more. Yeah. Let us together. Yeah, I do the whole like a lot of things. What do you think? Right? Like, what do you think? I always end all my emails with like a collaborative, like, this is what I this is what my opinion about this end thoughts. What are your thoughts? You know, to be inclusive, because I think for women that's important, that's effective communication that most women would actually gravitate towards. I will never do that in an email to a guy. I don't need to, to be quite honest. And that's okay. And I'm again just kind of knowing your audience reading it. I will not use the word let's in the email to a guy. I was like, we will be doing this.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Right? And they appreciate it. I also take out just oftentimes, like I'll reread and take all the just out of there, like just checking in or just wanted to let you know, or just whatever, or I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

So that the apologizing is pretty interesting, right? Yeah. I will apologize more in an email to women than I would apologize more in an email to men. Because I think as I do this too, because obviously I'm a woman, is I think we tend to fall on the side of taking things a little more personally, more easily, than men do. Men is very much, I feel like they see a lot of things. I mean, they also don't blame themselves for a lot of things, which I think sometimes is a superpower. But then it depends on what situation you're in. Yeah. May not go so well if you're in a marriage, you know. They tend to be a little bit easier to be objective. And so I don't feel like I need to apologize. And if anything, it's probably not good for you to apologize too much. Because then it makes them feel uncomfortable because they're kind of like, why are you apologizing? Right? It's not your fault. The problem is the problem. But let's just get to the solution. Whereas I feel like with women, I do tend to use I'm sorry, I apologize. And Alex for uh Alice actually brought up an interesting point is one way to demonstrate warmth as a female is to apologize. I mean, if that's your nature, that's fine. She's like, don't change who you are, but just be conscious about how how you're coming across and gaining that warmth like uh persona. And she's like, you can apologize if that's what you do, but apologize about something that is clearly out of your control. So you don't end up deducting a point from yourself on the competence factor by taking accountability and ownership of something that wasn't your fault, right? But you can apologize like for the weather, something that's clearly out of your control, right? Or something like that. And that will actually gain you kind of points for being warm, but at the same time not deduct a point from your competence scale.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah. So why don't we dive into a little bit about how men focus on competition and high-risk uh ventures a lot? They tend to uh be more risk-taking, and there's a whole lot of like high risk, high reward conversations. And this kind of approach tends to create uh a profitability and dynamic high growth industries, whereas women look more for profitability through steady growth, brand loyalty, and they they focus on relationship building and organizational culture, employee retention and customer satisfaction. Not that men don't focus on customer satisfaction as well, but when it comes to when it comes to a high um success rate or or you know, going height ladder, yeah, yeah, those are the two very different ways in which men and women approach that.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

You know, and I think a lot of it goes into I think by nature what we feel more comfortable with. And that in itself is a wonderful thing. So I feel like that lends itself to the colorful array of different businesses we have out there. Women and men clearly build different types of businesses and in different industry and great, you know, as we should. Um, but we do see women who that actually crosses over, right? Where they are much more high risk taker, they're much more um aggressive in their business strategy, and it works well for them. There's just not as many. And I think again, it kind of goes back to just what we're we naturally fall into. And who are they thinking of? Like I think uh the Hamazis, right? Leda Hamazi and Alex Hamazi has a great dynamic in exactly what we're talking about. Alex Hamazi, who, if you you know haven't heard of them, they they're both they're husband and wife, of course, and they're uh they're uh both owners of um acquisition.com. Their business is worth like a billion dollars. They literally take home eight figures per year. What am I doing? They're very open about what they take home, right? So clearly incredibly successful, and they started it together, which is why what makes their story so incredible. Um and they started the business from scratch together. Not to, you know, not to take the fun out of their story, definitely go listen to them and learn about them. Incredible story, but they play very interesting roles in their business, right? He is all about marketing and sales, and he's incredibly good at it. He is all about uh he's also like obviously a YouTube influencer. He has like millions upon millions of followers, and he's good at that stuff. And if you listen to Leela Hamazi, her focus in the business is more of what you were seeing. Uh customer happiness, employee retention, um, organization, infrastructure, logistics, like those kind of parts of the business. And I love how the two of them work so well together. And I feel like most of the businesses I've seen, at least ones that get to a certain point, have those kind of personalities in the business to focus on two areas where I think naturally most business owners, you can't be good in both. Like you're usually accelerate in one really, really well. Yeah. And you can't quite accelerate in the other one because it's just not your wheelhouse, right? And it's also not what you enjoy doing. Like, for example, people who are salespeople, which a lot of owners are, when you get into small business, typically you love the sales, you love getting to customers and things like that. What you don't like doing is talking about employee handbooks and accounting and looking at your financial reports or how your accountant's closing the books, right? Those kind of details is something that you typically just don't gravitate towards if you have this type of personality. Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

In past episodes, we have always tried to tie a famous example or a famous person that you can envision, especially if through our um ramblings, we still don't make any sense to you. I want to be able to utilize some famous persons that we have gleaned this kind of behavior from so that you know you can also take this for what it's worth. Now, some of the ones that I have I had in mind were so like Martha Stewart, Madonna, and Oprah were two people were three people that I think are very interesting business people, so different, right? Like Martha Stewart and Madonna, like how can you even put the two of them in the same book? Well, what's interesting about them to me is that uh Martha Stewart built her entire brand and and did Oprah, their entire brand on relationships, trust, security, loyalty. I mean Oprah's a billionaire, um uh I'm sure Martha Stewart is as well, but they were known as being quite cold, cold to the touch outside of what the public public saw. Same goes for Madonna. Madonna intended to uh create her, she strategized by whomever it was that was up-and-coming star, up-and-coming producer, somebody who was just on the cusp of fame or had just reached a level of fame, she would oftentimes uh do a collaboration with them, do a a production with them, whatever it may be, so that that collaboration, I'm not only going to get my people, but I'm gonna get your people too. Very interesting. But Madonna was also seen as a bit of an ice queen. So interesting how these four these three women um achieved a high level of success by being perceived as not having giving people the warm and fuzzies. But I also find it interesting that no one says that about Warren Buffett. Like, who cares if he gave you the warm and fuzzies? Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, like that's not the takeaway. So it makes me wonder. There's a difference. It makes me wonder, I don't know, like, why? Why can women not seem to break out of that mold, I guess? Is it important for women to continue to stay on this path of likability? I don't know. Am I going in a controversial place that I shouldn't be going into?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

I mean, you can. I personally think, again, to me, I think it depends on what your end goal is. And whatever gets you there, it's what gets you there. And so, you know, nobody's saying be somebody other than yourself, but you know, I think again, what you're naturally good at. So, like women, as women, we're naturally good at being collaborators. We're naturally good at bringing people together. We lean into that, being nurturers, right? And I think sometimes women as women, we do it to ourselves, like we shut out that side of ourselves because we go and we see all these role models and we see how men do it. And because men do it in a certain way, we try to emulate that when that is not us. We are not men. And I think that gives us a disadvantage. Now, we can talk about famous examples of women who create a great balance, right? For example, I think one of my famous examples was go to Cody Sanchez. She's uh you put influencers now, um, you can see her on all the channels, and she plays a very good line between a woman who is very competent, a woman who could you could be deemed as somebody who is in an aggressive business. She does a lot of MA buy and sell. But when you hear her speak and talk, you can't say that she's not warm. She is quite warm, but incredibly competent, which, you know, with her uh reputation on social media, has gained her quite a bit of status. And with that, all the assets that she has accumulated, of course, she has power. And, you know, she's done quite well in both realms while still still staying true to I think what her authentic self is. And so I think it is doable. I just think that we emulate the wrong uh personalities, thinking that that is the only way to do it. And I think as we get more and more women in business and more and more women successful in business, we'll get more role models, right? For example, another great one, which I always use as an example is Sarah Blakely. She is the opposite of Cole. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I mean, if you want to find, I mean, I I think she'll probably find this as a compliment, but you couldn't find a bigger girly girl that's in business. And she talks about all the time about how she like leans into intuition. She also isn't very competitive. I think one time she sat in like one of her peer-to-peer meetings, and all the guys, somebody advised her that business is like war. And she's like, I don't, I don't want to go to war. Why does anybody want to go to war? Right. Yeah. You know, and one time when she was asked in the beginning how she got on Oprah, she's like, I asked universe, right? So it's like, you know, she is like the ultimate girly girl who is a b self-made billionaire, and she didn't do it by being so cold. And she is certainly competent and she is warm and her success speaks for itself. So I think we're gonna get more and more of these type of role models. And I hope that as women, we start looking more and like again, role modeling and emulating ourselves with these type of figures, versus I think in the past 10 to 20 years, mostly we had men to like, you know, learn business from. And I think that's why it gets a little confusing. How can you be successful in business and still be yourself and be a woman?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah. So uh and to that point, I do feel like we have less of this approach that I'm about to say that you and I were talking about earlier. Uh I do not find a woman being passive aggressive with a man uh to be um which happens often or well used to happen often, I don't see it as much anymore. Or for a man to be what I think the equivalent of passive aggressiveness for a man is is mansplaining. I don't see as much mansplaining as well today as I did maybe even a few years ago. I find that men and women, or maybe it's just me, maybe it's just me, because you're right, you and I work in a mostly male-dominated uh arena. It could be a field, it could be that other industries are experiencing this tenfold. But I feel like when I have a conversation with a man these days, and uh let's say I don't fully understand what they're saying, they don't land slain as much to me anymore. Now it's more like, well, here, why don't you research this thing and uh let me know what your thoughts are after you take a look at it? You know, that kind of thing. Women as well, the opposite. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Yeah, I guess so. I you know what? I don't know if I've noticed like a a drop. I feel like passive aggressiveness has always been just a personality trait. I've definitely seen men passive aggressive, and I think mansplaining is a form of passive aggression. Yeah. I do see women being passive aggressive still as well. And I think it's more of I think it's just a personality trait, um, probably you know, puffered up by just a large ego or a fragile eagle, to be quite honest, at the end of the day. But it is kind of interesting how you do get the um how like that's two sides of the same thing, like mansplaining versus just being like passive aggressive in the way you you communicate.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah. Yeah, like I said, I mean maybe you do less of that in business. Yeah, like I said, maybe it's a maybe it's a me thing, maybe I'm not seeing it as often. However, for those who do see it, oftentimes a person will go to that passive aggressive place. I feel like sometimes it's um uh generational, but also people will use that kind of communication to get what they want, but it doesn't always work.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

So wonder if sometimes like you know, that behavior comes across. Because like I can tell, like as a woman, you like you know that you need to get something done, but you can't lose being likable. So you end up in this weird space that becomes passive aggressive, yeah.

unknown 37:18

Right?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Because you're just kind of caught up because you're like, you don't know a better way of approaching it and just comes through as passive aggressiveness. And I think maybe women find themselves in that position. I'm sure I I'm pretty sure I've done it a couple of times before, before you know, while I'm still trying to figure out my my legs in the business world. I think the whole thing of why people get mad, I mean, I guess to go off on a quick dangent, I think the reason why people get mad about the mainspraining is because and the passive aggressiveness is because there's an underlying message, there's an unspoken message that is very clear, which is you're an idiot. Pretty much. Pretty much you're trying to say the other person's an idiot, right? And then of course you don't want to say it because you don't want to be seen as mean, but really that's what you're saying, right? Somebody's trying to tell you that. It doesn't exist. No, it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't get you to where you want to be. And if you really mean it that way and you know you're intentionally doing it, then you're just an asshole. So but I will tell you one thing that I still feel like I do find a hard time struggling with the balance between being warm and competent is when we're in meetings, I I do not interrupt people. And when you're in a room full uh, I'm gonna say this, in a room full of men, right? Women too, actually. I think I see myself doing this in women too. And part of that I feel like might be cultural on my side is I find myself very uncomfortable interrupting when somebody's talking. Like I don't, I mean, I guess I could get feisty and interject, but I don't like to like force myself into the conversation. And I do find myself sometimes like, I don't know, like let's like, you know, you feel like somebody's all everybody's standing in a circle and you're back there, like poking your head up and down, trying to get into the middle to see what everybody's talking about, right? Like I feel like that kid quite a bit, and I still feel like that kid now in certain situations where I'm just kind of like, man, I can't get a word in edgewise. I don't even know how to get a word in edgewise. And I think that's a combination of my upbringing as well as just culturally things, but I just thought that was kind of interesting that I do feel like if I interrupt, especially if it's like a bunch of like men talking, though, I do feel like it knocks me down a little bit in terms of warmth because I'm being abrasive, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I do you think in a sense And do you think that that is the way you're perceiving it, or that there's the actuality of it, right? Because I don't I've had a conversation about this. I've had a conversation about how the 13-year-old never dies in in you. Like you're always in that awkward 13-year-old stage where am I in with the in-group? Am I popular enough? Am I skinny enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I this, that enough? Enough, enough, enough, enough. Right? Like, I don't feel like that insecure 12, 13-year-old child ever really leaves the woman. And every now and then I feel like that person, like Taylor Swift said, Sometimes I feel like uh, what did she say? Sometimes I feel like I'm a baby or something like that. Like, you know, no idea. I don't listen to her, so I don't know. She says something that is so, so true and honest about like everyone else is like, you know, this sexy, cutesy wootsy person, and then here I am stomping in, like, hello everybody. And that person never seems to die. Also, that insecure person inside of you that is in a room, let's say a room full of men, or maybe even a circle of men, where you're like, excuse me, may I may I please I think yeah, I think it depends on the circumstance.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

I do think that I find it um a little bit tougher. So I think within a room full of men, I I tend to get over that. I'm just I guess admitting that there's a hesitancy before I do it. But then with the room full of women, I feel like it's even harder for me to kind of juggle how to do that and still hold on to the warmth without just being disruptive to the conversation. You know, women can get into some heated conversations too, right? I know they say that, oh, when women talk when men talk, like they just keep going on, and it's hard to get in a get in, like uh you know, get into the conversation because they're going so fast. But women do the same dark thing. If not, you obviously have not sat in a group full of like passionate women, but they do the exact same thing. And I find it so much harder to interject myself in a group full of women like that than I do with men. Because with men, it's actually kind of easy. I just interject myself with a smile on my face, look very nice, and we're all good. And then, you know, they'll kind of pipe down and listen, right? Because they they are respectful, they're just kind of in the moment, they're not trying to push you out. It's just, you know, everybody's kind of running at a certain speed and you're still like, hey, hey, wait for me.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

You know, then maybe it's maybe it's me that feels this. Okay, so that 13-year-old in me or that 12-year-old awkward person inside of me, she doesn't last very long, but she does show up every now and then. It's there. It's there.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Yeah. Yeah. I think you do carry it with you. And that's why I said I think some of it is also like upbringing, because in our culture is, you know, you don't you don't interrupt your elders. That's disrespectful. And I mean, honestly, Bella, you too. We started in business so young. For the most part, everybody's our elder. Like, I hate to say it. And one of these days it will turn back around and I will be the elder. I get it, I know it. But where we are right now is everybody is most everybody's my elder. And so I think I still I I'm just admitting to that moment hesitancy I have sometimes to get into the arena where I don't know. I don't know if anybody else has that. If you do, please drop us a comment. So I don't feel so like the lonely wolf out here.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

But I do think, I do think that that's you know, that's a future conversation. And of course, if you want to hear about that, if that is an episode that you would want us to talk about, I will definitely, we will definitely talk about it. But it is interesting when you take culture or race into consideration, when you take uh you know, add that to the psychology of how people do business or age generations, uh how generation X uh we do exist between boomer and millennial or like Gen Z, like I see I see reels about that all the time, like how it is like doing business as a as an X with a Z, and it's like they speak two totally different languages. So how do you do business with somebody like that? Um, those I think are so fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

But I think it plays a lot into so I think I think at the end of this conversation, I think we want every like we realize that uh power and status is a real thing in business, uh, regardless of your gender. Gender, your race, whatever, status, you know, culture, case. But I think that how we obtain power and status is strongly influenced by how, you know, how we're raised, our culture, you know, our gender race. And so we can't, I guess we can't address the issue without actually addressing the the uh the culture part or the race part of things like that. But of course, that is a huge bigger conversation than we have time for in one episode. But of course, if you if you find if you know, as a listener, you find that this is an interesting topic to discuss, like drop us a note, let us know. We are more than happy to continue diving into I don't know what the cultural impact of what's your call your cultural impact of you as a business, what the c what your culture has an impact as on you as a business owner. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, I try not to speak anymore. We're done. Yeah. And let's rewind. No, but I get what you're saying. The impact, the impact of your culture on you as a business owner. Yay! That work.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Whoa. Why was that so hard to say? It's true. I mean, these are bigger conversations that we can have in the future, but you know, it's not just about being a man or a woman. It's what kind of a man or a woman are you? What's your background? Where are you coming from? How old are you? Your age oftentimes has a lot to do with it as well. I would imagine generations. I would imagine somebody who's younger is gonna take bigger risks than someone who's older, more established. You know, you lose some of that chutzpah. Rightfully so, right? Like I it and it's it's just all so very fascinating. And you're right, culture sometimes has has something to do with that as well, whether or not we recognize it. You know, sometimes we recognize it and sometimes we don't. But this has everything to do, it always boils down to inner communication, which I always will bring it into the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

But well, I think that's why I always I also love the topic of business and entrepreneurship because it brings all this stuff to light. And again, at the end of the day, what we're trying to try to bring to light ourselves is what's factual in business, right? There are elements in business that cannot be ignored, but how you approach it, how you obtain it, how you do business very much is affected by who you are as a business owner. And I always say there is nothing that holds a mirror to yourself more so than when you are the freaking owner of a business. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yep. So in saying that, uh why don't we use, you know, wind down a little and talk about how we could connect this for our small business owners in their real life strategies. You know, so who are they or what kind of strategies should they be having? Um, in what ways can we empower your leadership skills or your set?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Well, I mean, it all goes back to again, I don't, I'm not one to I feel like I'm more of the, you know, share your experience type than tell you what to do type, which is funny because we're on a podcast. But then again, hopefully we never come across that way. I mean, I don't mean to ever come across that way. I think it's sometimes it's out of like, you know, willingness to be able to have somebody like understand the message that we have. But I would say that, you know, it start all starts with self-awareness. Like, who are you and where do you feel like you stand when it comes to power and status? Power and control resources versus status, which is competence and warmth. Like, where do you feel like you lie? And what can you do to kind of equal up, like level up each of those areas? Um, no, you know, and still staying true to yourself. I think that as a business owner, however, we are always going to be saddled with the ultimate responsibility to be the person with both power and status in order to have influence over not just those who work in our company, but also influence over every person that we touch and that could affect our business. And so, more introspectively, I feel like for as an owner to really understand like where do you lie with these items? Because for you to be continual success, for you to have continuous success in your business, you yourself need to have both power and status. That's just an undeniable truth. Because if you have power, you don't have status, first of all, nobody gives a crap what you're doing. And they probably don't like you. They probably just really don't like you, right? And so if you find yourself in that situation where you feel like, you know, customers are turned off by you and you're like, man, I have this amazing like product and like, you know, ability to deliver these, you know, these services at this like crazy, like great rate, and all you know, like you have all this stuff, like you know, all this control over assets, but yet nobody seems to like you and doesn't want to buy from you. Well, you got a lot of work to do that, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

You know, like I this is a conversation I've had with my my college um age son when we've talked about owning a business, and he has said that owning a business is not outside of the realm of possibility for him. His problem is is he doesn't like talking to people. He's a terrible salesperson, he doesn't like that part of it. And I said, Well, that's why he would hire a salesperson, you know. And it didn't occur to him prior to that that that's what you would do because I didn't do that. But that's also because I did sales before I started my uh company. So I I kind of think I like, you know, I'm I'm good at that. So that's the other thing is that maybe, maybe it's not so much that you're not likable. It could also be that you're very shy, or that you just prefer to do the business itself and just don't want to get involved in these other things. That's fine too. But that like like we both said, we're just we're I'm just repeating myself, but yeah, it's very important to hire a person who is going to strengthen your weaknesses based on your personality and your approach to success.

SPEAKER_02 50:01

Yeah, so I think I'm always of the belief, and I will die on the sword, is I think as a business owner, you need to know enough about everything to be dangerous. Now, you cannot skirt your responsibilities, and I feel like this is again me being blunt. So let's be clear, I'm gonna be blunt, and that's why I'm doing it with a smile on my face. I think that if you go into business, and let's say that is the case, there are a lot of people who go into business that are extremely shy and they either don't like sales or they don't like hiring people. But yet their goal is they want to build like a multi-million dollar company, right? So, unless you're a freaking genius and you create a product, let's say you're, you know, to get there, typically you have to hire people. That is just what you need to do, okay? And so if you're that business owner who has that goal, then guess what? You know, be true with yourself and go learn how to be a little bit better with the status side of things, right? Be a learn how to be competent and warm until you get to the level in which you can hire somebody to replace doing that every single day. But you gotta be aware of what you're good at and what you're not good at, and just know that I feel like as a business owner, if you're not good at something, you need to level that up. And yes, you may not enjoy doing it for a long period of time, and you probably shouldn't, but you need to be at least good enough to do it for a short period of time. So, because I feel like when I started a business, I was terrible at sales and marketing, like absolutely terrible. I was a good accountant, which only gets you so far, right? But outside of that, I didn't know anything else. And then I was a terrible manager when I hired people. Now, did I know I was a terrible manager? No, I did not. Did my employees tell me that? In some shape or form, they taught me a lot. But, you know, it's through those experiences that I've learned to kind of adjust and like we were saying, learning how to communicate properly in a way to knowing your audience and doing that. Now, do I enjoy doing that? No, it's freaking exhausting as hell. But my business got to where I needed to be, and then eventually I hired somebody else to go do that.

unknown 51:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

So I think that, yes, I just think that ultimately, you know, you gotta take accountability for who you are as a business owner. I think one day you get the luxury of hiring that out and you know, getting people unless you have a partner. Now that's a whole different ballgame. If you're lucky enough to have a good business partner who can compliment you like that, you get the jackpot. Absolutely. Absolutely. But for most people, you know, there's also a lot of tricky grounds in having a partner, so it may not be worth it.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Well, and then that that could start a whole other conversation about uh about husbands and wives working together that both have the same personality. So that takes us to a whole other place. But don't take our word for it. Where's the saying that goes? Put your money where your mouth is. And we're gonna drill down a bit further here to reconnect what we've discussed at a granular level to tangible sources you can take to get you to that next level. So I strongly advise you to watch the documentary about Martha Stewart on Netflix. It's called, I mean, if you subscribe, it's called Martha. It's told in her own words, and it's a great peek into what she went through to find the success she found, lost, and then found again. We're also going to share a few links to articles uh that further this discussion to get a better sense of how men and women climb that ladder of success. I also used these links to create our uh show. So uh hopefully you'll find some really great things in there. What about you, Tiffany?

SPEAKER_02 53:32

So I recommend certainly all those uh people we mention and just kind of watching their podcasts. Nothing like observing others do what they do best at and seeing what you can apply to your own life. So certainly Cody Sanchez, I think you can YouTube her and get a bunch of uh bunch of videos. Um I don't think Sarah Blakely has her own show, but she's definitely on a lot of podcasts and interviews and things like that. So you can certainly watch her as well. And uh of course, Alex and Leila Hammazi, if you don't already know who they are, yeah. Again, another quick search on YouTube will get you there. And you know, I can't believe I'm saying this being the fact that she's not even on our show and we're promoting our book for her. This is a good idea for us who of course, you know, sparked a lot of this conversation and kind of inspired today's episode. Her book, you know, Likable Badass. Uh it's definitely worth a read. If not, I would say definitely look up some of her interviews, very well spoken, and they have a lot of good things to say about power and status. I can probably take this conversation on more. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Likeable badass, how women get the success they deserve. And one of the links that we're going to include is a wonderful interview between her and Annie Duke, where Annie Duke is interviewing her about the book and about this very this subject that we have spoken about before. In the meantime, please hit the like button and the follow button and all of the other buttons and tell all of your friends about us. Our show is on all of your preferred podcast platforms, social media, and YouTube. We would love for you to also share our episodes. All of our links are posted below. And I should add, if there is a show that you would like for us to do, if you have any questions for us, please leave us a comment or email us at the businessbehind small business at gmail.com. We want to hear from you and we want to make this a conversation as well. Until next time, mind the business behind your business because all great successes start small. Bye bye.