.png)
VEST Her Podcast
The VEST Her Podcast explores the real, often unspoken challenges women face at work, in society, and on the path to building wealth.
Through candid conversations with women navigating career pivots, entrepreneurship, leadership, and family life, we unpack the pressure to do it all, the self-doubt, and the systems not built with us in mind.
This podcast is for women ready to move beyond outdated advice and create success on their own terms. If you’re looking to grow, speak up, and be part of a supportive, change-making community, welcome.
Let’s question the rules, share what’s real, and build a better future together.
VEST Her Podcast
Likeable Badass: Rethinking Power and Status
What if you didn’t have to choose between being respected and being liked? In this episode of the VEST Her Podcast, we’re joined by Alison Fragale, organizational psychologist, UNC professor, and author of Likeable Badass, to break down the real difference between power and status, and how women can build both without burning out or selling out.
Moderated by VEST Member Autumn Knutson, CEO of Styled Wealth, the conversation goes deep into the practical side of leadership for women: how to be warm and in charge, how to negotiate effectively, and how to turn discomfort into growth.
“Power is control over valued resources. Status is the regard others choose to give you. If you don’t know the difference, you might be playing the wrong game.”
— Alison Fragale, Organizational Psychologist & Author of Likeable Badass
For guests full bios and show notes and key takeaways click here.
Note: In this episode, we mispronounced Knutson, Autumn's last name. The correct pronunciation includes the “K”, it’s K-nutson, not Nutson. We regret the error and appreciate your understanding.
If you enjoy the episode share it with a friend, leave us a review and don't forget to hit the subscribe button.
If you are ready to take your career and business to the next level, apply to join our community of professional women, all eager to help you get there and stay there. Learn more at www.VESTHer.co
Hey everyone, this is Erica Lucas. Welcome back to the Vastar Podcasts, where we go beyond surface level advice and get to the core of what it really takes to lead and grow with integrity. In this episode, we unpack the difference between status and power and what it actually looks like to lead with both authority and likability. If you enjoy the episode, share with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review.
SPEAKER_03:All of us have lots of status in lots of domains, even if it's not with everybody and everybody we want. We have a lot of status. But we also have to use it because it's a resource. So what are we going to use it for? And that's where we see that particularly for women, because getting others' respect is often so hard fought, once we have it, then we don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to do anything that might cause you to maybe think less of me. So I'm going to do nothing. And so that often leaves us sitting on the sidelines, kind of waiting to act, should I, shouldn't I? Do I stand up for this? Do I, you know, do I take a principled position, etc. Um, and I try to help people think about both. Like you really do need to invest like a bank account. Like it's not good financial management to just start spending like crazy. And if you do that with your status, no one wants to interact with you. At the same time, you don't want to make the other mistake, which is I've invested heavily. I do, a lot of people do respect me, and I'm not using it for anything because it is a tool to live your best life.
SPEAKER_00:In this episode, we're joined by Alison Frigill, organizational psychologist, UNC professor, and author of Likable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. Her work on status, power, and influence has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and top academic journals. Guiding the discussion is Adam Nuts, a vest member and CEO of Style Wealth. For our guests' full bios and show notes, go to www.vesther.co forward slash podcast. And if you're ready to take your career to the next level, apply to join our community of women eager to help you get there and stay there. Go to www.vesther.co to learn more.
SPEAKER_01:So we're going to start on some questions on likability, power, and leadership, Allison. The first question we have for you is how you write about tension, the tension women face about being likable and being powerful. What are the most common myths about this dynamic and when do we start to dismantle them?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so the big myth is that it's one or the other. So in people's brains, we think about I can either be really assertive and in charge and in control, or I can be really nice and really liked. But well, if we look at the science, we see from truly decades of work that those are two independent dimensions, like an x-axis and a y-axis, where you can be anywhere on one and anywhere on the other at the same time, including both of them, or you could be neither. So when we start to, when we think that it's either or, what we see from the research is people start to act like it's either or. So um, in some studies, we find that if you give people a task of being liked and being really warm and friendly, what they instinctively do is they'll start to be less assertive, they'll play down their competence when they don't have to do that to be liked. But their thought is if I'm less of one thing, then I'm automatically going to be more of the other. And the reverse, where you tell people your job is to go in and be like very um competent and credible, they'll instinctively get less nice, which is often why in interviews, something like that, people tighten up and they don't feel like they have their full personality because they're so focused on I need to show them know what I'm doing. And their instinct to that is to pull back on the friendliness and the warmth when they when they don't necessarily have to. And so I always say, like, being less competent doesn't make you more warm, it just makes you less competent. And being less nice doesn't make you smarter, it just makes you less nice. So the thing I talk about in the book is really about those two dimensions. If the sorry, I'm gonna put it in the camera, X and Y. And then um, how can you um authentically and easily kind of shift what you're already doing to say, hmm, how can I show up as more of both at the same time and not make a false choice?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's really powerful. Uh, I know that speaks a lot to me, that those are not mutually exclusive. Thank you for dismantling that for us. On that topic, um, how do you define power and what shifts when women start to see power as something they already possess rather than something they have to earn? Sure.
SPEAKER_03:So uh the two fundamental concepts in the book are power, but also status. So talk about both of them. Um, power is so the way psychologists talk about power is power is controlling resources that have value. So if we talk about someone being a powerful person, it's because they're in possession of things that other people want. And that's what gives them the power and the potential influence. So, what are sources of power? Money is a very common source of power, whether it's the budget that you control at work or your personal wealth. Like if people have money, they can then choose to do with it as they wish. And everyone wants money. So people will often be influenced by that person. Um uh anything else that people value. So obviously, if you can hire and fire people at work, and if you can give people good performance reviews or bad ones, not when they say knowledge is power, right? That that's a cliche, but it's actually true. So if you know things that other people don't know, that's a resource that people might want. If that knowledge is valuable to them, and so there'd be influence. Anything could be a resource. Uh, the just as we were coming online, my 16-year-old is a junior, he's just home finishing finals, and um he drives now. And so I say, when I hold the car keys, I am now in possession of a resource that he finds valuable. And so it gives me a source of influence. So that's what power is. Now, um, sometimes we get those resources because of the positions we hold. So at work, that happens a lot, where I have a title, and that title comes with it some resources that I get to be in charge of. But we also have what we call personal sources of power that are really inherent in us as human beings. So that could be something like your knowledge or expertise that you carry with you and can't be replaced by the next person who takes the position. So the key to thinking about leveraging the power you already have is thinking about what resources you have that other people value and how do you lean into those and and um not under undermining or underplaying them. Because if we don't recognize those sources of value, we often see people who have a lot of power and they act like they're powerless. Why? Because they don't recognize the value of the resources that they hold. So I would encourage everybody to have that mindset to think about what power do I already possess? Then there's the status piece, which is really what I focused on in the book that I wrote, to bring more attention to that. Power does get talked about a lot. It's a variable we spend a lot of time talking about. Even if people can't define it the way a psychologist would, they get it, right? They see it. The other one is status, and status is how much you're respected and regarded by other people. So if we talk about a person being a high status person, what we're saying is people in some world like think highly of them, highly regard them. And this is also a really important variable for our life happiness and our career success, just like power. Um, but it's different. So if I go back to the car keys, like I can hold the car keys whether my son wants me to or not. It's like it's mine. Like you have no real choice in the matter. Status is other people's judgments of how much they respect and regard you. So that's not something I can hold in opposition. It's something someone can grant me, but they have to do it willingly. And what that means is how we show up to our audiences and how they then respond to us affects that really important critical variable of status. So uh it is less talked about, but it's it's I wouldn't say it's more important, but it is foundational. I always say resources follow respect, meaning if you're trying to be in charge of stuff, be in control, have power, a lot of times it is the case that other people have to agree to that. They have to say, you get to be in charge, right? I will vote for you, I will promote you, I will listen to you, any of these things. Um, but they're generally very unwilling to do that if they don't respect you in the first place. So I'm trying to bring status into our attention so that we can understand skillfully how to navigate both of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. That dovetails really well into the next question we have for you too, Allison, in terms of how women how we perceive ourselves. So you studied about status and influence a lot in organizations. What's one thing that women underestimate about their own influence at work? Could you speak to that a little bit?
SPEAKER_03:Uh one of the challenges we see um with women is um not recognizing that status is like a bank account, right? We need to make deposits and we also can make withdrawals. Like money is a resource. And so if the only thing you're doing with your money is hiding it under the mattress, it doesn't really have much point, right? It's a resource to do something with. Status is a resource to do something with. So being respected is important. Why is it important? Because it's a resource for being able to do the things we want to do and live the life we want to live, have good relationships, be able to make have influence, be able to make choices in those relationships. So it's a resource. And so we have to invest in it. And I think that's one mistake that I see people make. They underinvest and and and then they try to like kind of spend on credit, which is problematic. And men can do that too, but it's really problematic for women because women don't start off with the same baseline status that men do, because gender is a status characteristic. And so gender is one of the cues that we use to base how much we respect someone to begin with. So it's a gender status status is a form of bias. And so when we underinvest in our status, that mistake will cost us more than it will cost the identical man sitting next to us. What I mean by that is that the easiest time to get somebody to respect you is when you're new in that relationship. So they haven't really spent any time thinking about you at all. And you don't need anything from that person. Because then you're able to show up in a way that's very authentic and joyful and easy, and you're able to convince that person pretty quickly, hey, I'm a person of value, right? And you should, you know, respect me and and and and um you know hold me in high regard. And if you can do that all along, you're essentially making deposits in this bank of status that you might then need to draw on later. So that's one mistake is people don't make enough deposits. They what they do is they show up and they think, I'm a good person, I'm a kind person, and I'm a smart person, and I'm just gonna do my work. And everything will be well because what's wrong with me? I'm amazing. And you are amazing. But then what'll happen is invariably someone will not recognize your amazingness and you will get something that is resistance in your way. You you're trying to push through an idea and you get pushback, you're trying to get promoted, and people say they think you're not ready, whatever it is. You're gonna get some resistance that involves people saying, Hey, huh, that person doesn't see me and respect me as much as they need to and as much as as much as they should. Now, what am I gonna do about that? But by that point, the person has already in their brain settled on a way of thinking about you, and now you try to undo it, which you can, but it's a lot more work to undo it than it is to shape it in the first place. So that's one. And then the second mistake, I think, is on the other side, which is then when we do have the respect of our audience, which we have all of us have lots of status in lots of domains, even if it's not with everybody and everybody we want, we have a lot of status. But we also have to use it because it's a resource. So what are we gonna use it for? And that's where we see that particularly for women, because getting others' respect is often so hard fought, once we have it, then we don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to do anything that might cause you to maybe think less of me. So I'm gonna do nothing. And so that often leaves us sitting on the sidelines, kind of waiting to act, should I, shouldn't I? Do I stand up for this? Do I, you know, do I take a principled position, etc.? Um, and I try to help people think about both. Like you really do need to invest like a bank account. Like it's not good financial management to just start spending like crazy. And if you do that with your status, no one wants to interact with you. At the same time, you don't want to make the other mistake, which is I've invested heavily. I do a lot of people do respect me, and I'm not using it for anything because it is a tool to live your best life.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Quite the balance to be had there and diligence to be had. Thank you for sharing all that. We have a few questions for you on confidence, perfectionism, and mindset shifts. And so the first one that we wanted to talk with you about and hear your thoughts on was perfectionism. So, what are some subtle ways it shows up in professional women's lives, and how can we begin to release it without feeling like we're lowering our standards for ourselves or others?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um I've I heard this quote, and I should I should go look up where it's from because it would be good to be able to attribute it. That perfectionism is the lowest standard you could have. And when I heard that, I'm like, oh, it's kind of right. Like, you know, it's just I have to, my only standard is to do everything correctly. Um, but I get it very much. Uh one of the consequences of perfectionism is it does relate to imposter syndrome, which people talk a lot about. So um the and the idea about lowering standards is an important one because, yes, if you aspire to less, you will, in comparison, feel like you're more successful and that will feel good and less impostery. At the same time, you won't achieve as much. Because what do we know from psychology? We know more ambitious goals drive better performance. So when we see in all kinds of studies, when people set higher goals for themselves, they do better. Even if they don't get to that goal, the fact that they set it. So, like, let's say you've ever run a cut some kind of race. Like, I ran one marathon in my life, it was a terrible experience. I will never do it again. But you set a goal, like, I'm gonna run this time, you know, and you're training for that time. People who set the time, even if they don't hit it, will run faster than people who say, I'll just run as fast as I can. So the goal setting is really important for our success. So we don't want to lower our goals because we won't do as well. But then the perfectionism piece, it does create an imposter feeling. So if I'm here, whatever standard I have, and then this is the thing I'm aspiring to, whether that's the cleanliness of my house, where like the level of my career, like what kind of holiday I create, whatever it is. Like this is me and this is my standard. In that gap is where imposter syndrome sits, right? So, imposter syndrome, a lot of times people think about it as like who I am, this is this front, here is who I am. This is not good enough. But that's actually not where imposter syndrome comes from. It comes from wherever you are and wherever you want to be, and it sits in that gap, which is like I'm aiming for something that I haven't achieved, and therefore I don't feel very good. Now, this gap is only visible to us. No one else sees it. The only thing that anyone else on the outside can see is this, like where I am and what I'm doing. Um, and that that gap that never really closes because as your achievements and your success and your talents and everything increase, so do your goals. So obviously, like a person who can run a three-hour marathon is no longer interested in running a four-hour marathon. Like they're much better than that. Um, so your goals keep keep uh going up, but then the gap never closes and therefore the imposter syndrome never goes away. And so I talk about it like, yeah, lowering your standards will make you feel better, but at a cost that we generally don't want, which is not achieving as much in whatever it is. So I think the better one is to think of a reframing that uh I think most of us can do in the in the exercise or physical realm. And we want to try to do it in these other realms as well. So if you've ever exercised and woke up the next day and some part of your body was sore, you wake up and you're like, oh gosh. And then you realize, like, why is my shoulder hurt? And you're like, oh, because I was like lifting weights yesterday or whatever. And once you realize that, you don't panic. You're like, well, it doesn't feel good to be sore, but I know what it's from. And I actually know that means I did a good thing yesterday because I was clearly working out pretty hard if I made myself sore today. And that's the point. So yay me, you know, it'll go away eventually. Uh like take my ibuprofen and I won't really worry about it anymore. And you don't sit around saying things like, I'm never working out again. This is terrible, or like, I need to take myself to the emergency room. Like, I can't, what's happening to me? Like, other, you know, other people don't feel this way. Like, if I were really in good shape, I wouldn't be sore. No, you don't think any of those things. You're just like, this is how it goes. And that's really how I think about imposter syndrome. And that reframe can be really helpful, is when you have the feeling, the feeling can be uncomfortable. I don't like that. But really, what's bad about it is not the feeling, it's the whole narrative that comes after the feeling. Like, oh my God, all the really successful people, they don't feel like this. This must mean I'm not really successful, something's wrong with me. And you tell yourself this whole story that's based on this discomfort, initial discomfort. Whereas when we lift, we feel the discomfort and we tell ourselves a totally different story, one that's much more positive, which is that's how it goes. I did a good thing, it'll go away, it's fine, let's move on. And that's the story that I practice telling myself. And I encourage people to practice telling themselves when they have that uncomfortable psychological feeling of imposter syndrome. Like, that's how it goes. It's because you're reaching, you're always gonna be reaching, it's never gonna go away. It means you did a good thing. Like, let's move on. And so I think it's better spent than trying to make it never happen again than to reframe what it's telling you when it does happen.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, that was really powerful. Normalizing it and not minimizing it or eliminating it or ignoring it. Thank you for that reframing, Allison. We have uh a couple other questions on uh confidence and perfectionism. Um, one is the difference between confidence and competence and why women often wait until those are 100% in alignment to move forward. Can you just speak on that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. So your competence is gonna be your skill and knowledge and talent, and your confidence is gonna be your belief in those things. Now, they're correlated, not perfectly correlated. And one of the things that's frustrating to people is that um confidence is taken as a sign of competence. We can't real often see someone's competence. We can't, I cannot see what you know. I can only see what you show me. And I'm using signals of what you show me to infer what you must know. So, examples of things that often boost confidence. If I um people who talk quickly or can respond quickly, so if you ask me a question and I can give you an answer like that, particularly if it's like a fact-based question, people think, you didn't have to think about that. You must know what you're talking about. So all they're really responding to is the delay, the gap between how long it took you to stop speaking and how long it took me to start start speaking. And they're using that really small signal as an indicator of what's inside your brain. So, because competence cannot directly be observed, we have signals. Confidence is one of the signals. Even this is kind of maddening, overconfidence. So when people are confident to the point that they're wrong, they're more confident than their abilities like suggest they should be, they still get credit for being more confident. So we reward confidence a lot because it is seen as a sign of confidence. We're not trying to reward like empty confidence. It's just that our brains can't tell the difference. And so when someone does show up as really competent, they're seen as more capable. And so that can be really frustrating, particularly if you have a very confident but somewhat Like undercompetent colleague or person in your world, and you're like, they continue to get rewarded solely for their bluster and not because of their talents. That's why. So I can't make that go away because that's what brains, one of the things that brains are relying on, um, often non-consciously, and they will continue to do that despite us yelling at them and telling them not to do that. Um, and what that means for us is a variety of things. Like if confidence matters, well, then I don't always feel confident, but the more that I can actually feel confident, then the more I will convey confidence. And so doing things that build confidence, I think is important. Practiced builds confidence. So I encourage people in this book for all kinds of skills to practice them. Whatever it is that scares you, you will become more confident at it with more repetition. And finding low-risk repetition is one of the big things I talk about in this book and help people think about is how do you take where you are right now and like push yourself just a little bit beyond what you're comfortable doing in ways that will not hurt you if it fails. So that you do build that confidence in whatever, whether that's promoting yourself, whether it's negotiating, whether it's public speaking, it doesn't matter. Reps, those reps build confidence. Um, other things build confidence, like having mentors or cheerleaders in your network that do talk you up, like who can reframe for you. Like this is going a lot better than you think it is. You are showing up a lot better than you might be giving yourself credit for. So having those mentors to call in can be really helpful. Um, and then the other thing that can also be really helpful is mentoring. So um a lot of times, like, you know, I um I'm 50. I was talking to my son the other day, the same teenager who's here, took him to lunch, and I said something about being middle-aged, and he laughed. And he's like, like, really? Like to a hundred mom? Like, you're over middle age. Like, let's be clear. And I was like, okay, well, thanks for that. Um, but anyway, I was like, he's kind of right, right? So I was like, okay, point taken. But I think, like, oh my gosh, I've gotten through more than half my life, most likely. And I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. I'm like, well, if I don't feel like who's gonna feel like they know what they're doing, I'm running out of years to know what I'm doing. But mentoring, when you give, when you have to be in a position to give other people advice, it makes you realize when you have to articulate it and go through it, like, oh, wait, I know what I'm talking about. Even if the person, like my child, does not listen to me. It the act of verbalizing it and being in that advisory role does build confidence, we see, because it's putting people in the role of the teacher. So I always say to people, like, when you're feeling low, find another person that you can help, that you can advise, that you can guide. And it's one way to spend time not wallowing and doing something productive, but it's also something that in itself will build your confidence. So I think confidence is um a learned skill, just like everything else. And we do have to practice and we do have to um not put ourselves in harm's way, right? I think about this a lot, like like at like holiday time, people are always talking about like, I receive these like things across my feed, like how to survive the work holiday party and like I don't know, not like, you know, take down the whole buffet or something like that. Um, that what you learn in in adulting is how do I recognize situations that make me my best self and my worst self? And how do I not put myself in situations like going to a party starving and then being like, oh my gosh, like I just like ate my weight and like cheesecake at the party and I didn't really want to do that, and I don't feel good. You're like, okay, well, there's simple fixes for that, people. Like, you know, you can um think about how you want to show up. The same is true with confidence. If don't putting not putting ourselves in situations that destroy our confidence is part of what we have to learn how to navigate, and then actively putting ourselves in situations that build our confidence is something else that we can have control over. And when we do that, yes, this downstream benefit of feeling more confident, in addition to it feeling better inside, is that it will also help you get credit for the competence you have. Now, fortunately for us, we're not the undercompetent, like braggart people that we are trying to avoid. Um, and so for us, like confidence and competency go hand in hand. So I'm gonna be more confident, my competence is gonna get more credit. That's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. A lot of what you just shared, dev tails super well into the next question about mindset uh related to confidence being a learned skill. So you emphasize that a lot in your book, The Power of Mindset. What's one belief or narrative that you encourage women to challenge in order to show up more unapologetically?
SPEAKER_03:Um okay, I have a couple. I have a whole chapter on this. This is chapter three. One of them I talked about was imposter, but the other one I'm gonna talk about, I think it's something we hear a lot is I don't care what other people think about me. And there's a lot of things that go kind of hand in hand, like, and people try to figure out like what do they all mean? One is authenticity, like I'm gonna be my true self. The other is seeking validation, something we talk about in a negative sense that we should try to avoid for our own health and sanity and well-being. Um, and so sometimes those things end up being talked about as I don't care what other people think. Um, now, people can mean different things when they say that, but turning away from our audience and saying, I'm gonna do what I want without regard to consequence, is not generally gonna end well because we are social creatures. Um, we have a affiliation along with power and status, they are fundamental human needs, okay? They are things that make life worth living. So we like living our lives in in the company of other people that we enjoy. A life without any human contact is not a very good life at all. So that's something that we each want. And if you want it, people have to choose that they want to be in a relationship with you, whether that's at work, in your personal life. There's very few people in this world that you can force to interact with you if they do not want to. They get to choose, just like you get to choose. And who do people choose? They choose people that they like and respect. And so when we turn away from our audience and we don't understand what they want, we could end up showing up in ways where people don't want to deal with us. And that doesn't actually serve our goals. And so even though we don't want to chase validation of saying I'm only gonna see myself the way you see me, that's a little bit different than I'm going to invest in how you see me. Because you seeing me in a positive way, as I am, will be really good for me. You underestimating me isn't gonna give me the results I want, and I don't deserve that. And so um, I think that's a mindset shift that's really important is that you can strategically invest in how another human being sees you without chasing their validation. And then, like again, I'll go back to teenagers because I feel like this is like something I've talked about my son all the time. Um, my son was taking his finals, and one of his teachers is incredibly fast at grading the finals, like incredibly fast. And some of the other teachers are like glacially slow. And so he takes a final on Monday, and by Monday afternoon, he already has his final grade back. And he says, She is like the only teacher that um like turns these things around quickly. I don't understand why the other teachers can't do what she does. And I said, You know what you should do, Jordan, since you think that anyway, those are your words, not mine. You should write to her and just thank her. I said, Look, I take this from a person who's been a teacher for over 20 years. She's doing that like as a service to her students. And the thought that someone appreciates it and notices it and says, Hey, this meant a lot. Like it took a little bit of stress off me in finals week to know on the first day that I had already done well on a final and I could go in. And I said, So you're already thinking those things anyway. Why wouldn't you tell her? Because to tell her would be a kind gesture and the and the dimension of warmth that you care about other people is part of status. It's warmth and it's competence. And so I was trying to explain this to him that that writing that kind note is not seeking validation from her, but it's being strategic and intentional in a relationship. I have a positive thought about you. If I tell you that, guess what? You'll probably like me more, and that'll be good for us and our relationship. And so those are the kinds of differences that I help people try to understand, including my kids, um, which is you can still be very authentic. This was his authentic positive thought, right? And you can also be very strategic and intentional about how to take, you know, your authentic self and get maximum credit for it. And that's what teenagers do particularly badly, but some adults don't do that as well as they should either. And that's the real distinction of that mindset is you don't have to like, he shouldn't like base his whole self-worth on what his Latin teacher thinks of him, but he should be intentional in that relationship to make sure she thinks of him as positively as she should by doing small things like that.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. You're bringing into light a lot of the things that we might not otherwise realize the influence we can have or not control, but certainly play a larger role than than we would otherwise realize.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. We do not control other people, but we can influence them greatly, right? We have a lot of how people think about us and how we think about them is how they show up. And so when we start to be intentional about how we show up, it's like, oh, that changes how they think. And that again, the subtlety of that's not the same as living my life based on other people's opinions. That is me being an intentional strategic person to live truthfully, but also get what I want out of this world.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. That's fantastic, Allison. Uh, we have a few questions for you on communication, negotiation, and peace. The first concerns a bit more on negotiation.
SPEAKER_03:Am I supposed to like create world peace by the end of this? Peace sounds like pretty daunting, but okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um help us influence it, perhaps, but not control. Okay. Um, you've you've done a lot of work on negotiation, extensive work on negotiation. What do women need to unlearn about how to advocate for themselves, especially when they're exploring asking for more?
SPEAKER_03:So the same tension that we started our conversation with, which is I can either get what I want or be assertive or be liked, that really shows up in negotiation for everybody. It's why negotiation gives people anxiety, not just women, because that it feels like it's putting those two things in tension. Okay, I can definitely push for what I want and be like, I need this and I need more, but but I can also recognize if I do that, hey, you may not like me very much because you maybe you're getting less, or maybe um you feel like I'm pushy. And so then I think, hmm, I do want to be liked. So maybe one way I can deal with that is I could ask for less. I could moderate my expectations or my asks. And in doing so, I'd preserve the relationship. And so that tension is a lot of what we teach in negotiation, is we teach people how to navigate it. And to think about as a first resort, always looking for strategies that allow you to achieve both. So, how can I get what I want and um be able to manage the relationship because they're both important. And so that's that can be done. It's certainly something women have to think about even more so than men as a comparison, because we do see that in negotiations, it's not the presence of assertiveness that hurts women, right? It's the absence of warmth. So women don't get punished for pushing for what they want, they get punished for not looking like they care enough about other people in the process. Okay. You can be angry about that if you want. It also gives us a path forward, which is the strategies, and these are the strategies I teach in my negotiation class, which is not just women, it's everyone. Um, the strategies for being able to navigate negotiations successfully is um finding ways to assert yourself while also communicating how much you care about the other people, uh particularly the people you're negotiating with, but also just other people in general. So, an example of something subtle that would have this effect that we see in the research would be something like um when we negotiate, if we put multiple solutions or options on the table at the same time, let's say three of them, that technique is really beneficial for balancing getting what you want, but also being liked. Why? Because people like choices. And anytime someone gives you a choice, you instantly think, oh, well, how nice of them. They're not just telling me how it's gonna be, they're letting me have some say. But the way it works in in negotiation is you're not giving people any choice, you're giving them a couple. Three is a good number, that's why I keep saying three, um, of options that are equally or close close to equally good for you. So if I you'll get this in regardless of whether or not you're a parent, I'll go back to the parenting analogy for a second, it'll make sense. Like when I was a kid, I was born in the 70s, right? So my have a very old school Italian dad, he's like, you're getting one choice. Like, this is how it's going down, and there will be no questions. Now we're like, oh, no, no, no. We have to give our kids choices. Like, we got we why? Because we want them to like, you know, feel like we're their like trusted partner and they love us and blah, blah, blah. So I give my kids much, many more choices than were given to me. But I give my kids these very carefully controlled choices where they can pick things, but they don't just get to pick whatever you want. It's not like, well, I don't say like, what would you like to have for dinner? You can pick. And then they watch them eat ice cream. It's like, no, no, no. Um, okay, which vegetable would you like to have? There are three in the fridge. You can pick like the green beans, the cauliflower, or the broccoli. That's a choice. Okay. Now, the value of doing something like that is I still get what I want. I still basically say there's a vegetable on the on your dinner plate. But by giving them the the say, I'm building the relationship as well. We can do that in negotiations with adults, whether they are involving like buying and selling things and contracts, or whether they're just talking about like the ebb and flow of work and and um choices in a relationship. Putting more choices on it on the table helps us navigate those things. So there are a lot of tools, I won't go through all of them here, but that's one, where when you use this tactic in negotiation, the reason it's a good tactic is because what it's doing in the other person's brain is it's sending a signal that you really care while still allowing you to push for what you want. And so, with those types of tools in our toolkit, we particularly as women can navigate that tension more successfully and come out of it and say, I didn't have to give up what I wanted, but I was able to send some strong signals in the conversation that I care and that that really benefits me and it benefits the relationship long term.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. You're reminding me so much of my background in teaching and taught first graders. And while the content was different, that they had choices over the colors they got to use for a certain project, but they're doing the project, right? So thank you for that analogy. Because so many of us women, especially if we're doing a lot of the domestic labor, we're making choices or a subset of choices for people consistently every day. We're making negotiations every day, right? But in the context of work or with a higher up, maybe that's something we don't realize we already have a skill for. So thank you. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so like you know in a work context, if you were going to use that technique, maybe it's like there's a project that you're trying to push through and you're trying to get everyone on board for it. And you could say, look, there's three different ways you could change, like change the variables. There's three different like kind of ways this project could go. Maybe it's relation to like deadline or particular features or whatever. And you could say, uh, these are just three different solutions, I think, that could still meet the overall goal. The just the act of saying that and putting them out there is gonna help frame the conversation in the range of outcomes that you want while still allowing you to show how flexible and reasonable and collaborative you are. So we see in the science that when people do that, people um think that you're more interested in solving the problem. They see you as more collaborative and they're more interested in working with you again, which are all the things that we want.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, wonderful. Gabby, I'd like to toss it to you to see if there are any questions in the chat that'd be worth highlighting at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. We've had a lot going on in the chat for sure. I think a lot has really resonated with our members. Um, but some chat, some questions have definitely come up. Um, I do want to highlight the first question that came up from one of our members about maybe possibly giving any examples about uh promoting themselves that can help um them become more comfortable in highlighting accomplishments.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. So I do talk about a lot about this in my book because the idea is we are the most informed and motivated communication channel for ourselves. So if you think about self-promotion is simply right, you being the source of information to other people about you. There's no better source of information than you. And so if you cannot be a good source of information about yourself, then how would anybody know the full scope of all the things you can do? Um, at some point it has to start with you. Even if someone else is gonna ultimately promote you as well, which I do talk about, it's still they still probably have to get that from you initially before they go and tell other people. So if you aren't willing to tell anybody what you're doing, you're going to have a lot of people underestimate you and undervalue you. It's just how it's gonna be. They just don't know. And certainly in our more kind of work from anywhere remote world, I think this has even gotten more true. But even when you're working in an office with somebody, like people are not sitting over your shoulder staring at you all day, every day. Like nobody has any idea how much effort you're putting in or what you're doing well or not doing well. They see certain little blips of outcomes. They have no idea, but you can tell them a lot more. So I talk about a lot of specific ideas. Um, and I kind of orient them in the book for like things that are like if you're super fearful to maybe if it's bolder. Um, the one I start with, I always tell people it's very specific, but it's the kind of thing that even if you're really, really fearful, people could do. Um, I did not come up with this on my own. I learned it when I saw someone else do it. And but but because I'm a psychologist, when I saw them do it, I'm like, oh, that's super brilliant. So, and it and it's going around, there's a lot of people you'll see posts about it on social, and it goes around right now because it's holiday time. Um, is turn your out of office message on. Many of you might turn it on next this week or next if you're gonna step away between now and the end of the year. Well, you know, people might say, like, hey, I'm out of the office till January 3rd, like, here's my assistant's phone number, or our office is closed, or we'll write you back, whatever. It's like kind of boring, factual, but boring. Um, but but I saw I'm long story short, I made a professional connection, started emailing with her, and she had these out of office messages that would come back that were like really fun and delightful, but also informative about the cool things she was doing. And so it would be like, here's the place in the cool place in the world I am now, doing this really cool work for these really cool people. And because of that, I'm focused on them. And it's gonna take me a day or two to get back to you, but eventually, you know, I'll get back. And I realized that an out-of-office message is this great storytelling device that most of us, if we even turn it on at all, underutilize. And so I encourage people that you could put a lot of information in there about the cool thing you're off doing, whether you're off doing something cool with your family, whether you're off doing something cool at work, um, and a lot of like warmth and humor. And no one ever sees that as self-promoting. They're first of all, when it comes back and they open it and they realize there's actually something in it, not just the like date you'll return, they're kind of curious, like, oh, wonder what you're doing. So then they read it with joy and interest. And then they learn things about you, things that you never have to actually speak. And it never feels like you're self-promoting. It just says you're just factually telling me why you won't get back to me for a day. So it's a great way to be able to talk about things. Since I've written the book, I've gotten this cool experience where people I do not know write me emails and notes and DMs and stuff if they've tried something in the book. And I got this cool message from a woman and she said, You're not gonna believe this. I tried your out of office. And then the funniest thing happened. I went to my son's soccer game, and another dad on the team says, Um, you're a really big deal. And she's like, What are you talking about? And um he says, Well, I um got your out of office. And then she realized, oh, yeah, it doesn't just go to the people in the office, it goes to everyone, including the whole soccer team. And he said, I had no idea what you did. I spent 20 minutes the other day reading everything about you online. And I was so impressed with like everything you had done. And then they had a chat about it. And she was like, in a million years, I would have never told another dad on the soccer team what I did. It just didn't seem relevant to the soccer practice. But then I did that. And then he was curious. And then I realized, oh, wait, like I promoted myself to him, but he didn't think I did that. He just got curious about me because he saw what I was doing and then went and read about it. So that's one technique. Um, another one that is still like requires you to maybe be a little more active, but is I think most people find pretty palatable, is what researchers call dual promotion. In the book, I call it brag and thank. It's basically you say something positive about yourself, and then you also, in that same statement, offer gratitude or thanks to somebody else or people who played a role in that. So you're not self-deprecating and minimizing the role that you played. You're accepting it, but you're also honoring other people. Um, and I there's lots of examples of this. And common places where we could do this is let's say you get you win an award or a recognition or something like that. And then you could thank people. Maybe you thank them on social or in the meeting. And so you acknowledge it. Like I was really honored to get this. And you don't say, like, oh my God, I can't believe they picked me. No, that's bad. You're gonna say, this was really of great honor, and then thank somebody. I'm so grateful because you know, my like my team that's behind me every day, or um, the people who voted me, or some people took time to nominate me. And isn't that so kind? So when we when we acknowledge a good thing and then give thanks to other people, what the research shows is that you get credit for competence because you had the good thing happen, and you also get credit for warmth because you're sharing the love. So that's something you can do in all kinds of ways, whether I like often there's a lot of update emails that get sent around in at work in teams, like, hey, just letting everyone know, like where we are on this project. Um, and you could then use that dual promotion technique. Like, here's some great wins we've had, and like, here, let me sing the praises of these other people. Or maybe that's a way that you could start a meeting if you ever convene a meeting, like, let's talk about our wins and then thank people who are involved and encourage people to do it. And for a lot of people, that naturally feels very authentic is to share the light, share the love, et cetera. And it makes people feel better about talking about, um, talking about themselves. But again, like I see some comments here about like people feeling like they don't enjoy self-promotion. And I don't think you have to love it, but you do have to find your way to get comfortable with it. It I'd say like it's part of successful adulting, like it is a critical to being able to tell your story, to being people to people to see you as you are, and that's critical to getting all these other things you really care about, including status and power. And so when you can experiment with how and when and what format and find things that feel more comfortable, excuse me, um, I think it it starts to make it feel better. But and again, practice. Like I I um when I launched the book, the whole like thing about the book that's hilarious, uh a book that's hilarious, it's just a massive exercise in self-promotion. Like this, you have to write it. But like, who would know I wrote a book unless I told them? Like, nobody. What are you gonna do? Find it on the 75 million books that are on Amazon? You're just gonna come across it one day. Like, how would you even search for it? I have to tell people I wrote it. I have to tell people in all kinds of formats, like a format like this, a podcast I've been invited to, or whatever, or like on the airplane, I have to let people know it happened on social media. So you have to talk about yourself because otherwise the thing you wrote to do good in the world will not ever like do any good. So, the like more I've had to do it, I started to realize the more I do it now and I think about it less. I'm very committed to practicing the things I preach. But even I, at my advanced middle age, late middle age, as my child would say, um, found I got better at it over the past 15 months because I had to do it more frequently. Practice on anything, including the self-promotion, which is why I always tell people um the airport, like you should always be self-promoting at the airport and you should always be negotiating at the airport because those are skills that we can never have enough practice on. And if they go horribly wrong, you'll never see those people again unless you want to. So go to the airport, talk to some stranger. I I I ended up selling, selling a copy of my book by talking to the person who I was standing in line at the jet bridge. This is like right when the book launched, and she was like, What do you do? What are you on the plane for? I don't know, whatever something, something. And I was like, okay, this is my moment. Like, what am I gonna say to her? And I was like, Oh, I just wrote a book, and so I'm going to like give a talk about it. She's like, What's the book? So I told her. And then she gets on the plane, I get on the plane. We get off, we're in the same restroom as all everyone does, like walks to the closest restroom after the flight, and she comes up to me as I'm washing my hands. She's like, I just bought a copy of your book on the plane. And but I was like, that's the kind of practice of the storytelling, like at the airport, I'll never see her again if I didn't have to. Um, so I encourage everybody to do that. I love that. Oh, you don't have and you don't have to talk to people in the airport. I'm not a big talk to people in the airport, but you know, it if you can think about it as like it's free practice, low stakes practice in some of these things, then um uh it might encourage you. And I I tell a couple of these stories too. Like the person I learned the out-of-office messes from, the place I met her was the airport sitting next to her in an airport lounge. And then she became a connection and then she taught me a whole bunch of stuff. So, like, although most of the people you'll never talk to again, you occasionally come up with a couple gems.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you just never know what will happen when you just gotta take that opportunity. Um, and I definitely saw a lot of comments in the in the chat too that said that that has really helped them maybe find a way to reframe um their uncomfortability with um, you know, promoting themselves. Um, I'm gonna bring us back into the main chat, and I know we have um a couple more questions, and then I'm definitely gonna pass this back to Autumn just to close us out. Um, but one of the questions that really came up um was, you know, maybe encountering multiple instances where uh direct reports have openly refused to execute assigned tasks because this has become a recurrent problem. Um, one of our members is reflecting on maybe her leadership approach and wants to understand what specific behaviors or communication gaps might be undermining her authority and causing a shift in the power dynamic where employees maybe can feel like they can bypass her directives. Any suggestions when it comes to that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So the answer is obviously without seeing the interactions, I don't know. But what I would do to try to figure this out is talk to people, somebody that you can trust that is closer to the situation, that has more opportunities to observe you day to day and to see what's going on. It may not be anything that you're doing, because in any human relations, any relationship is an interaction between two human beings. So it's very possible that all the ways you're showing up are amazing and they're just not working on this, having the influence on this one person that could end up being a lot about them and not about you. The only way you're gonna know that is to get some out other outsider um feedback of somebody who has better opportunity to observe you and say, can you help me troubleshoot what's going on? Maybe they can even observe you going forward, interacting with this person. That would be my like my ideal first choice. Um, and within the bounds of professionalism, also talking to other people who might interact with that person and say, are you getting the same thing? Because that's another data point. If it's only me that's getting this, then it suggests it might be more about how I'm leading. But if other people are getting the same reaction, suggest it's more about the person, and then that's a different, different answer. But yeah, when these kinds of things happen, whether you get negative feedback about like you're not confident enough or you know, you're too aggressive or whatever it is, or you get somebody who's defying you, you do wonder am I doing something that's causing this? And the only way to really get to that is to get some other people to give you some type of feedback or advice if they had and think about who you want to ask carefully. The ideal people have some op some firsthand information of seeing you in action, and they're also confident enough in their own status that they would talk to you, frankly, that they wouldn't just be like, you're fine, you're fine. Um, so I don't know for sure, but that's what I would do.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. And yeah, I love your instinct to just like get the data, get the data and see what it says, versus like maybe making our own assumptions on it's me or it's them or what it is. Um, I have just one more question, I think, from the chat. I again, I know there were a lot of questions, and I'm sorry we can't get to all of them. Um, but I do want to highlight, you know, um, one of our members dropped in the chat that um, you know, she values being a thoughtful voice, maybe over just the loudest voice. Um, but that may get mistaken for a lack of confidence or expertise. So, how how do you navigate those situations?
SPEAKER_03:So, this is one area where using your allies might be helpful. So, in the book, I talk about them as other promoters and I made a quick reference to them earlier. So, we self-promote, we we are a source of information about ourselves, and then other people promote us. They say positive things about us, and both of those are very critical for building our status. They can't do it without us, and we can't do it without them. So, the I think one of the ways we can honor our authenticity and still be effective is one, I think we can also experiment to say if there's something I'm doing that I don't think is getting me the credit I deserve, like can I play with it? Can I change it? Maybe yes, maybe no. But let's say no, this is like really central to my identity. It's too, it's too much about who I am for me to do anything about it. So let's say I'm quieter and I don't um participate as much. And people think, yeah, if I don't say anything, they have no way of knowing what's in my head. So I don't get as much credit. This is where allies can be useful. So to go to trusted allies, and these will be people who highly respect us and we feel confident that they really respect us and they see our value and say, hey, I could use your help. My style, which I think is very valuable, um uh it can be to a great benefit. At the same time, I recognize that people may not fully understand my capabilities because of the way that I show up in these situations. I would love your help and be specific. Uh, like when you talk to people A, B, and C, and I know you have like points of contact with them, when it feels natural, could you drop in the great like insights I've had, work that I'm doing, et cetera? I think because of my style, they may not always be aware of it. I'm doing what I can, but if you could help me, it'd be amazing. I think you have to over-explain it. Um, because if people really value you and you're all you're asking them to do is state their true beliefs to another person, no one feels like that's a really big ask. If you wouldn't feel it if it were reverse, you're like, of course, I really respect you. So you got to choose your people carefully because if they're if they're you're you're asking people to say things they don't believe about you that are better than what they believe, they'll be uncomfortable. But if they believe it, they'll be very welcome to say it. And that can be another source because people aren't just learning about you from you. So yeah, you maybe you're quieter, but they're hearing multiple other people they trust talk about the great work that you're doing, that will shift their mindset quicker than if you're trying to do all that work by yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Um, I'm gonna pass it back to Autumn to close this out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we have one final question for you, Allison, and we wanted to know if you could leave our audience with one mindset shift or strategy to take into the new year, what would it be?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, this is perfect timing because they make the New Year's resolution analogy in the book, which is New Year's resolutions, like the reason that people don't like them and they often fail, is that they're like super big and global, and you feel like you should do all the things. And on January 3rd, when you haven't done all the things, you're like, never mind, I'll do none of the things. So this is how I close the book, which is picking one thing. And I call it picking a swing thought, which was an analogy that a student who used to golf who was a golfer gave me. And the idea is let's say you have 10 ideas, you're inspired to do 10 different things differently, to like build status and relationships and show up as more assertive and warm. And you're like, oh, I'm brimming with ideas. My big encouragement is just pick one, do one thing, like try one thing. Like, I'm gonna set my out-of-ice over the holidays. Like, that's my thing, and I'm gonna do it. And I'm just gonna see how it feels. And then if I like it, maybe I'll do it a second time. And then next thing you know, by June, it's like a habit and you're doing it and you're like getting a little more fun and confident and talking about things in there. And then you're like, I don't have to worry about that one anymore because now I that's like part of my habits. Now I can pick a new one. That's my big advice to you is you don't have to do everything. You just have to do something. Pick one thing, let the rest go. It's a way more productive way to live, it's a way lower stressed way to live. And it's particularly relevant at this time of year when no one has enough time and everyone's thinking about being like a perfect human in 2026. Just one thing.
SPEAKER_00:If you enjoyed the episode, share with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your career into the next level, apply to join our community of women eager to help you get there and stay there. Go to www.vesther.co to learn more.
