How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
Leveraging childhood lessons for leadership success with Joanna Wiesinger
What if the joyful experience of being a grandparent could be the secret to effective leadership? Leadership coach and TEDx speaker, Joanna Wiesinger, shares six invaluable lessons she's learned from her grandchildren that have helped inform her approach to leadership. From the simplicity of playfulness and focusing on strengths, to the significance of clear communication and self-care, Joanna provides interesting insights that can help you become a more efficient leader, at home as well as in the workplace.
Keeping calm under pressure, appreciating your team, and understanding before jumping to solutions, are all essential leadership principles. Joanna delves into these with her own firsthand experiences, offering practical advice to apply in your own leadership journey. If you're looking to enhance your leadership skills, handle team dynamics more effectively, and become a master negotiator, this episode is a must-listen!
In this episode, we talk about the following:
1. How keeping a playful spirit and focusing on your strengths can be helpful for you as a leader.
2. The importance of expressing your needs and celebrating your wins!
3. Being mindful of your reactions in difficult situations and validating your emotions.
Connect with Joanna:
https://www.instagram.com/thrivewithstrengths/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannawiesinger/
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🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
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Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate In growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be. When you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. Let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Hey, welcome to Leaders with Leverage. I'm Suzy and I'm so happy to be here. This is a fun episode. Well, this will be a fun episode.
Speaker 1:My friend, joanne Weisinger. I just realized I don't say my friend's last names very often, but she's joining me today and we are both grandparents. It's funny to say that. Isn't that funny, joanne, that we're at that stage of life Surreal, surreal. That's a good good. But we both are leadership coaches. And, joanne, I'd love for you to tell everybody a little bit about you. But we met through some strengths summits. We first, our very first interaction was on the bus on the way to a conference. That was super fun. Now you work with teams and you do executive coaching. So tell us a little bit about yourself and then we're going to jump into how leadership is directly related to bringing to little kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for us to do that. Yes, so I have a coaching consulting firm called Thrive with Strengths, where we help leaders and their teams thrive and make better contributions by leveraging their strengths. So, in essence, we help teams team better by focusing on what they do best without wasting their effort on their weaknesses. I am a Gallup Certified Strengths coach, just as you are. I'm a recovering PhD chemist and a TEDx speaker, so we have many things in common other than chemistry. I can't believe, or a PhD. Well, but to your point, I often say that in my off time, when I'm not working, my favorite thing to do is to be JoJo to my granddaughter, sophia, and to spot Sophia's superpowers, because she's already bringing some amazing contributions to the world, and hence our little talk today.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we were inspired to. I've noticed that, as a grandparent, like going back to being really intentional when I'm with her, and even just my how I approach my relationship with her and you and I were talking about that and you've spent Sophia is a little bit older than my granddaughter, so you're a little bit ahead but you actually put together some things that you really associated to time with her and how that relates to leadership. So there's six of them, and I thought it would just be really fun for you to share each one of those with us and then we'll kind of talk about each one as you go.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks for giving me a moment to reflect and make these connections. This has been a thread in the back of my mind since Sophia was born, because I was noticing certain similarities between raising this little child and leadership. So the first one the headline there is be playful. Being playful does not come naturally to me. It also doesn't come naturally to many leaders. We often approach the decisions that are in front of us with some weightiness. I was reminded of that as I was talking to an executive who was facing a career decision and I heard the weightiness in her words until we stumbled on that phrase. Maybe there's room for you to be a little bit more playful. When I give a toy to Sophia, I remember the first time we handed her a fork. She didn't use that fork as a fork, it was a comb. She was drumming with it. She was doing so many beautiful out of the box things that maybe weren't triggering me a little at first right.
Speaker 2:Because I had a set way that it had to be used, and yet it was such a beautiful, curious and joyful way of approaching problem solving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is so good, and when I think about leaders that I work with too, we don't typically say what would bring you joy, and when you use strengths, being playful with that lens can help you get there a little bit easier, because when you think about what comes naturally to you, those are the places that feel with ease and excellence. But being playful is a good way to also frame it for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, particularly because and again if I think of my conversation with that executive the reason why that phrase being playful in her decision, why that resonated with her, was because she was already standing on the body of proof that she knows how to make good decisions. This is not a life and death. That lighthearted aspect can absolutely play into it. Number two focus on strong, not wrong. At the heart of strengths-based leadership, you and I know is shining the spotlight on what comes to us with ease, excellence and enjoyment, rather than what's missing, right or what hasn't been put in. It's a leadership myth that is not serving as well.
Speaker 2:I think of the time when Sophia was starting to come downstairs. She was just crawling and she was learning how to come downstairs, which, of course, can be a big safety factor, safety hazard. Her parents would say Sophia, feet first. Sophia, I like how you frolled with your feet first rather than with your head or your hands, shining the spotlight on the type of behavior they wanted to see from her right, that simple idea of shifting from don't run to walk, please For leaders, the relevance there is.
Speaker 2:As a leader, we need to ask ourselves the question what type of culture do we want to build on our teams, within our organizations, and then shine the spotlight on those things. I was working with a leader for whom it was very important that her team said hello first thing in the morning, that everyone on the team had this friendly spark of joy, spark of energy, interaction. Well, that wasn't happening on her team until she started modeling it, until she started saying hey, susie, the way you came in this morning and said hi to me, that is exactly what I needed on this dreary Tuesday morning. So focus on what's strong, not wrong. What would you add to that, susie? You know?
Speaker 1:when you were saying that, it made me think around leadership and how it's easier to just tell people what to do, but when you were saying feet first, it reminded me of even little tweaks to your language. Instead of why did this happen? What would you do differently? And so that gives people's mindset the right way, so that they're doing it in a strength way and not… you know, not that it's wrong, but it's just a more gracious way of saying the same thing and getting people to really think about it, so that they understand why. Feet first, if you will.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely Okay. Our third one is express your needs. If you've been around any baby, any toddler, we all know how good they are at letting us know what they need Food, play time, diaper, change, what have you? And Sophia? She's at 16 months. She's just starting to develop her language, but really most of the time she doesn't have words that you and I would understand. And yet I know exactly what it is that she needs and what's the beauty of that. She lets me know and then I can come alongside and help her thrive and be safe and have a beautiful little day as she's learning and growing. I think, as leaders, we need to be mindful of two things. One, we need to get really good at expressing, being clear on our expectations, our needs, our contributions, and also come alongside our people and say, hey, what do you need from me so that you can be at your best.
Speaker 1:That's so good and it's right in line with my lens on that is really advocating for yourself and in a way that creates opportunities. People don't live in your mind. They don't live in your head, and so being able to express what you do well, what you want to do, what different experiences you want to have, allow people. You're giving them an easy path to understanding where to put you and so articulating that. I worked with a woman who I was talking about this very thing and she's in her 60s, and she said that she was up for a job offer and she told them what she wanted. She countered them and she goes. They didn't even flinch and you could almost see her life flash before her eyes. Of all the time she didn't ask. And so to that point, about expressing your needs, like you said, clear expectations, knowing what people, what they need, and being able to tell them how to manage up to you, those are not taking the time is such a missed opportunity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Give them the cheat sheet, and I think we need to set aside again that myth that when we do that, we're a needy. There's a big difference between being needy and expressing our needs in a way that's not entitled and yet it's clear.
Speaker 1:Awesome, that's great Celebrate the wins.
Speaker 2:So if you're starting to walk around 14, 15 months, every little step she took she would clap for herself, she would pump her fist, she would look at the room and say, hey, where's my applause? Let's go, I'm doing something very special, I think. I keep going back to that statistic that says that 61% of employees did not receive even one point of recognition. We're not recognizing it. Last year, as leaders, we have to do better. One back to your point that you like to drive so much, which is let's be our own advocates. Let's cheer ourselves on, let's remind ourselves of our successes because there is a key there to cracking the code to our future successes and also let's do better celebrating the people in our lives in a way that's personalized and specific and well-deserved.
Speaker 1:Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage. Now let's continue the conversation. It doesn't have to be huge, it can just be taking that space to go. I really appreciate that. Or even thinking through. One thing I tell leaders is think through your day and who you're meeting with on your team and reflect on just for a few minutes what they've been doing so that in those moments you can provide that context to your appreciation for their contribution, so that it doesn't go unnoticed.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. Focus, frequent, future oriented. If you see it, say it. Yeah, I think we can all do much better and little Sophia's clapping and pumping of her fist inspires me to do better in this area.
Speaker 2:My next point is react, don't overreact. I remember a few moments where Sophia either kind of tumbled down a few stairs or, you know, fell down, scraped her knee and at that stage, my first as a first time grandma, what came out of me was this gasp of right which immediately this little human reacted to my reaction by, and I could see the fear in her, on her face, right, or the sadness which kind of permission granted to maybe even have a meltdown. When I'm, when, my reaction is that of calmness, of you know, coming along, sizing. I see you fell down and also, you're okay. It changes everything, I think, as as leaders, we have the privilege of bringing a certain type of energy to our team, a calming presence, and it absolutely you back, of course, to my strength space leadership approach. It's defined by our innate talents and strengths and we have to be mindful of it.
Speaker 2:But what else would you add?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it made me think it's funny. I have such a another counter like look at it. Also makes me think about how, as leaders, we get used to this regular cadence of things that we do. And, like you said, don't overreact, be mindful of how you react in the moment and if you need to adjust that. And my example would be I watched a team very senior team want start to go through an exercise that they were going to map out influence and it really struck me that the their leader picked up the marker and got up on the whiteboard and I thought, wow, what a missed opportunity. Where, if he would have just paused and had somebody else on the team take the the marker, it gives somebody the opportunity to step up and sometimes as leaders, we don't make that space for people. So we overreact, if you will, by doing what we think we should, but sometimes offering that silence or that space allows others to step in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I agree with you. Last point soothe before solving the problem. Oh boy, this was. This was so interesting. You know how, how sometimes we're being set up to hear a certain message. So this was several months ago.
Speaker 2:I was talking to an executive who just stepped into a new role, leading a brand new team, a team that was brand new to him, and when I asked him how it was going he's a strength-based leader he said you know, I'm in the soothing stage with my team. And he meant it in this beautiful, very honoring way where he said you know, I already see the problems. I have the, I have the you know the fresh eyes to see where, where the challenges are, and I have the solutions. I can't jump into it, so I'm hearing them out, so I'm affirming them. They're not crazy. They've just been through some big changes.
Speaker 2:I think of of my Sophia, and you know, when she's swept up in big emotions as a 16-month-old, that's no place for her to hear me say anything, really Right. But if I come alongside, get on her level, enter her world by just even a hug and a soothing whoo, this was tough, that was scary. You really want this and you're not getting it that meltdown is much shorter than if I were to swoop in with my problem solving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what bubbles up for you? Yeah, gosh, I think I'm glad that this is the the final one, because it's so important as leaders that you allow people to make mistakes, because if you tell, if you tell them what to do or you get them out of the problem, you're not enabling them to find their own muscle, their own skill, their own leadership. You're just telling them what to do, which allows that makes them more passive in the situation. So and it's hard to do it you just want to help accelerate that for them. So it takes patience and sometimes you have to be aware of not jumping in and trying to solve, and that's, I think, you as leaders, I think people. It's easy to say that it's super hard to actually do it, and it's a lot more intentional than we give credit to.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think it's again what's underneath. It is finding that alignment between our intention and impact. As you said, our intention is a good one. Right, let me swoop in with my solution. Clearly, you don't have it yet, but the impact is that we're really hindering the growth of our people when we do that. Yeah, not easy, but yeah, I think there's a good principle there.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it so much I think it'd be really helpful for you just to touch each one of those one more time and remind us of the six principles of tantrums to you know. Excellence, Triumphs in the border, yes.
Speaker 2:Love it, be playful, focus on strong, not wrong. Express your knees, celebrate the winds, react, but don't overreact. And soothe before solving yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so good. You know, what really struck me as you were saying those is it's. We have a unique perspective because we are the silent partners for people in what they're doing. So we're kind of in the grandmother role, where parents are the leaders that are actually in the day-to-day, and so I think there's so much goodness here for parents and new leaders to really be thinking about these principles and thinking about which one they need to really be more thoughtful and intentional around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you make a good point. As grandparents, we have the grandmothers, we have the privilege of being playful. It's not life and death for us. I remember being a young mom. Everything felt very weighty, but I think that's the beauty of different seasons in life, right that you know there's so many seasoned leaders all around us. I think it behooves us to lean on them and it's a good reminder for the seasoned leaders to step in and bring that calming presence when their leaders are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, as leaders, as you're coming up whether you're a new leader or you've been a leader for a few years it's almost like you can't wait until you get those skills, you can't wait until this next thing. But, just like in parenting, you have to enjoy the moments and really be in the moment, whether you're a parent or a grandparent, and think about how do you be more intentional in those moments. So that's what I love about our optics on this, because we have lived through it and we've seen how fast it can go and we can now kind of look at it from this perspective. So these are great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a quick little redo for you and me.
Speaker 1:Yes, we get to so fun. Thank you so much, joanna. This was really great and I love your experience and expertise and thinking about this through a leadership lens.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I really had fun. I thank you for inviting me to have this conversation. It ultimately makes me a better leader, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Before we go, tell people you're on LinkedIn. Tell us about your website. If people are interested to learn more about your offerings, tell them a little bit more, of course.
Speaker 2:Thank you Absolutely. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Joanna Weissinger. My website is Thrive With Strength and I would love to continue the conversation on leadership, whether it's from the childlike wisdom or whatever it is that's on your mind these days.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you for bringing your wisdom today. I certainly appreciate you, and thank you for joining us today. Joanna and I are thrilled that you're here. If you feel like somebody needs to hear this, share this episode with them, and that's such a win-win. You show them that you were thinking of them and that you want to invest in them too. So thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:This is Leaders With Leverage. I'm Suzy, and until the next episode, remember to always advocate for yourself. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders With Leverage. If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach any time you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book the Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book, you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction. In your day-to-day. You'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Head to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
