Bonus Episode - Reflecting on Stage 1 of the Bold Leaders Roadmap

In this bonus episode of Making Bold Moves, Liz brings together the key themes from Episodes 1–3 of the series, all focused on Finding Your Voice as a Leader.

NB If you haven’t listened to Episodes 1 to 3 yet, we recommend starting there before listening to this episode.

Rather than introducing new ideas, this episode helps you pause, consolidate, and make sense of what Stage 1 is really about - visibility, authority, and being seen at the level you’re now operating.

Liz reflects on:

• why being heard in meetings matters more as responsibility increases
• how asking clearly for what you want changes how others respond
• how everyday behaviour quietly builds (or breaks) trust over time

This episode explores why strategies that once felt safe can start to limit your impact as you step into more senior roles.

You’ll be left with a reflective question to help you notice where you may still be holding back — and what could change if you trusted your voice a little sooner.

The next episode moves into Stage 2: Managing the Inner Load, focusing on the internal pressure that often follows increased visibility and responsibility.

Making Bold Moves is a podcast for people who are capable, thoughtful, and quietly questioning how they’re showing up at work and in life.

I’m Liz Boswell. I work with leaders and professionals who don’t need more advice, but do need space to think clearly, especially when the pressure is on.

Each episode is a calm, mentoring-style conversation grounded in real client moments. We look at the stories people carry, the behaviours those stories create, and the small, practical shifts that change how things land day to day.

You’ll hear honest reflections, psychologically precise questions, and simple actions you can try immediately, without overhauling your life or becoming someone else.

If you’re stepping into more responsibility, more visibility, or simply feeling the weight of decisions that matter, this podcast is here to help you slow things down, think more clearly, and move forward in a way that feels grounded and real.

A quiet companion for people who want to make better moves, not louder ones.

Transcript

Liz Boswell: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Making Bold Moves. It's Liz here. So if you've listened to the first three episodes in this series, you might have noticed that they all kind of cover the same topic or the same theme. This episode today is a reflection episode about those first three episodes, which is the first three stages in the Bold Leaders Roadmap.

So if you've not listened to them yet, I recommend that you go back and listen to the first three episodes before you listen to this one. So, just to recap those three episodes, first of all, it was getting your voice heard in meetings without shouting. Second one was asking for what you want. And the third one was all about understanding how your behaviour builds or indeed breaks trust in relationships. 

and on the surface, I guess, [00:01:00] these topics all sound like they're focused on communication and how we communicate as a leader. But I do wanna go a bit deeper than that because Stage 1 of the Bold Moves Roadmap really is all about visibility and helping you to visibly show your authority as a leader.

And when you are arriving in that first stage, whether you just stepped into a leadership position or whether you've made the bold move to the board, then there's no doubt, really, that you've taken on more responsibility and you are operating at a different level with more senior people. And the cost of keeping quiet and not speaking up can start to show

a lot quicker. So what matters really in this stage is it's not about confidence or capability, it's [00:02:00] the environment that's changed and always doing things just aren't gonna cut it anymore. So we've gotta look at how we can do things differently. Not by speaking louder, but by recognising that waiting to feel confident or waiting for confidence to happen means that you can be waiting too long because

confidence isn't something that, you know, builds over time. It comes from the actions that you take. So the bold move isn't about speaking more; it's trusting that what you do say matters, and saying it before you feel ready. So in the second episode, we looked at how asking for what you want can sometimes make us feel pushy.

And many people hold back here because they associate clarity with risk. So, they hint, [00:03:00] 'cause they don't wanna be too specific, you know? So they hint and they think, oh well it look really pushy if I say what I really want. So they hint and they hope, and they wait to get noticed. But in leadership, a lack of clarity, can create far more friction than being direct.

So the bold move here was actually naming what you want cleanly... being direct, being assertive, and letting others respond. And in the third episode, we moved into behaviour and building trust through the small behaviours. And it's where people start to realize that everything we do communicates; it's not just what we say, but

even the little things that we do... what we don't say as well, and what you tolerate - what you put up with. Trust isn't built in big moments. You know, it's not built in big opportunities and results that you [00:04:00] make. It's built and eroded through small, consistent signals; and often, they're unintentional. So, for Stage 1,

the real work is not about necessarily learning new skills. It's about allowing yourself to be seen at the level where you're now operating. Many people get stuck at this level because staying quiet used to work, you know? It used to be okay to do that to blend in among the crowd, and it felt like the sensible option and the safer option to avoid friction.

Leadership has to change these rules; and the bold move at this stage is recognising that the strategies you had yesterday or last week or last year, no longer serve you in your new role. So in closing then, here's [00:05:00] the question I want to leave you with. Where are you still shrinking yourself to stay comfortable when your role now requires you to be more visible? And,

what would change if you trusted your voice just that little bit sooner? In the next episode, we're gonna jump into Stage 2, and we are going to look into how you can manage that inner load, inner dialogue that comes with increased responsibility. Because once your voice is out there and it's almost be careful what you wish for, you're asking for more responsibility.

And guess what, that comes with its own pressure and internal shifts. So that's a completely different kind of work, and I will see you in the next episode to work on that. Bye for [00:06:00] now.