Hi Lady Leader, welcome to this week's episode of the Leading Her Introvert Way podcast. If you are new here, then a very special and warm welcome to you. We are definitely glad to have you join us. If you are a returning OG, then welcome back. So listen, before we dive into today's episode, I want to make sure that you know about something that's happening this Saturday, March 14th at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm hosting a free live training called Command the Room. Develop your executive presence in 90 days as a Black Introverted Woman and become the obvious choice for executive promotion without code switching or selling out. And you really need to be in that room, particularly, particularly if you have been told that you need to work on your executive presence, but nobody is actually telling you what that means. Or if you're tired of showing up and having to pretend to be extroverted, to fit in, to get the accolades that you deserve, to be able to move your career forward, or just even to get notice. This training is for you if you're ready to get promoted based on your capabilities, not your ability to play office politics or to smooze or anything like that. So in 60 minutes, I'm gonna be teaching you three concrete strategies that actually work for you as an introvert instead of working against you. What we're gonna be talking about is how to build strategic communication that actually lands, how to get into the right rooms with the right people without burning yourself out trying to network, and how to build the leadership brand that actually gets you promoted. And here's the thing: at the end of the training, I'm going to be opening doors to my 12-week elite executive experience coaching program for a limited time. You'll get all the details about what that program is, what's inside, how it works. And you can ask me anything you want because I'll be staying on with you until every question is answered. But the training itself, it is completely free on March 14th. You're
gonna walk away with the strategies that you need to get promoted and build your executive presence and that you can implement starting Monday morning. The link is in the show notes, or you can go to my LinkedIn profile and grab it there. And if this landed for you, if you know someone else who needs to hear this, then share it with her because we are building this movement together. Okay, let's get into today's episode. So she got the job, senior vice president of finance, the top finance position in the company. She beat out all of her male peers for the role. And the person who had it before her, her former boss, was a complete tyrant, the kind of leader who ruled only through fear. So people hated him, but they did what he said because they were terrified of him. She was determined to be different. She was an introvert, thoughtful, strategic, and she had won this role because she was exceptionally credible as a finance leader. She wasn't loud, she wasn't aggressive, just purely credible. And her judgment was really trusted. Her analyses were always right, and that's why she beat everyone else for the job. So when she stepped into that senior vice president seat, she had made a decision. She was like, I'm gonna lead through being light. I'm gonna be the kind of leader people want to follow. Not that they have to follow. I don't want people to be scared of me. I want people to appreciate me and I want people to like me. And for the first few weeks, it felt really good. People told her they were so relieved to have her in the role versus her former boss, and they appreciated her warmth, her accessibility, her willingness to learn. But within a month, everything started to fall apart. Her decisions were being second-guessed, her directives were being ignored, people were going around her to escalate issues she had already resolved, and she was losing credibility fast. And in our coaching call, she said something that I'll never forget. She said, I thought if they liked me, I'd be more effective. But I guess I don't need them
to like me. They just need to respect my judgment. That was the moment everything shifted. That is what we're going to be talking about today. We're talking about respect over likability and why the difference between those two things is the difference between being invited to lunch and being invited into the executive suite. So let's start by talking about the lie that we have all been sold. The lie is this: being liked is how you advance in leadership. When they like you, that is when you will get promoted. Be warm, be approachable, be easy to work with, make other people feel comfortable, build strong relationships, get people to like you, and the promotions will follow. And sure, yes, if people like you, you may get some things. Being liked definitely gets you invited to lunch. It gets you included in conversations, it gets you trusted with coordinating work. It also may get you a reputation as someone who's easy to work with. But here's what being liked does not get you. It doesn't get you a seat at the strategy table. It doesn't get you final decision-making authority. It doesn't get your ideas implemented without being softened or diluted. And it definitely doesn't get you consulted before decisions are made. You may get informed afterwards, but not necessarily before. When they say work on your executive presence, what they're often really saying is be more likable, smile more, be warm, be approachable, soften your delivery, make people comfortable. But that is not executive presence. That is performing for other people. That may be pretending for other people. But real executive presence isn't about being liked, it's about being respected. And those are two completely different skill sets. The problem is that we as Black women, especially those of us who are introverted Black women, we are told that our path to power is
through being liked, right? Through building soft relationships, cuddly relationships, through making other people feel comfortable. And then we wonder why we're stuck and we're not able to move our career forward at the pace that we want to. We're stuck because we've been building the wrong thing. So let's redefine executive presence right now. If you have not been following this series, we've been talking about executive presence for the last three or four episodes. So if you go back to episode 121, that's when we start the conversation. The traditional definition of executive presence, gravitas plus communication plus appearance. That's not it. The real definition of executive presence is this: the ability to command respect for your judgment, your decisions, and your strategic value. That's it. Executive presence isn't how you dress. It's not about whether you say um in meetings, it's not about your smile or whether you smile enough or how warm you may come across. Executive presence is about whether your judgment is trusted in high-stake decisions. Executive presence is about whether people implement your recommendations without softening them or stealing them. It's about being consulted before decisions are made and not informed after. And it's about whether your no carries weight. When you say no, are people listening to you, are people adhering to that no? And it's about whether the room shifts when you speak. So, how do you know if you have real executive presence? I call it the respect scorecard. And this is the executive presence scorecard, by the way. Because respect and executive presence, when it comes to black introverted women, it is essentially the same thing. So here are the five indicators that I talk about and I coach my clients on when it comes to respect and executive presence. The first one is decision authority. When you make a call, when you make a decision, does it stick? Or does it get relitigated three times before it's actually implemented? If your decisions keep getting revisited, debated, or overturned, you don't have decision-making authority. And that means you don't have executive presence. The second one is consultation timing. Are you brought into conversations early when strategy is actually being
formed? Or do they come to you later when it's time to execute after the decision has already been made? If you're only consulted after decisions have already been made, you're being used for execution, not strategy. And that means you don't have the level of executive presence that you need to be in the senior leadership or executive level. The third one is pushback response. Now, when you push back on something, does it cause people to actually pause or even to pivot? Or do they just ignore your concerns and keep moving forward despite what you have said? If your pushback doesn't change anything, then you don't have the level of executive presence that you need. And number four, your no, your NO. When you say no, does it end the conversation? Or does it just start a totally new negotiation? If people keep asking you the same question from different angles until you say yes, then your no doesn't have any weight. And that means that you don't have the level of executive presence that you need. And number five, room dynamics. When you speak, does the room quiet to listen? Do people talk over you? If you're constantly being interrupted or ignored, then that is another sign that your executive presence is too low. Now here's the key. If you can answer yes to most of these questions, you have executive presence. Even if you never smiled in a meeting, okay? Even if you said um 50 times, and even if you showed up in ripped jeans, because executive presence is about respect, not likability, not the clothes that you wear, not even if you have to stutter. Let me go back to my client, the senior vice president of finance. She had real executive presence when she won that role, when she got into that position. And that's why she got the position. Her judgment was completely trusted. Her analyses were always right. Her strategic recommendations moved the business forward and people respected her. But then she stepped into the role and she started to doubt herself and she started trying to be liked instead. And within a month, her executive presence was gone. Here's what happens to so many of us. We spend years building credibility, building respect, building strategic value. And that's what gets us into the next role. And then someone says, Well, now that you're in this role, you need to work on your executive presence. And what we hear is, I need you to be more likable. I need you to fit in here. So we start softening our decisions. We start overexplaining ourselves to make other people comfortable. We start managing everyone else's feelings and thoughts instead of leading strategically. And by doing that, we erode the very thing that got us the job in the first place. And that trap is set deliberately. Because if you're focused on being liked, you can't be focused on wielding power. And as long as you're chasing the vague idea of executive presence through being more likable, you stay stuck, you stay performing, you stay pretending, and you stay small. Because real executive presence is built on respect. And you cannot build respect
by prioritizing likability. So you're probably wondering, well, what did your client do? Right? She made five moves that rebuilt her respect and her executive presence in 90 days. Move number one is she started making decisions clearly and holding to them. She stopped re-litigating every call that she made. She stopped communicating once her decision was made. Once she said it, she said it once, she said it clearly, and then she moved forward and held everybody else accountable to move forward with her. And when people tried to come back to debate it, she was very clear. We have made this decision and we are moving forward. Her decisions became final, and people started trusting that when she made a call, it was the right call. And even if it wasn't the right call, it was the call that everyone was going to start executing on. The second thing she did is that she let her no be full stop. She stopped overexplaining herself. She stopped justifying it, and she stopped cushioning her no with wants. So she said, no, that doesn't work for us. Period, done. Next topic. And you know what happened? People stopped asking because they learned that her no was final. The third thing she did is that she demanded early strategy conversations. So she made it clear to everyone around her, including her boss, who was the chief executive officer. She would say, I need to be in the room when the strategy is being formed, not just when it's time to execute. And she showed up to those conversations with strategic value. She didn't just execute and she didn't just hold a seat at the table. She contributed to the formation of the strategy. She was trying to shape the direction. The fourth thing that she started doing was that she stopped managing comfort and started prioritizing clarity. So, what does that mean? She stopped worrying about whether people felt good about her decisions. She started worrying about whether people understood her decisions. She was direct. She was clear. She would even give background and the reason she was making her decision. But she was also demanding respect because at the executive level, clarity is kindness. People do need to understand what is happening, right? They need context sometimes. So she was more than willing to give the context, but there was no debate in
terms of the decision that was going to be made and how we were going to be moving forward. And then the fifth thing that she started doing is that she let respect build likability for her and not the other way around. See, so once people respected her judgment, some of them actually started to like her again too. But that came after she re-established respect, not before. And here's what started happening within 90 days. Her decisions stood for themselves. People stopped bypassing her. She was consulted earlier and more often. And her influence expanded even further and even deeper into the organization. And as a result, her executive presence became undeniable. Not because people liked her more, but because they respected her more. And that was the foundation of her executive presence. Now, let me tell you why this matters so much, not just for her, but for you and for me as well as introverts. It's because we as introverts are naturally built for respect-based executive presence. And I want you to think about this because when you think about what builds respect, it's strategic thinking, which is an introvert strength. It's quality over quantity, another introvert strength. It's listening before leading. And we as introverts, we have that in spades. It's delivering on commitments. We got that down too as introverts. You don't need to show up and pretend or perform like an extrovert to have executive presence. You need to stop trying to be liked and start building undeniable respect through the things that you are already good at as an introvert. My client, who was an introvert, she was very soft-spoken. She was very thoughtful in her approach. And she still had to make this shift from likability to respect. Because being introverted doesn't mean leading through niceness, it means leading through substance. And substance builds respect. Six months after she made this shift, she told me I'm not more like than I was before, but I'm more respected. And respect is what moves the business. Respect is what gets my ideas implemented. Respect is what gets me in the room. And respect is my executive presence. I just wish someone had told me that before I took the job. It would have saved me a month or six weeks of trying to be nice and losing ground. Being liked will get you invited to lunch. Being liked will get you invited to happy hours. Being liked might even get you invited to your coworkers' family's function. But being respected, that is what gets you invited to the executive suite. If you have been told to work on your executive presence, do not make likability a part of that. Instead, start building respect. Because that's the only type of executive presence that's going to help you land the role of your dreams. And that's exactly
what we're building on March 14th in my free training. Command the room. Develop executive presence as a black introverted woman in 90 days and become the obvious choice for executive promotion without code switching or selling out. This is where we build the how, the actual strategies you need for building respect based executive presence when you're an introverted black woman. The registration link is in the show notes. Okay, lady leader. Until next time, keep leading your introvert way.