EP 25 |Brand Voice Authenticity | Stop Seeking Approval & Lead With Conviction with Andi Johnson

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What if your founder authenticity is really a carefully constructed mask? In this episode, Shivani sits down with Andi Johnson — Fortune 200 brand and marketing executive — to explore how women founders accidentally weaponize approval-seeking in their brand strategy, why conviction beats confidence, and how unmasking the performance becomes your biggest competitive advantage. If your brand voice feels inauthentic, this conversation is for you.

Book Recommended by Andi: Fierce Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff — the resource Andy credits with starting her doctoral research journey. Available on Spotify audiobooks.

Andi's Podcast: Boys & Boardrooms — coming soon. Stories from inside corporate that nobody tells out loud.

Connect with Andi Johnson:

• Podcast: Boys & Boardrooms  - https://open.spotify.com/show/2WeusIkQy7CAFNbFXLuyML?si=057a081c029542aa
• Andi's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/advance_with_andi?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey everyone, we've all been told to find a brand voice. But what happens when the voice is actually a mask for people pleasing? Today I'm joined by a dear friend and a Fortune 200 brand and marketing executive Andy Johnson, who's also a doctoral researcher and leadership coach who works at the intersection of psychology and performance. Talk about that. We are exposing today why most leaders, team members, and female founders struggle to speak up and how to move from speaking approval to leading with total conviction. This conversation is a deep dive, and I want you to have these strategies for the long haul. That's why I've launched the Think Brand Talk Brand Newsletter. It's where I break down the big shifts from this conversation into accountable steps. And you can use all week plus deep dives on brand and their strategies. You can apply right away. Grab the link from the show notes and let's dive in. Now that you know who Andy is, I am welcoming her to the show. Andy, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Thank you. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here with you today.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Amazing. Andy, I want your hot take on the fact that even in corporate and the business world, leaders are still looking for approval, right? Like everything that they are doing is coming from the space of not wanting to be disliked. I want your hot take on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So my hot take on that is that it can be felt at the end of the day. You know, you may be making decisions in a boardroom or in an office where you're trying to play it safe. And at the end of the day, your end customer, the consumer of your product, if you're in B2B, right, that executive that you're working with on the other side, they know it because that energy flows down. So moments where you're not in your brand's authority as the steward of your brand, right? As the person who's meant to protect and champion your brand, the repercussions are endless. So I've been in rooms, I'll say, where I've I've watched people say, okay, this isn't necessarily the safe thing to do, but we're going to do it anyway. And guess what? There's always resistance at first. But the end soon, I always hear it. Three months later, sometimes three years, three years later is now at the top. We're the brand that's respected because we made that choice. So, you know, sometimes you have to throw throw a little bit of that out the window, throw the throw the safety out the window.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

I so agree with you. And I really get takes me back to my corporate days where I was working in the corporate. And quote unquote, I've been to I I have been told, I had been told so many times by so many people that you're too bold, you're too aggressive, that you are too too too much, right? Like for a girl to be speaking out, calling it out, whatever it is, right? Like even I see that now where people are uncomfortable with someone who probably is not the leader itself, but they see a younger voice who's which is bold, and they try to squish it down. They try because they I think it's kind of they're projecting their fear on the fact that this bold person might create trouble. So when it happens around you, be it in corporate space or be it in spaces where they're coaching women, where they come up with the fact that this person is too much and you know it doesn't like I get I feel uh I feel scared in a way, terrified in a way, that this person is kind of being so bold. Like, how do you how do you handle that? Or what do you see that is making them feel this way?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Oh my god, I I just I had a conversation about this the other day in my office, and I have absolutely had conversations with I have a role, we're a dual role, right? Where I also coach women. So I've had conversations with some of my clients about this. So when I'm in the office and these conversations come up, right? This person isn't is going against the grain or making me feel uncomfortable and such, I can relate to it so much because that has been my role. I'm a disruptor. I come in, I just I'm meant to, I build teams, I disrupt functions, I get a lot of pushback. So you have to have a thick skin around it. But there's two ways to look at this, right? What do I tell the person that's uncomfortable? The best thing you can do when someone's uncomfortable is instead of making a statement, you ask a question. You have them reflect back to themselves because you say, okay, you say, so why do you feel uncomfortable about this? What is it about this move that feels dangerous to the business? You start actually asking questions where they have to give you data or facts. And a lot of times what happens is people realize they don't have that data. They don't have those facts. So they're and they're like, wait a second, it's gotta be something else. So if you can lead them to realizing, even subconsciously, that it's fear versus, okay, this person is, you know, really trying to disrupt to a way that has negative impact on our business. Because most of the time it doesn't. It's just that the individual who would have to take that idea forward would have to defend it. And they're afraid to defend it because they're not necessarily going to get the approval that they want on the other side. So that's not when you see that happening in your organization, ask questions, get curious, don't come at it from a place of judgment and try to understand the human side of that person. Like, what is really going on here? On the flip side, if it's happening to you, right? If you're the disruptor, you're the one that's being received in a different kind of way. That's where, again, doing that inner work to be able to stand strong, to know that, you know, validation does not mean that this is right. It just this is what's comfortable in the space. But wherever you can ground something in strategy and also support what's already been done. A lot of people are afraid of change. So you can say, look, how we've done it here is great. This is working. I this is a great foundation to go off of. But I see this as an opportunity because we can achieve this. In corporate, it's all about facts. It's about data, it's about connecting the strategy, and it's also about politics to an extent where you never want to what's the word I'm looking for. You never want to insult someone's workplace or work product, right? Or what they've done. They have such an emotional investment in it. So again, looking at the human side of it, of how can I bring this forward in a way that makes the strategy but still makes this person feel safe. It's not always going to work, but it's an entry point in, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Yeah, I hear you. And I know that corporate ecosystem can be hard to navigate because it's not entirely always your call on eventually, finally, what happens. Yes, I love the fact that you say that if you can back it up with data, if you can back it up with a strategic input that helps you lead the way. And yet it may still not happen immediately. Like, you know, you may still have to wait around for uh for it to frutify in some sense. But I think for these voices, it's important to not forget that uh just because a senior leader doesn't believe in you, you're wrong. You also must you also must navigate the system in a way where you are constantly proving it in in some context. And and that leads me to this this this issue that I had, and I think a lot of people, not even in corporate, but also in brand ecosystem, f fear that when a leader is projecting this kind of resistance, this kind of you know um plate safe or wherever they're coming from, they are also kind of tying down the boundaries of what the brand can actually evolve into, right? That they can they are limiting what can also happen because somewhere that fear of again being disliked, being disapproved, or you know, maybe what if I alienate the wrong, like alienate people from my brand because I've I've taken this bold stance, right? Like I we know brands which have taken a bold stance and have had have huge uh you know back backlash for it because people were like, Why the hell are you doing this now? So navigating this very delicate, you know, place where you're afraid that the brand should not lose its um look like alienate or have a backlash from the audience, but at the same time, also like are we pushing the limit? Are we like you know, brands really create a new world? So, how do you manage people in your team when they want to uh like bring this balance or tilt it one way or the other?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

It's a great question. So I like to think of it as it's the Goldilocks approach, right? Especially in corporate. I think you have much more jurisdiction when you have a personal brand. Um anything, I would say on the personal brand side, you lose so much more by not being authentic than you, you know, than if you were to play it, than if you were to play it safe. I think people on the personal brand side, it's such a, you know, you have to go with your authentic voice, or you're just not going to attract in and call in the right, the right folks. On the corporate side, and I think this is why a lot of people sometimes don't want to work in corporate or they think that there's no place for them in corporate. And I challenge that by saying, actually, you can be very happy in corporate if you figure people out. If you figure yourself out and you figure out the people, you can thrive in corporate, but corporate is not a place for people who get triggered. For people who have a lot of fear, I think, and it attracts a lot of these people because they want safety. So that's the flip side of it. But if you have, if you are, there's a fear of being disliked or being able to just see that a person's opinion is a person's opinion. So I ground all of this and coming back to what do you do when that comes up? So I lead, um, I'm I'm not, you know, I lead a brand team, right? I lead a brand team, I'm in brand and marketing, so I'm in this space in corporate, and we have a beautiful brand. And it took um, it was a couple years to, you know, to transform the brand. And we were in this period for the past couple years where it's like, okay, we want to do new things, but at the same time, we just created this new brand. We don't want to send it down a path where it's not supposed to go. So in that leadership position, it's having the balance. It's these are the things that we are never going to be. We're never going to be this. We're never going to do this. We're never going to look like this because at the end of the day, we know that this is inauthentic to who we are. I do think that having, you know, sometimes people think they're airy or they're fluffy, but I think having brand voice, you know, a solid brand voice, having brand principles, knowing what you stand for, and making even in corporate, you have words like authentic, honest, disruptive, whatever the words are, you know what goes along with that. So when you're grounded and rooted in an identity, just like you should be on the personal side, you can't really go too far. So that's it. You have to have your guidelines. Then the rest of it is having conversations, saying, okay, if we say that we want to be disruptive, then is this really that hard disruptive? And then knowing your brand personas, right? Your customer personas, I should say. Um, I'm not sure if everyone's familiar with what that is. I would assume so on your podcast, right? But the people trying to reach, the customers that you're trying to reach, how do they act? How do they behave? What do they do on the day-to-day? Evaluating that disruption through those personas. So you don't end up Shavani being one of those brands that are like, we need to do this right now. So knowing the market, I mean, I have a PR background, right? Public relations, communications. There are times when it is not the time to go tell this. So that's that's it, right? Knowing who you are, having those brand, and then having conversations around where you want to take it to the next level. It's okay sometimes to not go fully. You can take baby steps. You can say, you know what? I'd like to be uh, you know, on this side right now, but I've got to cross this bridge to get there. And maybe we're gonna take three months to cross that bridge. Take some data, see how the market is reacting before we go full out. That's what you know we're again doing A-B testing, branding, you know, brand tests, everything that gets you to that place. Um, you know, you have to have some things that are just a heart, no, and others that are, you know, we can go there, we can do it. And same thing, I get a personal brand too. Try a little story here, try a post there. Oh my god, it goes hard. Well, guess what? You can delete it. You know, it's like I like to try these things out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

I love that you say that because it's it's so important. And in my brand voice workshops, this is what I also say that there are the do's and don'ts when it comes to codifying your brand brand voice, right? Like, I will always, I will never, right? So the more we codify it in a way where a new person joining our team, or you know, like maybe you're hiring a VA or you have a design uh designer who's coming on board. Now they can come up with disruptive ideas, but when they know that this is the outline where where they need to kind of play, yes, play within that outline of you know of disruption. Disruption doesn't mean that you need to really go on the contrarian side of things, right? You can within that uh uh you know definition, within that brand voice codification, you can just still try and be disruptive, and then your creative juices need to flow in a way that can help uh bring the brand alive, if I can say. And uh, and yeah, it's beautiful that you say that. And I it makes me wonder that I can see how balanced approach you have towards you know, whether it's your team or or the work that you do. I wonder, does it is it the feminine that is making it like I wish I had a boss like you, honestly, when I was in carpet.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Thank you, Sabas. That's high-based coming from you, I will say that.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

But the thing is, like, it it becomes different when you have a male boss versus a female boss, right? Like there, there are uh there are there are things that you will never ever have access to sometimes when you have a you know male boss. So do you see that difference in your organization or outside that people the teams respond differently when the leadership is feminine or masculine?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So I'm gonna take this to an even deeper level here and say that actually one of the best bosses that I ever had from an emotional perspective was a man. And he was a straight man. And so, you know, so I want to reframe this in energy, feminine versus masculine energy. Um, so I think part of what I used to operate, and we've had personal conversations about this before, right? About the the, you know, a lot of times in corporate masculine energy is rewarded, right? Especially when you're growing up and you're a young woman and you're trying to prove yourself and be serious enough. So when I operate in the masculine energy, um, I don't think that I have as much impact on the teams that I was building, right? Because also in the masculine energy, when you're constantly proving, it's not about caring for your team around you. They don't necessarily feel psychologically safe. And I'm doing some doctoral research on this, this concept as well, right? Of like how psychological safety both protects and improves team performance. So when you're in that masculine energy, does not always, you know, that does not always come. And then when you're too sometimes in the feminine energy where you're not, you're not able to at least the the masculine energy in the sense of like move, drive things forward, right? Versus creative, care, nurture, but you can still be fierce in your feminine energy. But when we started to step more into the feminine energy and blend them both, right? Use the masculine to get stuff done versus the feminine to connect with my team, that's how my family balance. And I think in corporate, you do find that most people, even women, are operating out of the masculine energy, right? It's coming from a place of fear.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

I need to get this revenue from that feminine energy.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

But can we take a moment to really see how you are doing in the midst of our love?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Because when you're not here,

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Oh, amazing. So who was listening and they want in their workplace? Because I have a lot of common friends. Am I so good to listen to my uh podcast and they always come and tell me what I like this or you can definitely go and have your hands on and also with coming. Don't do that when the book is released, okay? We want to say big thanks from our audience to you for sharing everything that you've shared today. And thank you for being here. Thank you for being such a lovely guest. And see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yeah, see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Of course.