Melt The Glass Ceiling
Are you a career woman? Do you work in a male dominated workplace? In Melt The Glass Ceiling, your career coach, Lisa Liszcz, will share tips and strategies on developing the career of your dreams. New episodes drop each week.
Melt The Glass Ceiling
Mastering Self-Advocacy in the Workplace: Strategies for Women to Shine and Get Noticed – Part 2
As we dissect the subtle yet potent art of self-advocacy for women in the workforce, you'll learn to
- wield the power of body language
- set firm boundaries that safeguard your time and energy
- effectively seek feedback
Tune in and bolster your workplace dynamics toolkit as we explore effective ways to bolster your professional presence for success and confidence.
But that's not all—arm yourself with my exclusive 8 Ways to Advocate for Yourself and Your Career checklist, a downloadable companion to guide you further.
And checkout resources Lisa mentions in the podcast:
Book: Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin - How to Recognize and Set Healthy Boundaries
Video: Your body language may shape who you are | Amy Cuddy | TED
And join us next week when Lisa discusses: Imposter Syndrome
Hello, today we are talking about mastering self-advocacy in the workplace Strategies for women to shine and get noticed. Are you ready to shine and get noticed? I hope so. I've got some great tips for you today. I know it can be uncomfortable to advocate for yourself in the workplace, but you need to do it to stay competitive, to let people know what you like to work on and what you accomplish, and also to be visible. I can tell you, based on my years in human resources, that men advocate for themselves in their careers all the time. It doesn't have to seem like bragging or and it's just natural for them, and if they're doing it, you need to be doing it too. It can be so cringy. Advocating for yourself can feel like bragging. It can feel arrogant or incutistical, mostly just because we're not used to it and we haven't found ways to advocate for ourselves that feel comfortable for us. So I have three tips for you today that you will be able to put into action right away, probably tonight, that will help you advocate for yourself and your career in the workplace.
Lisa Liszcz:Tip number one use professional body language. Good body language like good posture. Professional body language can include many things. First of all, good posture, just feeling comfortable in your own body. The way you can get ready to just feel relaxed in your own body is, before a meeting or presentation, practice power posing. What is power posing Well posing what is power posing Well? Power posing is a practice that helps you to feel more confident in your body. This is something that we do before a meeting. Before a presentation, just go someplace, like into the privacy of your office or even into the privacy of a bathroom. Stall and practice posing like Wonder Woman or practice reaching your arms up over your head. Do things that help loosen up your body and help you feel confident in your body. This will help you have more confident body language in your meeting or during your presentation.
Lisa Liszcz:What else? Professional body language also includes your tone of voice, how loud or soft your voice is, and even your eye contact. So keep your tone friendly and professional. Keep your voice in a medium range, not too loud, not too soft. The problem I see, one of the challenges I see for a lot of women is just speaking too softly. Pick out the person in the room who's furthest away from you and speak in a way where you feel confident that that person is going to be able to hear you and speak very clearly. Use that medium tone of voice that makes it easy for people to hear what you're saying. You'll come across as being much more confident.
Lisa Liszcz:And eye contact Look people in the eye. You don't have to stare at them, but make eye contact. That helps you come across as more friendly, interested and confident. So look people straight in the eye, okay so, number one, we're using our professional body language. Number two set clear boundaries for yourself. This is very healthy and it shows and again it shows confidence.
Lisa Liszcz:Communicate your availability and workload to maintain a healthy work-life balance and prevent burnout. This is so important. So many of my clients right now are dealing with overwhelm and burnout. There is a book that I really love. It's an oldie but a goodie. It's by Ann Catherine and the title of it is Boundaries, where you and I begin how to recognize and set healthy boundaries. I will put the link to that book. This book is available on amazoncom and I'll put the link to it in the show notes.
Lisa Liszcz:You want to look at your physical and emotional boundaries, watch others and pick out someone who you think does this well. A simple way to set, one simple way to get started is just pay attention. Like when someone says something rude, how do people react? What seems to go well and what seems to not go so well? When someone says something rude in a meeting or in a gathering, a lot of times people just ignore them. Sometimes people move away, sometimes people laugh nervously. What seems to work best? Number two set clear boundaries. It's really important for you to set clear boundaries around your availability to manage how much workload piles up on you. Number two set clear boundaries. It's so important for you to communicate your availability and your workload to maintain a healthy work-life balance and prevent burnout. A simple way to get started on this just watch other people. What do people do when someone says something rude or someone stands too closely, how do people respond? Do they react? Do they move forward? Do they move away? Do they laugh nervously? Do they ignore the infringement? What do people do and what seems to work best and what do you think you would be comfortable with? Just start observing. That's how you can get started.
Lisa Liszcz:When we start paying attention to the basics, then we can get more savvy about subtle boundary violations and subtle ways to enforce our boundaries. So, for example, start paying attention to does someone infringe upon your lunchtime, your personal time, your vacation? Does someone make progressively inappropriate comments? Notice how people handle these things in situations that you're in and what seems to work, what seems like a good idea to you. Also, think of people you admire and mentors that you have and think about what they would do in similar situations. Then it's time for you to start practicing. For example, you could start practicing just speaking up when you see an infringement on a boundary. If someone says something inappropriate, speak up, say you know what that's not okay. Someone says something inappropriate, speak up, say you know what that's not okay. That's not funny.
Lisa Liszcz:One time I was in a meeting, and one time years ago I was in a meeting and I had a co-worker who was Asian and he was late. He hadn't shown up for the meeting yet. He'd been invited and he was expected to be there and the executive who was running the meeting said, oh, he's probably out eating Chinese food. And then he put his fingers on the sides of his eyes and pulled them off like they were to make them look more Asian. And I said to him you know, that's really inappropriate. And then we just all kind of moved on with the meeting and, yeah, my colleague showed up. But you don't have to make a big deal about it. But when someone says it or does something inappropriate, find a way to let them know. That way, you're protecting your boundaries. There's a book called Boundaries where you and I begin how to recognize and set healthy boundaries. Love this book. I read it years ago. It's by Ann Katherine and I'll put the link to it on Amazong. com in the show notes. Okay, so we're using professional body language and we're setting clear boundaries.
Lisa Liszcz:Next, let's seek feedback. Be sure that you regularly request constructive feedback from supervisors and peers so that you can continuously improve and grow in your role. Ask specific questions like what am I doing well? How does this behavior that I'm doing well help our organization overall? How does this tie into a benefit for our team? And next, I don't recommend that you ask and next, I don't recommend that you ask what am I bad at? Or what am I poor at? Here's what I want you to ask. Ask the question what could I do even better? And phrase it that way. That way, the person you're asking does not have to point out something you don't do well. They can build on something you do and make recommendations on how you could do that even better. It really takes some of that sting out of asking for constructive feedback, so that's how I recommend that you phrase that question. It is my goal to help you accelerate your professional success.
Lisa Liszcz:I don't want you to get stuck in a rut. I don't want you stuck in a rut or not living up to your potential. So start today. You're gonna use professional body language, set boundaries and ask for feedback in effective ways. Next week I'm gonna be talking about imposter syndrome. You know that feeling when you might feel like a fraud. It happens to most of us, so I'll be talking about that next week. In the meantime, please download my eight ways to advocate for yourself and your career. If you don't already have this freebie, please download it now. The link is in the show notes. There are eight additional ways to advocate for yourself and your career that I did not discuss today. So there are eight additional ways to advocate for yourself and your career that I did not discuss today. So that gives you 11 ways to advocate for yourself. Surely you can find a couple in there that work for you. The link is in the show notes. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts in the meantime? Now go melt the glass ceiling.
