Skip to content
Women in Leadership Course Notes
The two ways to position yourself as a leader in your organization.
1. Through force; Playing the game of politics and jockeying for position.
2. Through personal change; One of my mentors once said that you could change the world by changing yourself. The organization is an ecosystem, and you are part of that ecosystem. The moment you change, then the whole system has to change to accommodate you.
The biggest personal change for you is your beliefs and your self-image. By believing 100% that you are a leader and seeing yourself as such, you alter your behavior, your attitude, and your emotions, and a result the system will move you to a different part more suited for your new self-image. This could mean a different position, promotion, or function change in or outside your organization.
The personal change is my favorite route to leadership, and when done right; it will produce the fastest and least resistant results. This does not mean you ignore the first approach of force. I think a mixture is a good and the ratios will depend on your personality.
How to develop your self-image and belief as a leader?
The best way is to follow a systematic belief building process. You can find more about it in the following article:
This is a process I used to build beliefs like “I am a leader, I am a leader in my field, I am more than good enough, I am a great speaker, etc…” As you can see these are beliefs that help me with my confidence as a public speaker and as a leader.
Behave and Communicate Like A Leader
1. Elevator Pitch:
Leaders always articulate themselves well, especially when they talk about themselves, their team or their organization. Here is a link to read up on how to give an effective elevator pitch:
How to Elevate Your Elevator Pitch: For Corporate Professionals
2. Behavioral Flexibility and Strategic Messaging
To be viewed as a leader you need to behave like a leader and communicate like a leader. This article talks about how to be flexible with your language and also tells you the best way to talk to come across as strategic.
3. Executive Briefings
Communicating to the executives is different than communication to non-executives. You have to be able to communicate across multiple thinking styles concisely. You need to know how to structure your message for the executives and know how much of the content to share with them. The following article will explore the seven questions that you need to answer in every executive brief:
The 7 Questions You Must Answer in All Your Executive Presentations
4. Alpha Nueva
Leaders are Alpha. The word “Alpha” has many negative connotations, and as a result women leaders try to avoid associating with it. Unfortunately, by avoiding “Alpha” women are forfeiting a significant piece of the leadership equation.
Just like there are Alpha men, there are Alpha women. And I believe that Alpha is not something you are born with, it is something that you acquire, develop and refine.
Since Alpha is a big piece of leadership, we don’t want to dissociate from it; we just need to dissociate from its negative connotations. That’s why we need a new type of Alpha: Alpha Nueva.
Here are some distinctions between old Alpha and Alpha Nueva
1. Old Alpha: Dominant, Aggressive, Male, Bully, Rude, Controlling, Demanding, Sexist, Outrageous
2. Alpha Nueva: Assertive, Behaviorally Flexible, Gender Neutral, Kind, Polite, Collaborative, inspiring, Tolerant, Authentic
5. Handling Attacks
Occasionally as a leader, you or your ideas will get attacked directly or indirectly. Ideally and in an enlightened state, you want to take in attacks as feedback and not as attacks. But, since enlightenment is a tall order for most of us, we have to start with tools to help us with the attacks.
Tool #1: Drill up or Drill down questions.
If the context allows for it, it’s best to ask clarifying questions when being attacked. When asking questions, you either drill up or drill down.
Drill up = asking questions to find the source of the attack.
Examples of Drill Up Questions: What is your reason for X? What are you hoping to get by doing X? What would doing X do for us? Notice that all the questions start with “What” and avoid the using of “Why”. That is on purpose because asking “Why” usually triggers negative connotations (which you want to avoid given that this is a conflict situation).
Drill Down = asking questions to find out the specifics of attacks.
Examples of Drill Down Questions: What specifically are you talking about? What’s an example of that? What part of X are you concerned about? Etc..
Tool #2 Reframing
Sometimes the context does not allow for questioning, and the next best thing to do is redirect the attack through reframing. Reframing is a linguistic tool and is used by politicians, and experienced debaters; it takes the momentum of an attack and redirects it.
The easiest way to reframe an attack is to use the following formula:
It’s not X; It’s Y
If someone attacks you in a meeting and says “you are too picky.” Then you say it’s not too picky; it’s careful. If someone attacks you by saying “you are too aggressive,” you reframe by saying “it’s not aggressive, it’s assertive or passionate.”
Makes sense? Notice, it’s much better to reframe than to disagree flat out. Reframing gives the opportunity to disagree and then keep the conversation going by moving it in a different direction.
6. Know what motivates you and what motivates others at work.
This concept comes from my book Self-Leadership Guide. To get more information on this, please see the book: it will help you figure out your motivational buttons and the motivational buttons of others at work including management. As a result, you will be happier, more motivated and more influential.
7. Brand on Mind
As a leader, you have to have your brand on your mind all the time. Just like a commercial brand, you want people to know you for certain things at work including being a leader. So that when it’s time for a promotion to a leadership position, you don’t have to convince people of anything.
There are some qualities you want to brand yourself for, and they will in turn brand you as a leader.
Strategic: You want to be viewed as a strategic person and not just a soldier. A soldier does what they are told and takes care of the execution. You want to be considered as strategic more than a Soldier. The best way to be viewed as strategic is through how you communicate. Revisit point 2 and 3 of this summary for more information on how to do that.
Mentor: You want to be viewed as a mentor. Take the time to find other people who are not at your level in the organization and mentor them. You can help with resources, planning, execution, connections, and whatever they need to succeed.
The trick is not to do this in the shadows; you have to bring up the fact that you are helping others succeed in your 1on1s with you manager. Don’t call it mentoring, just call it helping others in the organization, do it long enough, and you will be labeled as a good mentor.
Good communicator: The biggest glass ceiling for professionals now a day is their communication skills. Improve your skills, and you will shatter the glass ceiling. You can improve this by taking public speaking training and coaching to improve your skills and confidence.
Confident (Alpha Nueva): People don’t follow a perceived uncertain leader, they follow confident ones. See Alpha Nueva in section 4 above. Note that confidence and Alpha don’t mean outrageously expressive, it just means authentically expressive. Some people lead with a quite confidence, and others do it loudly; the trick is to do it authentically.
In addition to the 4 things above, list 3 more things you want to be known for as you brand ________, _______,_________
The initial four are a must; the other 3 are up to you as long as they don’t conflict with the first 4. Don’t try to do too many of these qualities because it will be hard to implement and reinforce your brand image if there are too many things on the list.
Since you have a total of 7, schedule one for each day of the week and find opportunities to spread it as your brand. For example if Monday is Mentoring, I would update my manager every Monday about the work I am doing to help others in the company. If Saturday is strategic, I would send a big picture memo to the team on Saturday to talk about the big picture. Etc. (I know you might not work Saturday’s but this is an example)
