Tip Thursday - Communications

In research, the following is found to be true... that those who talk more are more likely to be perceived as dominant, more competent, intelligent, trustworthy, the Leader. Unfortunately, studies also find that in mixed groups (ie: business meetings) men tend to speak 75% of the time, effectively reducing women's voices around the table. Apparently women's challenges lie not only in getting to the table in the first place, but in establishing a voice around the table as well! Therefore, it is not enough to show up.  If you want to be perceived as a leader you must also learn to speak up!

Having a Seat at the Table: Not the Same as Having a Voice

Women talk more than  men.

Right?

In fact, this is simply a socialized belief.  We are socialized into believing that women talk more than they actually do.  This is a well-documented Listener Bias, where we 'believe' something that is not truly happening.  The fact is that, in mixed groups, men speak 75% of the time, meaning that women speak roughly about a quarter of the time.  This is a significant difference, especially given that most hold a belief that is counter to this.  The implications of this are significant for women, especially in the workforce.

If men are speaking 3 times more often than a woman is, then men gain three times the visibility.  A definite plus when it comes to promotional opportunities.  Numerous studies show that young girls are interrupted twice as often as young boys.  This pattern of interruptions serves to teach our young women that what they have to say is not as important and not as interesting.  It teaches them not to speak up, leaving the floor and the opportunities for men to pursue.

In the Courtroom, which we hope to be as unbiased an arena as possible, more female testimonies are interrupted that men's.  Interruptions of this nature lead others (including the jury) to discount the value of the content being shared, or to view the source as being less credible.  Doctors are more likely to interrupt their female patients, giving them less time to speak about their health issues, and female physicians are more likely to be interrupted by their patients than are their male counterparts.

Interruptions are an important insight into position and power.  Being granted your 'turn' to speak is not just about providing you with an opportunity to voice your thoughts, but is also a signal about your 'right' to speak.  It is about importance, significance and value.

Study after study demonstrates a strong bias to exclude and diminish the female voice around the table. (even on Twitter, where male posts are re-posted twice more often as women's posts)  Therefore, even if you have managed to hold a seat around that executive table, you still need to consciously work at gaining a voice. The further challenge, of course, is that in order to be heard women end up modifying their socialized mode of speech in order to 'speak like a man'.  However, women who master that skill too well receive push back for being too aggressive.  Therefore, on top of all the other skills necessary to succeed in business today, women also have the additional need to be Gender Bi-lingual.  They must be balanced in speaking both female and male-speak.

How then do we find ways to gain a voice around that important table?  Well, ideally, we modify some of the socialized beliefs and behaviours.

• We stop interrupting young girls in schools.  They are interrupted twice as often as are boys, teaching them that their thoughts are not as valued, effectively shutting them down and out.  
• Stop telling little girls to be 'good' little girls, to stop interrupting others, to wait their turn and praising our little boys for taking charge and speaking up.  The double standard exists because we ingrain it into our children.  We need to be consistent with the messages we are sending if we want our girls to be valued for their thoughts and contributions and less for being nice.

On the job we need to...

• Provide support for those that lack the ability to be heard as readily as others, finding comfortable ways for them to share.  
• Deal with interruptions directly, allowing others to finish their thoughts.  "Excuse me, but XX was still speaking.  Please let them finish and we'll then return to your thought".  Don't stand by and allow someone else's voice to be stolen.
• Avoid using tag questions (...don't you agree?) and disclaimers (It's just my opinion but... I could be mistaken but... This may sound strange but...) which weaken your position
• Avoid using uptalk, that upward inflection that makes it sound like you are questioning what you are saying.
• Learn to feel comfortable with clearly stating our position and needs. This may not always feel 'safe' but it is always honest and is more likely to get you what you want/need.
• Consciously work to balance the desire to be liked with the need to be heard, lest being liked wins out at the cost of our credibility.

Learning to handle interruptions and gain a voice around the table may not immediately seem like a critical skill to develop but we know that being heard around the table is synonymous with developing your credibility, perceived level of competence, personal power and positional leadership.  Often promotions get derailed over these seemingly non-critical things. Build your presence more strategically and consciously.   Don't mistake showing up with speaking up.

How to Avoid Push-back as you Lean In

With the relatively recent release of Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In, much has been made of the need for women to advance their careers by learning to lean in to the meeting room table.  This requires women to be more assertive about taking on new responsibilities and opportunities, seeking challenges and taking on more risks. The problem, most posit, is that women don't Lean In enough, that they don't assert themselves and demonstrate the leaderships qualities necessary to get ahead.

As much as I agree that this is an issue for many (women have long unconsciously adopted many behaviours that help them be liked by others that also rob them of leadership presence) there is an equally large barrier for women's advancement that Sandberg fails to give equal airtime to; the Push Back that many women experience when they do Lean In.

When women behave in confident and assertive ways (as a Leader) they often find that they receive Push Back from those around them. Stereotypes still prevail, where women are seen and expected to behave as the nurturers and people-pleasers.  However, Leaning In requires women to behave in ways that may contradict these expectations, behaving in slightly more 'masculine' ways, which isn't as expected and therefore not as accepted.  Thus, they get push-back from others, pushed to once again conform to the stereotypes.

This then forces women to either:

1. Revert to stereotype, Leaning Back, not In 
2. Lean In and preparing for the need to confront the Push Back that will follow, challenging stereotypes and the associated systemic discrimination it creates
3. Learn to walk a tight-rope, balancing precariously between being seen as 'too' Feminine, and thus not strong enough to assume Leadership positions, or 'too' Masculine, and thus get labelled a 'bitch' and ostracized from Leadership roles.

If your goal is to get ahead, then option one does not do it for you since it merely keeps you where you're at. Option two, though a worthy cause, is more likely to help advance the careers of those that follow than it is to provide you with more opportunities.  This is not to say this is not a worthy fight but many of us lack the energy or desire to head off to battle each day.  Option three then is our best bet for getting ahead.  Once we're 'in' power, we can then work to change the systems that kept us down.

The challenge with balancing on that tight-rope successfully is that it is hard.  There are no guide-lines or guide-ropes to help us to remain on our precarious perch.  What works for one woman may not work equally well for another because each of us is unique.  Our physical structure, size, voice and personality all influence how others will see us and therefore shape the behaviours and approaches we need to maintain to allow us to Lean In without the Push Back.  

However, there are some key strategies that all women can adopt that will help as they step out on that tight-rope and begin to navigate their way across.

• Don't confuse Assertiveness with Aggression.  While both may serve to clearly state your position, aggressive behaviour violates the rights/interests/position of others, while assertiveness does not.  Aggressiveness is stereotypically accepted as more of a masculine trait and will therefore tip you off that tightrope while assertiveness helps you to assume that leadership role without alienating others along the way.
• Adopt Gender Neutral management and leadership basics such as Collaboration.  Although many may think of Collaborative behaviour as more feminine in style, don't mistake it for a bid to make everyone your friend.  Collaborative behaviour is inclusive, it seeks to involve others, but it doesn't preclude you from making the final decision.  Collaboration is not Consensus.  You can be both collaborative and decisive.
• Don't Uptalk.  If you want to be seen as a Leader you must sound like a Leader.  Therefore, when giving voice to your thoughts and recommendations you must be able to share them in a straight-forward manner.  Injecting an upward inflection into your voice while delivering your thoughts simply serves to make you sound hesitant and unsure.  You'll sound 'nicer' but you won't sound like the leader you desire.  
• Network with like-minded women.  Learn from the experiences of others, swap strategies, pick up new tips and techniques to try for yourself.  Others are going through the same struggles as you - don't feel that you need to face them on your own!  
• Remind people why you're here and what you bring to the table.  Women can get caught up in making friends and making nice and forget that they need to be constantly positioning themselves. Sitting back and allowing your work to speak for you is not enough to give you the visibility that you need to get ahead.  You need not take on the braggart role, but you do need to learn how to brag. There is a continuum of bragging behaviour at your disposal.  Too far on the left tips you off the tightrope onto the feminine side of behaviour while too far on the right skews you too far to the masculine side.  Adopting a few more self promotional strategies. that are comfortable for you. will help you to stay a little more balanced and help you to gain greater visibility.  

Leaning In is all about getting ahead while the Push-back of others is all about keeping you down.  Learning to navigate the tight-rope between masculine and feminine behaviours is all about getting you ahead without activating anyone's stereotypes.  Leaning In without Push-back from others helps keep you from giving up and pushing back from the table.  After all, you have to be able to stay at the table to one day run the table.
  

The Downside to Uptalk

I have been speaking with audiences for almost a decade about the negative impact of Uptalk on their
presence.  Despite this though, it still remains one of the most common coaching issues for my clients to work through.

For those unfamiliar with the term Uptalk, it is the upward inflection typically heard when someone is asking a question, but it occurs when making a statement.  This upward inflection serves to turn your statement into a question, making you sound hesitant and unsure of your content. Over time, and with frequency, it can seriously undermine your credibility.

Generally, people will fall into one of two categories of Uptalkers.  Either they uptalk all of the time, and are therefore Habitual Uptalkers, or their uptalk is leakage serving to signal shifts and changes in their internal state.

A recent study, conducted by Thomas Linneman highlighted key Gender Differences in handling success by tracking the use of uptalk by contestants on the popular television game show Jeopardy!  Overall, he found that contestants tended to use uptalk roughly 37% of the time.  This usage does make sense given that participants are, in fact, often wondering if they have the right answer or not.  This self-doubt leaks out through their voice in the form of uptalk.

However, Linneman also found that men tended to use more uptalk when they were playing against female contestants or when they were correcting a female contestant when she was wrong.  It seems that men will unconsciously integrate more uptalk into their speech in an effort to 'soften' some of their language.  Their increased uptalking, in these situations, signifies an attempt to be 'nice'.  We know from additional research that this is often the source of much of women's uptalk within the workplace, reflecting their desire for others to like and think well of them.  Perhaps it is heartening to know that men's uptalking behaviour is also influenced by the same desire, even if not to the same extent as women's.

The finding of Linneman's that is the most disturbing for me though is the link he uncovered between success and uptalk.  We have long known that women are often encouraged to downplay their success, while men are encouraged to own it.  Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In speaks to many of the reasons why women's careers stall out, resulting in fewer women at the senior level.  Uptalk is one of those reasons.  It is a subtle cue we deliver to others, letting them know that we do not feel we are worthy or deserving of success.

In Linneman's study, he found that the more success the male contestants enjoyed on the Jeopardy! show, the less uptalk they exhibited.  They became more comfortable and confident with their success as it increased.  However, the more successful that a female contestant became, the more uptalk she engaged in. Her comfort with her success increased, resulting in more uptalk.  Unfortunately, in business, the greater your uptalk, the more hesitant and unsure you sound, which will serve to limit and restrict the responsibilities you are given.  If you don't sound ready and capable then you are likely to be passed over.

Certainly, learning to speak without Uptalk is a necessary step to stepping-up.  You need to sound confident if you want others to place their confidence in you.  I work with clients often, helping them to eliminate their uptalk.  However, it can't stop there.  We need to also work at eradicating the belief that women are somehow not worthy or deserving of their success.  Often they have worked longer and harder to prove themselves, yet they are still left feeling like an imposter in that senior role.

 “I still face situations that I fear are beyond my capabilities. I still have days when I feel like a fraud. And I still sometimes find myself spoken over and discounted while men sitting next to me are not. But now I know how to take a deep breath and keep my hand up. I have learned to sit at the table.”    Sheryl Sandberg

Learning to 'sit at the table' means learning to have confidence that you are 'enough', that you are deserving and that you have the right to be there.  Gaining this belief helps us to manage and control the unconscious and damaging leakage (such as uptalk) that we would otherwise display.  

And men... though research supports the fact that women are the more likely uptalking culprits, I have many male clients working to eradicate their uptalk also.  In the end, we all want to appear and sound confident and capable, even in those moments when we are not.  Perhaps, more so in those moments.