SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey there, Maureen Chana here, founder of the MindSight Academy, neurocoach to executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and a neuroleadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you deliver results by teaching you how to work smart to enable you to be in control of your brain, manage yours and other people's emotions so you can change behaviors, flourish, and exceed expectations. Welcome back to another episode of Lead to Excel podcast. I am so so thrilled to be with you today because today we are going to be talking about women, female leaders. Our topic today is beliefs that limit female leaders from getting those top executive jobs. The statistics have been discussed for so many years about the gap between females that come into the workplace or even come into managerial positions and the numbers that are at the top that actually get into C-suite or into executive roles or even non-executive roles. A lot of times the influence or barriers can be from external sources, which could be the culture of the organization, unconscious biases, stereotypes, a lot of those. But today my focus is really on the internal barriers that women face themselves. Internal barriers that actually prevent them from getting the roles or even applying for the roles. As organizations start shifting, you as a woman must be ready to grab those positions, and that's my focus on this podcast. And really, that's my focus on really helping as many women as I can really get into those executive roles by navigating the obstacles and barriers that you face externally but also internally. So without wasting any more time, you know, as usual, get yourself ready, have your drink, have your coffee, have your snack, and put your feet up and listen in. I'll start with this question. Where are you? Where are you right now in your work, in your career? Are you satisfied with where you currently are? Does your role give you an opportunity to use your talents and create impact? Do you feel valued not just for your contributions but also for your potential? Does your work give you a sense of fulfillment and is it actually satisfying your ambitions? Do you feel that you're making a difference in your workplace, in the world, and will your current path enable you to achieve this if you're not yet quite there? Do you feel unheard by your colleagues or by your organization at large? It's a known fact that female leaders have a very different experience in the workplace than men do. Understanding how beliefs and values impact on your work performance is very important to enable you to achieve your career goals so that you can rise to the top of your career. What are beliefs actually, you might be asking? A belief is something you hold to be true or false, right or wrong. Beliefs tend to arise from assumptions and judgments that you make about yourself or others and are one of the most significant filters that influences your behavior. Limitations that you face in life arise from these self-imposed beliefs. You literally become what you believe. There's a saying that goes this way: you see the world not as it is, but as you are. Mark Twain said, if you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're also right. I'm not sure if it's Mark Twain or Henry Ford, but one of them said this quote, and it's so true. The key to understanding your beliefs is to develop self-awareness. And I keep going on about self-awareness in terms of you know one of the skills of emotional intelligence, and it's such an important skill, especially now. Research suggests that when you see yourself clearly, you become more confident and more creative, you make sounder decisions, you build stronger relationships and communicate more effectively. You also become more effective as a leader with more engaged employees and a more profitable organization. Self-awareness will enable you to understand yourself, understand how you feel, understand why you behave the way you do, why you make the decisions the way you do. Self-awareness is your first key to enabling you to get to the top of your career. Even though most people believe that they are self-aware, self-awareness is truly a very rare quality. Tasha Yurich in her article in 2018 said that self-awareness is represented by how clearly you understand your values, passions, aspirations, reactions, which include your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths and weaknesses, and the impact that it has on others. She said that self-awareness is associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control and happiness, it is negatively related to anxiety, stress, and depression, which is absolutely true. So to enable you to change your beliefs, you have to know what those beliefs are, and that is the importance of developing self-awareness. Trying to change a behavior that does not serve you well tends to fail unless you understand what that belief is, and also you need to be able to understand the beliefs that inform that behavior. Your beliefs shape your actions and create the mental reasons for not changing particular behavior patterns. Many beliefs that keep female leaders in particular stock tend to be ones that may have helped them in the past, but they are now unaware that it's now an obstacle to them moving to the next level in their present or current situation. Let's now look at some of the limiting beliefs that keep many female leaders stuck. Ambition is a bad thing. Many female leaders that are working hard to get to the top have often found themselves criticized for being too ambitious. What does too ambitious actually mean? It seems to mean that any woman who is ambitious is uncaring, over the top, aggressive, and too selfish to be trusted. When men are described as being ambitious, it's usually considered a positive thing, a strength actually, which makes very successful women often reluctant to describe themselves as ambitious. Too many times I hear female leaders say that they're driven but not ambitious. Ambition has come to be viewed by many females and many female leaders as a negative thing as they avoid associating themselves with it. But I would consider a desire to climb to the top of your career as evidence of being ambitious. And might I add a very positive thing as well? I've heard ambition being described by some as being solely focused on positional power. There's no reason that aspiring to have satisfying work and make a difference in the world cannot be a form of ambition. And there's no reason for ambition to automatically be viewed as arrogance or somebody being self-centered or untrustworthy. Ambition can actually be defined as the desire to maximize your talents in the service of work you find worthwhile and rewarding. Choosing to believe otherwise or making negative judgments about ambition can become a way to rationalize resistance, and you find that it subconsciously prevents you from taking some necessary actions to get to the top because, in a way, you start talking yourself out of it. Another limiting belief is I have to be seen as a good person, which in a sense can be interpreted as saying, I don't want to disappoint people. Many women work so hard to be perceived as being wonderful people or perceived as a wonderful person. While this is great for humanity, overdoing it can work against you, especially if it's associated with a belief that being wonderful means not upsetting or disappointing others. I have people that I've worked with refuse to ask for help when they are struggling. They refuse to delegate tasks and end up stuck with time-consuming projects that undermine their effectiveness because of their fear of appearing incompetent or upsetting colleagues or bosses. I've also seen many female leaders stay in an organization where they are not being promoted to the top jobs or even given top projects, and they stay quiet and even turn down great job opportunities and other organizations because they feel that leaving the organization will make them look ungrateful after the organization has done for them over the years, and they don't want to disappoint people and ruin their self-image of being nice. In quotes. Another is work-life balance. Society's bias against women makes many women willing to move heaven and earth to perform 100% with all and absolutely all aspects of their life. Being successful at a demanding job while trying to maintain a fulfilling personal life can be quite tough in today's demanding work culture. But expecting women to choose between career and personal life or even women expecting to be perfect in both is too much to expect of any human being. If you find yourself bound by these expectations, it's most certainly time to free yourself of them because they will continue to undermine you if you don't. These beliefs tend to start early in girls' lives and all have their roots in society's expectation that women should put the needs of others ahead of their own. Many women subsequently carry these beliefs with them into the workplace. The good news is that you can now learn to develop self-awareness about these beliefs and expectations that all seem to be designed to hold you back, and now you can start getting rid of them so that you can climb your ladder to the top and thrive there. So basically, many women never quite believe that they can get the top jobs, that they belong at the top, or that the achievements are deserved. I would say classic case of imposter syndrome. They just talk themselves out of believing that they can do it. I'm here to tell you that you can do it and you deserve that top row. You deserve that top job. Because it's really for women who've done training, who've done courses, or who know that they're ready, but most times the hindrance or obstacle is internal. So we're going to deal with the internal obstacles, but also using that knowledge to enable you to deal with the external obstacles as well. It is a fantastic program. Training your mind and achieving success is something you have to train yourself in because many of us were not taught this at school. Neuroplasticity, which is the science that teaches us how to rewire our brain by learning new things and channeling our brain to think and act in the actual way that we want, is the key to getting you to break out of those barriers and get to the top where you desire. Your beliefs play a major role in achieving major, minor, daily, and long-term goals while setting you on the path of success. In order to accomplish your goals, your beliefs and mindset need to match your ambition. Otherwise, it will hold you back from getting where you want to be. Remember that whatever you sow, you will rape. The question is: what thoughts and beliefs are you currently sowing? If you are interested in the program that I mentioned, click on the link below. The first step is to book a free consultation call with me so that we can determine where you currently are, determine if the program is the right fit for you, and then we'll take it from there. Because the key to getting to the top and excelling there, knowing how to work with others effectively, knowing how to be influential, knowing how to navigate change, knowing how to get the best out of people, knowing how to get the best out of yourself, knowing how to be the best, even in the midst of crisis, even in the midst of hostility. It all starts with what's going on in your brain. So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If this interests you or you know someone that will benefit from the program, please send this podcast to them, let them listen to it, and I look forward to seeing you all in the next episode. But remember, if you've not subscribed to this podcast, please click that subscribe button wherever you listen to this podcast. Because once you subscribe, you will not miss an episode. Also, I would appreciate you leaving a review or comment about the podcast. Finally, do remember to look after yourself, stay safe, and thank you once again for tuning in. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. In future episodes, we're going to start having a few guests on the episodes to deal with certain topics that some of you have asked about. So I look forward to seeing you soon. Bye for now.