Breaking Glass Ceilings and Embracing Emotions: Communication Propels To New Heights With Melinda Lee

Welcome, dear listeners to the speak in flow

podcast. This is where we dive into the art of communication

and leadership development. I'm so glad you're here. Today's

powerful episode is about breaking the glass ceiling, and

how our communication can propel you to new heights. A glass

ceiling, we think about that when we're thinking about it's a

metaphorical barrier, right? When we're thinking about when

we're at work, and we're climbing up and trying to get

promotions, and then suddenly, there's a glass ceiling, the

system may not be set up to promote you. Many of us women,

minorities feel this the most, when I think about a glass

ceiling at a personal level, because it can affect us both

professionally and also personally, I think about my

grandmother, when she was 25 years old, she was sold into a

marriage to a man who's 35 years her senior. That means she

listened to her husband, and also three wives talking about a

glass ceiling. She had no saying lots of barriers, couldn't say

what she wanted, or get what she wanted, because she couldn't

even speak it. Most of our glass ceilings are actually they're

not as difficult and challenging as my grandmother. In fact, most

of our own glass ceilings are own. They come from ourselves.

And I call those communication barriers. These are the barriers

that sounds something like I don't know if I should say this.

I don't know if I have all the information. I better not see

it. I'm not ready yet. It's our own doubt, preventing us from

speaking up. Think about when you're in a team meeting. And

there's lots of people talking and they seem to know all they

have all the information and you're sitting there thinking,

Should I say something? Is that my time, I don't want to

interrupt them. So we place our own communication, glass

ceilings upon ourselves. So whether the system is not set up

for us, let's not consider that right now. But let's think about

our own because we can control ourselves. So what are our own

communication, glass ceilings that we want to break through.

Because when you do, you can start to be seen, heard and

respected as the leader that you know you are. So today, we're

going to dive into how to do this. I mean, this hits home for

me, I know this personally. And all too well. As I mentioned, I

was not given a good communication model, or role

model. And so when I went to work for corporate, it was hard

for me, I did what I was told and worked really, really hard

and, and then suddenly I get an email one day I've been into

this company, 15 years, I get an email, it was an announcement

that a new hire gets promoted before me. It was all of my

effort.

So all of my efforts went two ways. And I noticed that this

person that did get promoted, was a better speaker than me,

have the right connections, was communicating and meeting with

the right people putting himself out there. And at that point,

for better or for worse, it propelled me to get better as a

speaker. So I did not, I was not born with a gift to communicate

and speak publicly. And here I am. 20 years later, got all the

tools and techniques. And now here I'm sharing this from a

deeply rooted hurt. But now I have this passion to help so

many others. And so I encourage you to really take a moment and

take these tips for you today. Because I want you to break that

glass ceiling. So here's how to increase your communication

competence and influence. Self awareness, regulating your

emotion, listening to others, setting your boundaries and

communicating them and storytelling. So first self

awareness, having your own self awareness and having critical

thinking about it. Really asking yourself, How am I

communicating? Am I communicating like the leader

that I know that I am the leader that the organisation wants you

to be needs you to be? Am I avoiding conflict? Am I avoiding

opportunities to speak up, or on the opposite side, am I speaking

up and being aggressive, trying to demand my way. On both sides

of the continuum, I want you to just really do some self

reflection. And ask yourself where you are, because that will

give you the baseline, right, you're not going to change

overnight, but at least you can start to take steps. Once you

have acknowledged your baseline, and then you regulate your

emotion, to write emotion regulation, managing your

emotion, whether you are nervous, because you don't want

to speak up, or whether you're angry, because you're not

getting your way. Both you want to start to regulate your

emotion, using breath, right. It's a visceral feeling, it's so

instinctive. So you have to learn how to use your breath.

And I'm sure you've heard it all the time. But this is so true.

If this helps I take cold showers, because it forces me to

be uncomfortable. And then I do deep breath, I do the box

breathing technique in before, hold it for 234 and all the cold

water is dripping on me and I'm freezing and I just exhale to

try to slow down my nervous system. So whether you're

nervous or angry, you're slowing down that nervous system,

slowing down the emotion, calming it, and then in before

hold it for for exhale for four fold for for just like a box. So

that will allow you to calm your nervous system as much as

possible, then this opens up your brain to free to free

itself from the cloudiness of that emotion and then you can

communicate more effectively. Then once you're able to

communicate once you have communicated more effectively

using respectful words, you move on to the next step, which is

listen, listen to others. Listen, carefully understand

where they're at. And the other day I was in a workshop and the

facilitator did this beautifully. She knew where the

people were at, she just did an exercise and activity, people

were speaking and she was trying to close up the exercise. And a

person in the audience just kept on speaking, kept on talking.

She's trying to reconvene people. And so she walked up to

that person and says, Hey, I know it's frustrating, you're

speaking and you're engaged in your conversation. It's

frustrating to have to stop. I understand. It can be

frustrating. And that's part of the exercise. And I want you to

know that you can speak again or you can continue the

conversation later. For now, let's all reconvene. So notice

that the facilitator address the person's frustration or the

feeling so listening to other people, knowing where they're at

calling it out, and then bringing it back to what you

need. clearly, concisely, which then brings you this to the next

point, which is know your boundaries.

Far, and has have no regrets and no apology to communicate that

if someone is giving you too much and burnings too much with

more tasks, more things, your kids your boss, you can kindly

say, Hey, I cannot possibly take on this I want to you can

acknowledge the importance of the tasks I know this task is

very important. And I cannot take on this task without

sacrificing my own energy or without sacrificing the quality

of the other things that I am committed to doing. And not

apologise. And lastly, you storytelling. Storytelling is a

powerful communication technique. Most people want to

just take just say it like it is here are the facts. This is what

we need to do to demand it. Or you can inspire action with

stories. Imagine being able to tell your team, if you're stuck

in a project and not knowing what to do, maybe you're set the

client. And you don't want to tell the client what had just

happened. You can bring in a narrative, a project where you

did communicate with the client communicated with the client

effectively immediately and the lessons learned around it. So

communicating and telling a narrative is better than you

going into your team and say hey, talk to the client right

now. You're all in trouble. Right then the team feels

contracted telling us your narrative inspires action

because the emotion around it excites your team because it's

been done before. So tell it with the positivity and the

excitement that is possible inspires action. So using

storytelling is a powerful way to communicate with influence

and leading people. So those are the key tips on how to break

your own communication barrier. Know yourself know how to manage

those emotions of fear or aggressiveness. Right. Listen to

others. Communicate your boundaries, and storytelling,

for inspiring action and others. I hope that you will go and

implement these techniques to break your own communication

barriers and that glass ceiling, propel yourself to new heights

expand to new heights and lead people in a way that is positive

and inspires change. Until the next episode, I am your sister

in flow. Take care. See you next time.