Women leaders: 3 Steps to Increasing Your Influence

Effective leaders inspire others around a shared vision, challenge the status quo and affect positive change. In other words, they transform their organizations. In order to foster this transformation, leaders must have influence with their teams and stakeholders. They must be fully seen and heard.

Leadership is gender neutral - there is not a male or female version. However, as a society, we often apply gender attributes to our collective images of how leaders are supposed to act. We see this as women run for office or become CEO’s. We hear comments like, “She doesn't look like a leader”. Due to socialization, we are often unaware of our biases when we think about “leaders”. In addition, women can feel pressure to conform to these biases and behave in ways that may not be authentic.

Personally speaking, I have received advice to both speak up at meetings and not talk so much - sometimes in the same day. When we enter an organization, we quickly learn the spoken and unspoken rules and norms of behavior. Women are under more pressure to conform to organizational cultures and are more quickly criticized for not “going along”.

Increasing Your Influence by Leading with Courageous Authenticity™

So, how can women increase their influence as a leader while dealing with challenges from societal pressures and sexism? I argue women are at their strongest and most influential when they lead with Courageous Authenticity™. A few years ago, I attended a women’s leadership conference. There was a panel of accomplished executive women discussing their leadership journey. To a women, each one told stories of coming into her own as a leader. The overriding theme of the stories was “be who you are, embrace your best self, stop being so concerned what others think.” One women in particular said she knew she had arrived as a leader when she stopped trying to act like others and focused on being fully herself. She talked about the courage it took to be fully authentic.

So, how can we practice Courageous Authenticity™? Here are the three steps:

Clarify Your Purpose

What gets you out of bed in the morning? What do you find most meaningful? What is your “why”? How clear are you about your priorities? How well are your priorities in alignment with your organization?

Embrace Your Power

What are your signature strengths? What unique skills, talents and experiences do you bring to your organization? What activities give you energy? How do you know you are acting and being your best self?

Strengthen Your Leadership Presence

How well do you communicate your purpose and power? How do your actions align with your purpose and power? How well do you walk your walk and talk your talk? Are you fully seen and heard? How often do your colleagues experience you as your best self?

When you take these three steps and do your best to practice the behaviors of effective leadership, you are in a much more powerful position to have the influence to transform your organization. What can you get started on today?