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Katie and Carol talk about Tip 46 from their book Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership.
Re
member, your business is about people, regardless of your product or service.
You are probably better at “people” management than most men.
The old standard about a person’s competency being measured by IQ is rapidly being debunked. We now know that EQ, the emotional parallel, is more important for leadership and effectiveness in general. EQ stands for Emotional Quotient and is often called emotional intelligence. It mostly refers to how aware you are of yourself, your emotional response to the world around you, as well as sensing emotional posture in others.
In the information age, we are dependent on interaction with people, their intellect and our relationship with them, not assembly lines full of widgets. Women are more adept at most of the areas of emotional intelligence than men and research is telling us that our sensing abilities and insights are invaluable to company cultures, as well as bottom line health.
Appreciate yourself for these inherent aptitudes.
There are also a host of leadership skills more unique to women. Well, maybe not completely unique, but research has shown us that women have more inherently success leadership traits than men. Assess your own attributes based on our Intuition Model.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Hello and welcome to the Skirt Strategies podcast, the podcast for tips and techniques you can use to increase your confidence and project a powerful image to get the job with a client, the raise or the promotion you deserve.
Katie: Welcome back to Skirt Strategies podcast. Katie Snapp.
Carol: And Carol White.
Katie: Bringing you more tips for women in leadership.
Carol: That’s right. Tip Number 46…
Katie: From the book…
Carol: Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership.
Katie: That’s good, Carol. That’s good team building.
Carol: Alright.
Katie: Remember, your business is about people – regardless of your product or service.
A nice little reminder – this tip. Just a nice little reminder. Everyone knows it.
Carol: Everything is about people.
Katie: It’s all about people who need people.
So let’s say you know it – and you’re thinking, “Well, what do I do differently?”
Carol: Well, you know what I would like to say – is that I think we do this better than men.
Katie: The people thing?
Carol: Managing people and think about it.
Okay. So this isn’t just your customer. This is also your customer – which is the people that you work with and manage.
Katie: Right.
Carol: If you’re managing somebody, then you are in the people business. And honestly, women are just better at it.
Katie: Okay.
Carol: And I think it’s because we think about it. We actually give it some thought, we think about how we’re managing people, we think about how we’re coming off to others and we do something about it if it’s not working.
Katie: We do not mean to suggest that men are thoughtless and they don’t care about people.
Carol: No.
Katie: And we’re generalizing. We’re very much generalizing the genders here. But women will take the time to talk about something. So there’s a couple of examples in our new book – by the way.
Carol: Oh, yes.
Katie: Brave Transitions: The Women’s Guide for Maintaining Composure through Changes in Work and Life. In Brave Transitions, we offer up a couple of different conversations.
And what I did is – I challenge the reader with listening to what women talk about and how we will bring up a compliment or an empathetic statement. And it’s not that a man won’t do it, it’s that a man won’t generally get into it like…
Carol: They won’t even think about it. I’m sorry. I love them. I mean, I’ve got lots of men in my life and I love them all dearly and I think the world of them.
But they don’t really consider sometimes – what it is they’re saying. And my husband will say that himself. He’s like, “Really? You think about that?”
Katie: Well, my husband thinks about that very much so. And he’s got a great year for it. But there’s also the difference between the bonding that goes on between women.
So he might have a conversation with me because – husband/wife. And he’ll get into it. But he didn’t do that at work or with friends or husband’s wives. He won’t really do that.
Carol: Golf partners or anything?
Katie: No. And it’s not that he can’t, but that golf partner – that’s a great example.
Let’s say there’s two couples playing golf and you’re at the 5th hole tea and you’re waiting for the person in front of you to clear the fairway so that you can tea off.
Look at the difference in the conversations between the women and the men. If indeed, the men are standing together and the women are standing together.
I mean, the women will start getting into, “So what happened yesterday at the coffee house?” And, “Well, I thought this was going to go on.” “Oh, and I’ve got to go to my friend’s (such and such) next week.”
They are talking and communicating in a different way, a different level whereas, the men are just like, “Huh! The grass on the fairway looks short today.”
And it’s not that it’s not important. I don’t want to say that because my husband would call me on that. He’d be like, “What are you saying?”
Carol: Well, you know it’s also that thing where your husband comes home and says, “(So and so) is getting a divorce.” And I’m like, “Oh my God!” And he just spent the whole day golfing with this person.
Katie: Okay. Yes.
Carol: And you say you have questions. “So is she living somewhere else? Are they going to split up nicely? What happened? Was it bad?” And he has absolutely no idea.
Katie: He just spent three hours with the guy and he has no idea.
Carol: Right. They did not talk about anything near, “Hey, I’m getting a divorce.” “Okay.”
Katie: Well, they’d maybe say, “Oh sorry, buddy.”
Carol: Yeah. That’s it. They don’t go in for details – and we do different.
Katie: Yeah. “You’re going to move?” “Yeah. I’m looking for a new apartment.” “Okay. I’ll keep an eye out for you.” “Okay. Thanks. That’s great.” “Yeah. Sorry to hear that.” It may go that far.
And to them, that is their bonding. My first husband used to talk about how close he was to his dad and they go fish, but they wouldn’t talk about anything.
So they’d come back from fishing and he’d say, “You know? I’m really close to my dad.” I’m like, “Well, what did you guys talk about?” “Oh, we don’t really talk.” “No or do you confide in him?” “No. Uh-uh.” They do not confide in one another.
Carol: Interesting.
Katie: So women will confide in one another.
Carol: So getting back to the tip. Remember, your business is about people – regardless of your product or service.
And one of our points in this tip is that – women are really good at EQ as opposed to IQ. I mean, we have good IQ’s, but talk to us a little bit about that.
Katie: IQ is to intelligence, as EQ is to emotion. Okay? So we know that IQ is important for a lot of technical stuff and getting capabilities – and you’ve got a good aptitude, right?
Carol: Right.
Katie: Good. It’s all good.
Carol: Everybody’s figured out what their IQ is.
Katie: In many of our industries, if someone is smart, if they’re technical smart or they got great A’s or they were Suma cum Laude, then we equate that to genius.
Carol: Right.
Katie: But how many of those people that you knew are really genius – can’t operate in a social environment or can only operate so far?
A lot of the research that we’ve seen from Dan Goleman – who has written a lot of books about this, all of which I highly recommend.
Carol: Did we say EQ is emotional quotient?
Katie: No, we didn’t. But we just did.
Carol: I did.
Katie: Intellectual quotient and emotional quotient.
Carol: Right.
Katie: So Dan Goleman’s model for it. I’ll share his model – which is always worth remembering. And as I do, listen to how you as a listener – how you think you are on each of these five areas and how important that is – in getting stuff done at work.
In the HR world, a lot of us say that, “Someone gets hired for IQ and fired because of lack of EQ.”
Carol: Oh, interesting.
Katie: In some of the research that Goleman has done – shows that in fact, Primal Leadership (one of his books) reflects that a certain… (and I won’t remember what IQ level it is,) but you have to have a certain IQ level for an MBA.
And anything above and beyond that IQ – is unnecessary, it doesn’t show any more success.
Carol: Oh, right.
Katie: You just got to be able to operate intelligently to a certain degree. And then everything beyond that is relationship.
Carol: Interesting. Oh, sure. You mean, as far as success.
Katie: As far as success – which is great news for women.
Carol: Yes. It is.
Katie: And I think that’s exactly why girlies – why we rate better in leadership skills.
Carol: Yeah, we do.
Katie: Do not took the competition, guys. Sorry, but…
Carol: Well, it’s a little bit of a competition. Okay, go ahead.
Katie: Well, actually it’s not a competition, but it is an issue because we’re not moving up for reasons that seem unfair and inequitable.
Carol: Right.
Katie: His five components and then we can talk about each of the five of them just a little bit.
– Self-awareness
– Self-regulation
– Motivation
– Empathy
– Social skill
Now, the first one that I think women are always talking about is Self-awareness. Well actually, the first two – Self-awareness and Self-regulation which is Self-management. But to manage yourself, you have to know about self.
Carol: And you have to have some awareness about it, yeah.
Katie: Exactly. I use the term a lot – just emotional maturity. Someone that you can talk to about, “Oh, this is not working well. We had a little bit of a conflict.”
And If you’ve ever have had a conversation with someone that does not have a lot of EQ or emotional maturity and they kind of squirm away from the conversation or they put up deflectors or they are on the surface level, they’re very accommodating and they’re like, “Oh, yeah. Okay, let’s do that better.”
And then they walk off and they ambush you. That’s immature. I’m like, “That’s just immature. It’s so immature.” But it really is a lack of emotional intelligence.
Carol: So do you think that women – sometimes were too self-aware and…?
Katie: Conscientious?
Carol: No, no. Because I think we are very conscientious.
Katie: We’re conscious – self-conscious in a bad way.
Carol: Yeah. I mean, we’re so aware of the fact that we have big thighs or whatever – that it gets in the way of actually getting stuff done. And I don’t really mean that. We just had that conversation.
So let me think if I can think of when you’re overly aware of how you’re coming of. And so, you’re not coming off natural.
Katie: Maybe. But I think the risk in that is worth the payoff.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: It’s better than the alternative.
Carol: Okay. Yeah, right, true.
Katie: Certainly. Goleman’s definition is the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on the others.
Listen to that – the depth of that. Recognize and understand your moods, your emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others.
Carol: God, we’re good at that.
Katie: God, it’s big though. And it takes a lifetime to get good at, I think.
Carol: Oh, I was good when I was a kid.
Katie: Okay, gotcha. You’re my role model.
Well, maybe through the years – emotions and moods change. The childbearing years were hormonally ridden.
So physically being at the expensive… your hormones was really hard.
I mean, there’s times still when I feel like, “Okay, I’m just in a really irritable mood.”
But it’s only been in the last decade or so – that I’d been able to say, “I’m in an irritable mood. I’m going to maybe watch what I say. I’m going to maybe hide out a little bit more at home, rather than leaving a trail of bloody bodies behind me.”
You know, I’m so much better than that. I’m not perfect at it and I might recognize it and then not manage it, but I’m definitely recognizing it more.
Carol: Yeah. I have to say that I can do that a little bit better as well. And it’s very interesting because we’re talking about hormones.
I had a doctor prescribed… you know, one of those rub on hormone things – to get all your hormones in order. And she said, “Let’s put a little testosterone in that and just see how it does.”
Do you know what? It was horrible.
Katie: When was this?
Carol: It was quite a few years ago.
Katie: Oh, okay.
Carol: But it was awful. I would put it on and my husband and I – we named this stuff “bitch cream.”
I can’t imagine what a man goes through with testosterone running around his body. It just got to be horrible. I can’t even…
Katie: Well, a girlfriend of mine – I’ll call her, Cathy (she probably would be okay if I used her name.) But Cathy used it and she said it made her angry. She said to me, “I can see why all our presence are filled with men. I can absolutely see it.”
Carol: Well, my husband saw it too. He’s like, “Wow! That’s crazy.”
Katie: Yeah. Testosterone has such a great use when its competition and drive and focus, but the bad side of it is – an easy tipping point I think, to get to.
Carol: Oh, that was a very interesting experiment and I’ll never do that again.
Katie: Never do that again.
Carol: Alright. So let’s keep going. Coming back to Goleman…
Katie: Goleman, by the way is G-O-L-E-M-A-N. If you look him up, it sounds a little bit like it would be Goldman, but it’s G-O-L-E-M-A-N.
The second is Self-Regulation – The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, the propensity to suspend judgment and to think before acting. What’s that like?
Carol: Interesting.
Katie: So those are people that have good integrity, they’re comfortable, they’re open, they’re flexible to change. It’s really self-regulation.
I mean, the awareness of it and self-regulating of it is – I just can’t say it enough. It’s the path to a more than you.
Carol: It is.
Katie: But the flipside – people that don’t have it. And if they’re unaware of it – Okay, there is the problem.
Carol: There is the bloody bodies.
Katie: Yes. The people that are unaware of it. And you just know those people, (we go back to that) they’re just so immature.
When we’re growing up and you call someone immature, there probably really isn’t a development.
Carol: They are young after all.
Katie: But emotionally, there can really be an immature person that as a grown person and they have no sense of what they’re doing, no sense of their mood or the emphasis that it have. They’re in this whirlwind of themselves and they’re dragging people through it.
Carol: Yeah. Not good.
Katie: No, it’s like the Tasmanian devil. I mean, it can be when they’re spun up. I guess it could be the opposite too. They could be calm and meek and they have no idea that everyone thinks they’re a doormat.
The third one is Motivation.
Carol: Thank you for moving on.
Katie: Motivation is (and I’m reading these directly from something that Goleman wrote that was published in the Harvard Business Review. So I do want to give him credit for this importantly.)
Carol: We will either put that as a link on the show notes or we will just go ahead and put them in there.
Katie: Okay. It’s an article called – What Makes a Leader.
Third one is Motivation – A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status, a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
Carol: And remember here, we are talking about EQ. So this is the third in the list of five components of…
Katie: He calls this emotional intelligence at work. So they’ve got the work spin on them – which is great.
Carol: Oh, okay.
Katie: The people that are driven to achieve are good at this. The people that are optimistic – even in the face of failure.
Carol: And I think that motivation – if you’re working for an organization that you believe in what they’re doing, that gives you a certain amount of passion for what you’re doing.
Katie: The reason to me that that is emotionally intelligent – (and motivation is emotionally intelligent) is that it says to me that you’ve figured out what turns you on at work. You have figured out how to tap into.
I mean, that’s not anything you’ll learn in the school book or with a PHD. I mean, that’s really something that is about you and your emotional intelligence.
Carol: Yes.
Katie: Okay, Number 4 – Empathy.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: Have some empathy for me, Carol.
Carol: I do.
Katie: Do you care?
Carol: I care. I care deeply.
Katie: Here’s the definition – The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people.
Carol: You know, I always think this is interesting. Because I work with adults and they come to me and say, “Well, (so and so) – they make up people’s motivation. (So and so) is doing this and so, she must be stupid.”
Katie: Yeah, or “She’s trying to ambush me.”
Carol: Oh, right. “She’s trying to ambush me.” And I’m like, “What makes you say that? What on earth? Why would you believe that? Why wouldn’t you just believe that that’s the way she does things?”
As a matter of fact, I had a situation where somebody was kind of doing that and ambushing the other person and saying, “I’m not going to work with her and…”
And I said, “Look. We’re a small office. You’ve got to work together. You’ve got to figure out a way. Here are some of the things that I think about that person when I think about them. She always gets the job done. Yes, she might get in your face about getting your part of her job done (payroll and things like that.) But that’s because she’s always getting it done. You’ve never missed payroll, have you? And it’s because she’s doing it right.”
Katie: Right.
Carol: So I’ve tried to bring them – talk them out of the tree and give them a little bit of perspective around what motivates that person. It’s not the same thing that’s motivating them.
Katie: So you’re using empathy – when someone else is not well self-regulated.
Carol: Right.
Katie: So we’ve just tied very cleverly – the second component and the fifth one together.
Carol: Look at that.
Katie: We’re genius! There are so much to this. It’s eye opening.
Carol: You know what? It’s interesting to me how little empathy people have for each other and what motivates them. Oh, you do a training. You’re disc training, right?
Katie: Aha. Yes.
Carol: And I think that just gives people a perspective on somebody else that they can have the empathy now. It’s not because you’re trying to drive me crazy – because you’re acting like my mother. That’s who you are.
Katie: Right. I get you.
Carol: Exactly. And I think that’s important training for any team.
Katie: Well, a man that I worked with once – the consulting firm that I worked with (he’s one of the owners.) He’s going back to style. He’s very analytical and he was questioning me about something that I was doing (this was several years ago.) And I was enough insecure at the time – that I saw the questioning. I saw his motivation as trying to unseat me.
Carol: Right.
Katie: This was my conclusion. What he’s really trying to say is, “I’m not worthy of being on that project.” That was not his motivation at all.
Carol: Right.
Katie: So by not being clear about – How am I seeing something? What’s triggering me versus what’s the reality of what’s coming from him? I may not know the reality, but jumping to the conclusion got me in trouble.
Carol: Right.
Katie: One of the other owners who happen to be female said to me – subsequently right after that we were talking about something and I mentioned it. She said, “You know, he likes to have answers. He likes to see a picture of something and he’s very good at detail. So he gets that by asking questions.”
And suddenly, this light went on in my head and I was like, “Oh! He’s doing it for his understanding. He’s not doing it to…”
Carol: “He’s not interrogating me.”
Katie: Exactly.
Carol: It is not the inquisition, but it felt like that.
Katie: How different that was.
Carol: Very.
Katie: So empathy is important in reading the emotional reactions of others and being able to reflect on them.
And then the last of the five components is Social Skill – Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Well, how do you think women do this?
Carol: You know, it’s interesting. We don’t do it the same way as men and we’ve kind of been expected to do it the same way as men – for many, many eon.
Katie: The relationship building is what you’re talking about?
Carol: Yeah, yeah. “Well, do you play golf?” “No.”
Katie: You can’t go into the men’s room.
Carol: Right.
Katie: Well, you could.
Carol: How do you build those relationships? And you know what? I look at the leaders that I really adore and they’re all people who are intimate relationship builders.
They make everybody in the room light up. They make everybody in the room feel good about themselves. You knew that you have that. That’s just charisma and it comes in the room with them and it leaves the room with them, etcetera. So I think that’s a social skill that women can easily have, but we just have to get better at it.
Katie: I have a comment about that.
Carol: And networking in also something that I think we are very good at, but we don’t do it the same way as men.
Katie: No. It’s very different. And that goes back to how we communicate.
Carol: So go ahead and comment.
Katie: What were you talking about?
Carol: Coming into a room and being charismatic. Is that it?
Katie: Yeah. I was going to talk about ego. And maybe this goes best back to testosterone.
The ego that men have or the need to be competitive (let’s just call it that.) Because ego sounds so negative like, “You and your big ego.”
But the need to be competitive and to kind of play, win, lose, because that’s what a lot of men come to the table with, men – more of them play sports growing up and there’s all kinds of reasons that men are naturally better at that. Generally, men are better at that.
So when that comes into the workplace, the whole ego thing kind of eclipses the ability to build a relationship because you’re not looking at that intimacy, you’re looking at it as – “Is it a threat to my competitive nature?”
And I don’t think it’s because they’re insecure although, a lot of women will say, “Oh, he seems strong, but he’s really insecure. That really hurt his feelings and he’ll just never show it.” And maybe, men are more insecure than we think they are.
Carol: I don’t think they think about it enough to know.
Katie: Yeah, maybe.
Carol: So I get where you’re going with that and I think it’s a little bit of an important piece to talk about. And that is – in our social skills, women are good at it. Why? Because we’ve been doing it for millennia.
I mean, you go back to the fact that we were the gatherers. We would go pick berries. We would talk when we were doing that. We would bring the community together with words and talking and being together and hanging out.
You know, men go out – hunt, shoot, kill. And they’re usually silent because you have to…
Katie: Be careful.
Carol: You have to be careful. Yeah, there’s either a sabretooth tiger chasing you or you’re chasing a deer.
Katie: I would be quiet during that.
Carol: But when you’re chasing a deer, you can’t talk. And that’s very much simplifying, what we’ve been through.
Katie: And men see that as bonding. Men love that and that’s fine.
Carol: Absolutely.
Katie: It’s not any worse or any better, it’s just different.
Carol: Right.
Katie: I don’t want to sound like we’re hanging men out to dry here. They’re just different.
Carol: They have social skills too. And they can bring those into a workplace just as easily as a woman.
Katie: Yeah.
Carol: I’m just saying – let’s embrace the natural part of that in us. And the natural part is that we’re very good at relationship building.
So I can get a relationship with you because I’m asking you about, “How are things at home? How is your husband doing after the accident?”
Katie: It shows that you care – which is empathetic.
Carol: I’m caring about you. Yes.
And again, going back to this tip. Remember, your business is about people, regardless of your product or service.
Katie: So that’s why we wanted to drill down into emotional quotient – EQ.
Carol: Yes.
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Katie: It’s because of the people’s side of business.
Carol: Yes.
Katie: And those five components from emotional intelligence at work, I’ll repeat them one last time.
– Self-awareness
– Self-regulation
– Motivation
– Empathy
– Social Skill
We’re so glad you joined us for this episode of the Skirt Strategies podcast. We’d love to hear from you with questions or comments. Email us at info@skirtstrategies.com or interact with us on Facebook.
Now more than ever, the world needs powerful, confident female leaders. And that’s what we are.
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