32: How to Be a Modern-Age Leader

No matter what you do for a living, you're a big cheese or on the first rung on the ladder. Maybe you're pursuing a degree online or a board member on a sports team or a non profit. You are living and working in the modern age. This week on the podcast we will discuss why it's important to keep up with technology and with the online space if you're going to stay relevant as a leader, business owner, entrepreneur, or anyone that doesn't want to look like they own a flip phone. Not that there's anything wrong with that. For the Confident Communications podcast, I'm Molly McPherson and this week how not to look like a Technology Luddite. Here's a problem I see and hear about time and time again in my work and my personal life. For the sake of argument, I'll just call them leaders. So people in charge are people who care about how other people perceive them professionally and personally. They're not always as savvy as they think they need to be, or that they currently are Now. Last night I had a wonderful evening. I was speaking in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace at an event about how women can shine brighter in visibility and status online. It was sponsored by Starbucks Partners, the Women's Impact Network. It was a wonderful evening. Before the event, I met up with a friend. We had, you know, had some drinks, a little nosh before the event. And my friend, we went to grad school together and she is smart. Smart like correcting people's grammar when she reads text smart. Yet I had to explain to her the difference between imessage and text on an iPhone. And it's so funny because technology almost defies intelligence because it changes so much. There's so many updates and there's. They come by so quick, so it's difficult to keep up with all the changes. And I believe many people follow the same rule that I do, which is I'll figure this out when I have to. If I don't need to know how to do it, I'm not going to waste my time. Even though I'm considered usually the most tech savvy person in the group, I am only one YouTube video away from being a super savvy person. I gotta figure it out myself. So whether it's because of an age gap between the leader and his or her team members, or just a deficit in communication skills in general, every leader needs to continually work on being more relevant in the modern age. It is a problem for everyone. On today's program, I'm going to run through four different topics. They're fourfold and I'm usually a rule of three type of gal, but I needed to add an extra one. The topic one is knowing the difference between how the genders communicate. Topic 2 recognize weak speak and how to overcome it. Topic 3 know that writing looks different now than it used to. And Topic 4 How to be savvy on social media. Now, when you take the time to become a modern age leader, you can relate better to your team, to your workers, and be a much bigger asset to your organization. For example, if you're at a bar and you know you have to get to a speaking event in 11 minutes and that bar is six minutes away, you need to know how to access your Google Maps immediately to figure out how to get there, if you know what I'm saying. All right, first stop gender differences. Men do believe that communication should have a clear purpose when they speak, and that helps them become effective communicators. Now note I'm not saying better communicators, but effective communicators when it comes to getting their point across quickly. Because the difference is that women believe communication should be a starting point for the collaboration. There's a difference there. It's not one gender pitted against the other. One is better than the other. There are going to be differences and you will notice it in the workspace if there's conflict in the workspace. If you're trying to work through something in the workplace but also at home, there's going to be differences. But men in general like to get to the point quickly. But women, they want to collaborate. They want to work on ways to get there. Now, in the workplace, in meetings, men will speak more often, which makes them seem a little more competent. They want more details and they speak much more directly than women. And they tend to use a lot of I words. And I don't mean they use words starting like igloo or ice. It's I as in me. They own things when they speak. I will do this, I want this, I did that. Women are most likely going to speak to build rapport because again, they're collaborators. They may take longer to respond because they want to think carefully before speaking. They also use a lot of we speak, we did this, we did that. If they want to talk about an event that they planned, they might say, we planned this amazing event when that woman may have done all of the work. Why is it important to understand the differences between the genders? I don't even have to tell you why it's important because it comes up a lot. It comes up at home and it comes up at work. But it really helps if you understand what these triggers are and why the genders speak or communicate the way that they do. It just leads to a common goal and getting there a lot quicker if you understand how the genders communicate. Now, weakspeak in general, includes filler words. I spoke about filler words quite deeply in episode two. And if you check out the show notes, you can see the link to what's the deal with these filler words? And I recently read an article in the Atlantic, and I also included a link to that in the show notes and. And one piece of the filler word discussion that I found interesting. They wrote in the article, when one person asks a question, it takes an average of 200 milliseconds for them to respond. That's pretty quick. So quick that you can't even hear the pause. So, in fact, it's actually faster than our brains work. So it takes the brain about a half a second to retrieve the words to say something, which means that in the conversation, one person is gearing up to speak while the other one is still speaking. It makes for a breeding ground for filler words. And we all use filler words, but that doesn't mean we all should use filler words. I hear them all the time. I hear them from my kids, I hear them from colleagues. I hear them wherever I go. When someone's telling me a story on a sideline somewhere, or if even someone's writing in a Facebook post, we all do it. But I also note the people who do not use them and the people that do not clutter their talk with filler words. I find that they're far more eloquent and skilled in their craft. What are some of these filler words? Well, in weak speak, some of them don't mean anything. For example, the thing is, just for all intents and purposes, basically, these are pretty familiar words and many of us use them, but if you think about it, we don't need them. You could omit them from any statement, and it does not change the context of the statement whatsoever. Next are the hedges. And these are responses to things that we don't necessarily want to commit to. A touch, kind of, maybe, probably. If you had to guess which gender tends to use hedge filler words more than the other, which one do you think it is? And if you said men, you'd be wrong. It's women. Women tend to use the hedges in their conversation because they want to do More of a soft touch when they speak. There are also filler words out there that make us sound vague. And again, these are the filler words that women tend to use. A man might be more apt to say the word will, whereas a woman might say may or could. A man might say all. A woman may say many or some. A man will say none. A woman might say hardly any. A man might say impossible. A woman might say improbable or doubtful. Do you notice the difference? It's very subtle, but it's definitely there. You need to connect with your audience and you need to speak up. Weak speak really doesn't have a place anymore if you want to be perceived as a strong, effective leader. Next, writing. I spoke about writing a lot in episode 1910, hacks that take the suck out of writing. Again, you'll find the link in the show notes. Did you know that the way you write is a dead giveaway for how old and savvy you are? So your writing, no matter where it is, needs to be clear and concise. And brevity counts. How people can tell your age. Well, if you're writing a sentence and you end that sentence with a period, are you a double tapper or are you a single tapper? What are we tapping? The space bar? Do you hit it twice or once? Typically, the double tappers. When I ask this question in a room and I see the respondents and I see how old they are, typically it is the Gen Xers and above, the baby boomers and the traditionalists. I'd even say most Gen Xers are single tappers. The reason why? Because that's how they were taught. Many of those people were taught to use a typewriter in high school. That's me. I was taught the double tap. Remember using it? But the double Tap eats up very valuable real estate when you are writing online, particularly if you're writing on social media, particularly if you're writing on a social media site like Twitter that only allows for a set amount of characters. In the case of Twitter, 280 characters. You don't want to waste a space on a space. And it's also that tell that lets people know that that you might be of a little older generation now. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's not. I am very proud of my Gen X status. Even as I age. I have no problem with it. But I know there are some people out there that struggle with this technology and there is that fear and there's that shame that they don't feel like they're as savvy as younger colleagues. The double space is kind of that giveaway. It's that tell to let them know that you are likely not 24 years old. So you can use it if you want. But just keep in mind if you do, you are sending a message. Also, don't use all caps when you write. It does convey a yelling tone. And emojis are not typically used for professional communication. There's a caveat to this. I don't think it should be used as a starter. It shouldn't be in the first email, it shouldn't be in the first text. And professionally, I don't think emojis should really be in email communications with work unless you're working very closely with someone and it's a colleague. Emojis, I find, are more for the handheld devices, it's more for texting. And where I do find it effective is that it allows you to end a conversation by using an emoji. People feel that if there is some written word on a text or an email that that conversation still needs to go on. You don't want to leave someone hanging out. But the emoji is the perfect device to stop the conversation. How do I know this? If you look at your iPhone, if you use text messaging, they introduced the emojis for a response. Apple is wiring us to use emojis as part of our language, our online language, so you can use them in texting devices. It's perfectly okay. But if you're using an email, tread lightly on that. Only use emojis with people that you know well. Now, even more important, when it comes to writing, not enough people do it because they don't want to be judged. I find in my day to day, most of the people that I know don't write. They don't write a lot. But I promise you, if you're a writer, people will notice when you write something and when you don't. When I say writing, what do I mean? I'm not talking about a social media post, you know, writing a paragraph on Facebook or composing a tweet, or putting a couple sentences together on a LinkedIn article that you're going to share. I mean writing content in a blogging form or publishing an article on LinkedIn. That means you're writing. And I promise you, people notice when non writers write because you're putting all of your hard skills, your writing hard skills on full display. And I get it, it's difficult to write because people will judge you on your writing. They definitely will and it takes time to write, so no one necessarily wants to plan writing in their day. And people may judge you on how you write and your composition skills. However, I feel that their admiration for your writing and just the act of writing and publishing something will far outweigh any judgment on your writing. I think writing and content development in general is a valued skill. I notice when people take the time to write and I look at a writer, especially a non writer writer, as a thought leader and a lot of leaders out there want to be known as one. But I also notice the leaders out there who don't write and it makes me wonder why aren't they? And sometimes I just default to well, maybe they can't write. So take a stab at it. Go ahead, write something today and go ahead and publish it. The next piece Social media In episode 25 I share five quick hits for using social media and I used it under the banner of Major League Baseball and how they are using social media to knock it out of the park. In general, you must be active on social media if you want to remain relevant in the online space. And yes, you do want to be relevant. There are people who want to live off the grid. That's their brand. But here's a thought. If you are off the grid, you are seriously diminishing the know like and trust factor of your customers or people that do business with you. People can't get to know you, they can't get to like you, and they will not trust you if they don't know what your point of view is online at all. Without an online presence, you are not a part of any conversations that are happening out there. Does the organization that you work for, do they have an online presence? Most likely yes. But as a leader in that organization, your presence will show more transparency of your overall organization and you as well. And I think the most highly valued characteristic right now for leaders especially is trust. And you will not gain the trust of your customer, your colleagues or anyone if they don't know who you are and how you think and what you think about and how you lead. The best place to do that is online. Now you don't need to know every nuance of every single social media network, but I advise you that you should at least own one space online where you feel comfortable. It's almost possible for one person to keep up on multiple social media networks. I don't even do it. I juggle a couple and it's difficult for me. But I have to do it because this is a space that I work in and I also get help, you know, in that area. But for the average person that doesn't have someone on staff that's doing their personal social media, you want to focus on at least one area and the safest place for newbies. When it comes to social media, as I've said before on the podcast, is LinkedIn very easy to use, very low risk. When it comes to harming your reputation by saying or doing anything, you're usually just discussing professional endeavors and you're liking and congratulating other people online. It's also a platform for very easily publishing work that people will read and hopefully share. It's pretty difficult to get in trouble on LinkedIn, so I usually tell professionals that is your safe place and that is the easiest one to start using. I also think Twitter is a fairly easy social media network to use. I mean, after all, you only have to write for 280 characters. How much trouble can you get in in 280 characters? Well, unfortunately, a lot of people can get in a lot of trouble with only 280 characters. So when you start on Twitter, you can just start by retweeting or just reading Twitter or just sharing articles, and then you can start to add your own content. Just this week in the news, there was a teacher who was fired because she went on a Twitter rant about illegal immigrants. This took place in Fort Worth, Texas. And and she was tweeting to who she thought was only President Trump. She thought that Twitter was a direct message social media network. So she was on a tweet storm of sorts about her school district and her views on illegal immigrants. And it didn't go directly to the ealdonaldtrump. It went to the complete Twitter universe. And she has now lost her job since then. So she's unemployed and learned a valuable social media lesson. And the lesson here is not that you shouldn't use Twitter, but once you do, you should at least know precisely what you're doing on that social media network. And honestly, it applies to all of them. I know what you're thinking. I don't have time to learn all of this. I want to do it. I know I need to do it, but I don't have time. And even if I did, I wouldn't know where to go. Well, these topics, we talked about how genders communicate, we talked about recognizing weak speak, we talked about writing and how important it is and how it looks different now than it used to be. And of course, being savvy on social media, well, I do have a solution for you. Soon I'm going to be releasing the Confident Leader Network. No matter what kind of business you're in, whether you're a corporate executive, business owner, or an aspiring communications expert, you know you need to be an effective communicator so you can be heard, seen and stay relevant. So that's why I'm launching this online subscription network where you can find monthly trainings about relevant social media platforms and information you need to know on how to become an effective communicator in the 21st century. You can sign up now to get on the waiting list. You can go to Molly mcpherson.com, network. If you sign up now, you will get a link to a special founders rate that will be a rate that is the lowest it will ever be for the network and you will be grandfathered into that rate. So if you sign up now for more information, when we're ready to launch, you'll be the first to know and you will have the lowest rate. So that's all I have today for the Confident Communications Podcast. Thanks for joining me. I hope you can put all of these skills to use and be a more confident communicator. And if you think you need a little more help in this area, then sign up now for the Confident Leader Network. Molly mcpherson.com Network Bye for now. Sam.