How to be a More Authentic Leader

Hey there, everyone. I'm your host, Molly McPherson, and this week on the podcast, I get to announce that it's finally here. The Confident Leader Network is live. So you can head on over to the website to check it all out. It's confidentleader, Dot Network. How's that for an extension? It's Confident Leader, all one word, dot Network. And you can check out my new membership sign up. Essentially, what this membership is is my work that I do on the road and with people, over the phone, virtually, and I have compacted it all together into a membership. I learn about information and I want to share it with as many people as I possibly can. And sometimes when I'm in a room and I'm working in a workshop or I'm working just speaking to a room full of people, I wish that I could reach more people. And. And with this network, I can do that. So head on over to the website and this episode is brought to you by the Confident Leader Network. So no matter what kind of business you're in, you're a corporate executive, a business owner, an entrepreneur, maybe a communications expert who has a boss who needs to learn a little bit more about online communication or just communicating effectively in the 21st century, then this is going to be the online platform for you. Today's episode is all about authentic communications. There are new rules, and I am going to tell you all about them. Take a listen. Today on the podcast, learning all the new rules, rules about authentic communications. The idea behind this is that to be an effective leader, you have to be an authentic one, because I believe that authenticity is foundational for being effective, and no doubt it leads to an important and critical value with leaders, and that would be trustworthiness. Because I feel, and I've seen with experience, the more real you are, the more authentic you are, and the more authentic you are, the more trustworthy you are. And I know you've heard me talk about it a lot on the podcast. You can read it in my emails or if you ever see me speak about it in person. You know, the one core value I talk about the most is trust. And you cannot have trust if people don't know you and at least sort of like you. So in today's podcast, we're going to talk about how to be a successful leader in the digital age. Some ideas behind this, the communication differences, verbal communication, nonverbal communication, written communications, and building buzz. Those are the five points, the five steps that I think you need to truly become an effective communicator in the digital age. And more important, an authentic one. So today I want to talk about how the genders communicate differently so we'll discover what men do and what women do a little differently. That separates them. Also, recognizing and eliminating weak speak. How do you do that? By injecting a little power Speak. And lastly, learning the importance of nonverbal communications, because many of you know the nonverbal, the gestures sometimes speak a whole lot louder than the words. Now, what does authenticity mean to you? When I say that word, what does it mean? It evokes realness. Whenever I think of authenticity, when I think about real, I think about reality television. Because that's the real deal, right? Well, sometimes it is because some people, of course, are on show. You know, they. If you watch the Bachelor, the Bachelorette and other shows like Big Brother or Survivor, a lot of those shows are scripted, but you are going to see some very real moments in there. But what I want to pull out from that is not so much about the people who are on there, because I'm sure many of you who watch reality television, you know the progression. When reality TV started with the Real World on mtv, I think I'm showing my age because I certainly watched that first, the first season. And here's the. A little side note, I applied to be on the Real World, I think for the second, the second session. I was working at a radio station at the time, a rock radio station. I thought, well, who wouldn't want a girl that drinks a lot of beer from the Midwest? But anyway, I didn't get called. Not surprised to hear that. But at any rate, but when it comes to reality television, the grabber on it and why it's so popular is that it's real people. And it's real people, well, living in the real world, doing real things. It's things that we could all relate to. So what grabbed everyone in the beginning was just the realness of it, right? Like we couldn't believe that we were watching people go about their lives day to day to day. And the last time they did this, and I'm thinking this off the top of my head, was the Loud Family, right? Like, that was a documentary that was probably two decades before that. I'll probably have to check my math on that one. But that was really the first time that a television that. That cameras went inside of a family. So we have reality television. And another reason why it is so popular and why it is so successful is because it's different than scripted. People like realness. They like the rawness. So when it comes to leadership, it's really no different. Now, we don't want you to think like the Bachelorette, so to speak, you know, and. And scripted, but it's the idea of showing the real you. It's an leadership that emphasizes your authority through honesty and showing transparency to your stakeholders. Those are your customers, your employees, your members, your team members, your fans, your voters. It's showing your value system and hopefully that it's built on an ethical foundation. Now, in general, authentic leaders are positive people. If people were authentically crabby or annoying or yelling and screaming all the time, it's not going to attract people in or bring people in, but it's about this idea of improving your individual performance or team performance from an internal, ex stakeholder point of view, but also getting those external stakeholders to know and like and trust you. And the most important thing is, again, is if you're real. Now, what do these people have in common? Pope Francis, Gayle King, Mark Zuckerberg, Joanna and Chip Gaines, Chrissy Teigen, Alex Morgan, Donald Trump, Ariana Grande, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which is a name you hear me speak about a lot of. What do all those people have in common? Well, one, they all happen to be on the TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2019. That's one. And two, I happen to think they're all incredibly authentic people. They all have in common is a following of either fans or voters, people who tend to love them. And I'm referring to their base, their fan base. Donald Trump has a fan base. So does Ariana Grande. But they do not change who they are to suit everyone. They are all authentic leaders in their field, appealing to the people that support them. Not all of them are older because authenticity does not come with age. It comes with common sense and truth. It's people who are comfortable in their own skin and they understand how to tap into reality and tap into their authenticity to become successful. And that's what I want to do with you. What is your challenge when it comes to being authentic? Think about it in your workspace, whether you own your own business, you're a small business owner, or you're an entrepreneur, an online entrepreneur. Maybe you're the head of an organization, a large one, a small one. Maybe you're the head of a huge division. What is your challenge or what is preventing you from being really authentic in the digital age? Now, I know enough. I've been on this podcast long enough to get a sense of who, well, my base, I understand who my quote, unquote fans are. And the ages, where they are, where they're coming from and their backgrounds. And what I hear a lot from this challenge point of view is they don't feel comfortable putting themselves out there because of the risks associated with it. There's a fear there again, so they feel safer doing what they've always done. They are wired to not be on a computer and not be on a video. They can reflectively go back to what they did when they were growing up, when they were teenagers and when you were in your 20s. For most of you listening, I think you were not worried about a video popping up on social media. I certainly wasn't. The only video we had were huge video cameras. And that wasn't even until high school, I think until that was really introduced. So we didn't have that fear. So what happens now? People get older. The decades are behind us. There's this again, this layer of fear that's there. And you feel like you have to be completely prepared and completely ready to put yourself out there. But part of the key is to not let that fear get in the way. Now let's talk about this first area of the differences and how we can effectively communicate based on our gender. Now, first of all, men are more apt to be very direct with their communications. They don't ramble. They get straight to the point where women, they view communication as a conversation. It's an act of sharing or collaboration. Women like to do things in groups. Men, they want details. Men are more direct. Men are more inclined to one up. What that means is if a man is talking about something that he's involved in, let's say it's a big sale and there were five people on the team to get this big client and they all brought it in. A man is the person in that group who's likely to point out his role and his role alone in it. And he may even elevate himself for the work that he did. And when he does it, he's going to speak more often because that is deemed more competent. When you speak more, men are more direct. They use direct words like I will. No. Yes. Now, a woman will one down herself. Take that example of the big sale that the group of people got together. Let's say that the woman was the key factor in getting that client to sign on the dotted line. When that woman is recounting the sale back home to her spouse or with her friends, perhaps she may say, well, you know what, we all did it as a team and we all work together to try and achieve that goal and I'm just happy for everyone. Now, is it a good or a bad thing if you're a power speaker or weak speaker? Not necessarily, but the problem is, is that it creates disfluency. And if you have disfluency, you really cannot be an authentic leader if people don't understand your point of view. Now the question is, who is better? Like who is the better power speaker? Is it males or is it females? Well, it's neither one. And it also depends, obviously, but men can get to the point quicker. Women, it takes them a little bit more time. However, a male might be a good person or someone that has male characteristics with communicating. They might be a good person standing up in a room trying to make a pitch. But you know what, if there's a social media video, you know who you're going to get? You're probably going to get that woman. Because more women use Facebook. And women, if they're more collaborative and they're into sharing more than that's social media speak. So you see, one isn't necessarily better than the other. So verbal communications are very, very important when you are trying to communicate authentically. How can we do it? Well, we want to get rid of all of the excess baggage that we can. And what is an example of excess speech? Actually, basically they're filler words. If you listen to episode number two in the podcast, it's all about filler words. I'm going to include a link in the show notes and I list all the filler words that people like to use and they all use them. And there's lots of examples. Really literally pretty just being that. And then you have hedgewords a bit, maybe, apparently, probably again, these are the words that females are more apt to use then some of those qualifiers. A male might say, I will do this. A female might say may, might and could. To be a speaker or an effective one, you can be a little raw, you can be real, but. But you want to get rid of all the filler and the fluff that is causing the disfluency. Because the key in authentic communications is that you need to connect with your audience. If you do not connect with them, if there is some discordance in that communication, you're not going to have that connection. And it won't be authentic. If you try too much or try too hard. You don't have to be too precise. You don't have to. You don't have to be perfect. You remember Brad Phillips? He was the. He was the chief throughliner at the throughline group. And he spoke on the podcast about media relations. And I'll include a link to his podcast in the show Note as well. He mentioned connection, not perfection. And that's such a great line because it's so true. When you are speaking with someone, like I'm speaking with you right now, or let's say if I was sitting next to you in the car as we. As you were listening to this, or you happened to run in someone at a restaurant, you're not going to worry about the perfection of your voice and the perfection of your diction. You're not going to worry about exactly using the precise word. Why? Because you're not worried about it. That fear isn't there. But when people have to prepare for something, whether it's on audio tape or whether it's on a podcast or television interview, they tend to freeze up. And part of that freeze up is because of the fear. So for verbal communications, you want to be able to speak confidently. Now, one of the best things that you can do to be authentic is try and find opportunities where you can speak more, because it gets a lot easier the more that you do it. So seek out podcasts, try to be a guest on a podcast, try to be a guest on a radio interview. Terrestrial radio is still out there. AM&FM, XM, Sirius, whatever. Like, try and find even the satellite. There's so many opportunities where you can speak that you can think on your feet and you can be an effective speaker. That's all about authentic communications. And the third part is we don't want to forget about the nonverbal because many of you already know this and there's been questions about the stat. There was a study that came out in the 60s that said only 6% of the communication that people take in is from words. Now, that's been somewhat debunked, but even if that. If that number of 6% has been debunked, it has to be pretty close, because everything that I've researched is around that is around that number. So in other words, even if we don't have the exact number, we do know this, that nonverbal communications speak a whole lot louder than your words. So when you are speaking, what are you doing with your body? What gestures are you using? A great way to be authentic is to be very real. Real and be who you are, but do it when you're most comfortable. So some of the little triggers that you're going to pick up that make people nervous is, you can see they might cover themselves Men might do the fig leaf in front of them. Women might play with a necklace or they might, you know, play with their throat. Those are the little triggers that you're going to see that are going to show you that you're nervous and it just gets worse. So try and, try and ask people or try and see if you can set yourself up on video to see what you look like on camera. Some of the best examples of video nowadays where you see leaders is when they put themselves online on a videotape, you know, on a, on a smartphone and they're speaking through the, through the smartphone. It's like this raw video. I think on the podcast before, I gave an example of the former Vice president Joe Biden. Now candidate Joe Biden, when he was dealing with his apology problem, he put out a video explaining why he is so touchy feely. Because this is who I am. I'm Scranton Joe. And this is how I brought up always touching people. But I get it, I get it. I get that I'm not supposed to do that anymore. He put that on a video, a smartphone video, and he put that on Twitter first and that changed the course of his candidacy. He launched his campaign soon after that. And what did he do with that? He changed, chose a video to, to, to show his authenticity. Now, some of the things that you can do to try and make yourself to be authentic and to be an authentic leader is take some action steps, if you can, for the next week, try to be more direct in a conversation. Ladies, what that means is try and eliminate the weak. Speak where you can, all those soft words, all those filler words that dilute our message. And guys, on the other hand, if you're too direct of a communicator, stop and reflect on how your words impact a room. Specifically, let's talk about the workplace. Or maybe you own a small business and your employees see how your speech pattern and how you communicate with people impacts them. Second thing that you can do is practice and record any type of preparation that you need for either a presentation, a sales pitch, even if it's getting up at a town meeting, or if you're on a soccer board or something and you're getting ready for the new season. Practice what you're going to say in front of the group of co workers, colleagues, or fellow soccer parents. Preparation is key. Being authentic is real. And you can't necessarily prep all the time, but you can mix in a little preparation with your real self and you can be an amazing authentic communicator. Also, here's an important one and this one works. Ask for feedback from people that you know, probably trusted people, and ask them about your nonverbal gestures and how you appear or the vibe that you get off to people. Give off to people based on your non verbals. See what they have to say to you and say I want an honest answer and tell them please don't make it brutal. But in general you may find that you use your hands too much or maybe you don't find that you use them enough. You don't know. So find the opportunities where you can effectively communicate in front of people and get that feedback. Because it's so critical to be an authentic communicator in this day and age of leadership. Because the leaders who cannot be real that are false or fake don't. Those are the leaders that spiral and sputter out because people don't know you and they don't trust you and they don't like you because you're not being honest with them. But it's the honest, real leaders that are successful. And this topic happens to be the first topic from the Confident Leader Network. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, it is officially launched. It's a membership that you can join on an annual basis or a monthly basis. So you can log in and you are going to have a full access to all of the modules that we will have in our separate categories. We have a social media category, a communications category, and also a reputation management category. Now the membership is just starting right now, so we have a special founders rate as we get up and running. So now's the chance to jump in and at this rate for the monthly and the annual fee you will have a frozen rate that will never ever, never change. As long as you want to be a member. That low introductory rate is going to be your rate for a lifetime. And again you get monthly trainings that you can access at any time from the privacy of your own home or office and it will teach you about relevant technology, social media platforms and all the information you need to know to be an effective communicator in the 21st century. I like to compare it to having a teenager in your office if you have a question about anything and they're not going to judge you. Some of the courses that we will be introducing how to use LinkedIn to grow your network, how to be more visible on YouTube, how to use Twitter like a boss, how to start a podcast or be on a podcast that makes you seem like a really good thought leader. Plus you'll have access to live online office hours every single month where we will go a little deeper into the monthly trainings. They'll be recorded, so you can watch the recorded version or you can join us for the live chat. And I will also allow people to submit any questions they have about what is happening in their business right now and they need a solution. So it's like having an on call consultant right there that can teach you as a part of this membership. So log on now to the Confident Leader Network. So that's confidentleader.network now. I hope to see you there. I'm so excited to start the membership. So that's all we have for this week of the Confident Communications Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.