Vanessa Van Edwards says women don't have to choose between seeming competent or warm. Research shows that when women signal both at once, the trade-off disappears. Explicit warmth signals act as a superpower that makes competence land harder and builds trust.
So what gives here? How do you navigate whether you're an entrepreneur and you're leading a company, whether you are rising up the corporate ladder? How do you navigate this mixed messages that a lot of women get sent?
We're operating in this very narrow valley, right, where we have to be not, as you mentioned, too warm, not too competent. There's a myth, though, that I think is very helpful here, which is that if a woman is competent, she couldn't possibly be warm. And that's a very common myth that if you're competent, you're cold. The good news is, is what the research shows, that gap disappears if a woman shows very clear warmth. Warmth is signaling along with competence, I have a plan so you can rely on me, but also you can trust me. So if we add back those warmth signals, it actually acts as sort of a superpower that it leverages our competence as well as our warmth.
