In this episode, Nicole explores one of the most overlooked leadership dynamics affecting high-achieving Asian American women: the subtle ways we unintentionally give away our authority at work.
If you’ve ever wondered why you’re trusted with important projects but still overlooked for leadership opportunities, this conversation is for you. Nicole breaks down the hidden moments where authority is lost, why these patterns often stem from cultural conditioning, and how they impact the perception of you as a leader long before promotion talks begin.
You’ll learn why authority isn’t built in high-stakes presentations, but in everyday interactions where you either reinforce the identity of someone they trust to get things done or strengthen your position as a strategic leader. Nicole shares practical methods to develop internal stability, how to position your thinking with confidence, and recognizing the patterns keeping you stuck despite your expertise.
If you’re ready to stop being praised privately and overlooked publicly, this episode is for you.
Ready to go deeper? Download The Authority Shift, Nicole’s free private audio series for high-achieving women who are tired of being known as the person who gets things done and ready to be known as the person who leads. Inside, you’ll discover the hidden leadership patterns shaping how you’re perceived at work and what actually changes them.
“Leadership is not about perfect performance. Leadership is about those moments where you have to adjust to what’s happening in the room around you.”
“People are never responding to the words that are coming out of your mouth…. They are responding to whether they can tell that you are standing in your authority when you talk, especially when you’re surprised, especially when things are unexpected.”
“You’re in a meeting, and someone calls you over, and all of a sudden you’re being challenged on something. Those aren’t the moments where a communication tip is going to help you. Those are the moments where you need to be able to internally understand what’s going on so that you can make a shift.”
“If you are being overlooked, especially when it comes time for promotion, it’s time for leadership decisions and you’re like where you just get lost in the shuffle. Today is super important for you.”
“Most people think it’s something that, oh, like, I just need to have this for those big moments in life, like a big presentation or a big meeting, they think that their authority is lost in those moments where the presentation didn’t go how you wanted to.”
“Your authority is lost in a lot of subtle moments day to day. It’s actually happening all the time.”
“Because in all of these examples my clients actually knew what they wanted to say or knew what they needed to say. But their problem was they were thinking about how what they had to say was going to land on the other person and the other people around them. And then their authority in that moment got completely diluted.”
TRANSCRIPT
142
NICOLE TSONG
Hello friends! I’m Nicole Tsong, and welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. Today’s episode is a micro focus on the invisible ways Asian American leaders give away their authority. This one is huge. If you are being overlooked, especially when it comes time for promotions and you’re like, where you just get lost in the shuffle, today is super important for you. And then for those of you who are like, I am ready. I want to stop this right now.
I want to stop being praised privately. I want to stop being overlooked publicly so that you are positioned for that next role at work. DM me “promoted” on Instagram @nicoletsong. I’ve got something over there for you. Okay, let’s dive into today’s episode.
Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole Tsong, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a bestselling author of three books and a work-life balance expert. Helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfillment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insights about what it takes to be brave, joyful, and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.
There’s something that I have noticed with almost every single high-performing woman that I work with and with the hundreds and thousands of women I’ve seen go through my trainings. This is what I see from them, and especially like they’re always so smart, so capable, so thoughtful, and so respected. I mean, I meet women who are crushing it on so many levels, and they don’t really necessarily, on the surface, seem like they have a really obvious authority problem because according to everybody else, according to their CV, you just look like you are doing amazing, and it’s not like you’re underperforming typically. These women are also not incapable on any level. I mean, you should see what they have done in their careers, and most of them are also frequently carrying a lot, like they’re carrying families, marriages, caring for family, caring for parents; they really are holding a lot. But what’s happening for them, and this keeps coming up, is that they are giving away what is known and what I think of as their authority in small, subtle moments all day long. And they don’t even know that they’re doing it because this is something that is really subtle, and it’s also really hard to catch if you don’t have practice with it. One of my clients recently, we were working on this, and she’s like, “Oh, so you mean I have to practice this?” I was like, “Oh, yeah, this is something you definitely have to practice.” Most people think it’s something that, oh, like, I just need to have this for those big moments in life, like a big presentation or a big meeting. They think that their authority is lost in those moments where the presentation didn’t go how you wanted it to. In that meeting, you did not speak the way that you hoped to, or you made some kind of error or mistake that leadership has noticed.
But the truth is, your authority is lost in a lot of subtle moments day to day. It’s actually happening all the time. This was actually happening for my client because she had an experience where it wasn’t a big presentation. It was a meeting where her boss called her over to talk with another person in a different department to resolve a challenge. In those moments, her authority dropped, her stability dropped, and so she was feeling really challenged. So I want to talk to you all about what we do in those moments. And it really is a micro adjustment that you have to do.
Like, in that example with my client, what was happening with her is she had to adjust. As her boss was calling her over, she’s walking in the direction she sees her boss standing with another leader. She knows it’s probably going to be a conversation where she’s going to have to think on her feet. In that moment, before she’s speaking, while she’s walking in that direction, this is the moment where your thinking gets tested. This is where you really have to start to notice what’s happening for you if you start to back down. You might be softening there. You might be starting to give in. You’re like, “Okay, I’m just going to kind of give everybody in this moment what they need, make it more digestible.”
But it also could make you combative, defensive. You kind of have your hackles raised, but you’re also doubting what you’re saying. Another thing that can happen, this happens to one of my clients frequently, is that she would rush. She would stumble over her words. She would just say too much and not anything that was actually important or useful, going into this over-explaining compensation. You might be embarrassed at that moment that you’re not more clear about what you’re saying. And on top of it, all of this is not because you are unclear.
Because in all of these examples, my clients actually knew what they wanted to say or knew what they needed to say. But their problem was they were thinking about how what they had to say was going to land on the other person and the other people around them, then their authority in that moment got completely diluted. Most people think, you know, this is just what happens in professional environments or they think that they need to be a better communicator. That comes up a lot. I was presenting recently about communication with others, and everyone always thinks it’s about “I need some more tips and tools on what to say. I need to know more about how to enter a room and have those great off-the-cuff comments for when somebody challenges me or pushes back on me.” I promise though, if you don’t have your authority anchored in, you’re not going to remember those phrases, first of all, no matter even if you have memorized them in the moment.
Secondly, it doesn’t serve you because sometimes in those moments, whatever you memorized doesn’t apply to that situation. Your job is actually, before you get into those moments, to think about what you are doing and when you can actually start to claim your authority before those moments begin. You might find that you end up in those moments constantly over-explaining, jumping in. You just can feel that you’re losing the room. If you’re in that moment where you’re losing the room, that’s a tough situation, and it can be very hard to recover yourself. Like that’s another kind of authority leak because you’re worrying about whether you’re making people happy or if you’re saying it clearly enough.
Or this is the third thing that can happen: somebody pushes back. They push back on what you’re saying or what you’re thinking, and your energy shifts because all of a sudden now you start to defend instead of holding your ground. That’s what happened with one of the clients who was called over suddenly by her boss to talk to another leader in another department. She got very defensive about some choices made in their department. In that moment, when you get defensive, your authority also drops instead of holding it. Again, most of us don’t realize this is happening. I mean, credit to all of my clients that they are actually pretty aware that these things are happening. They come to me and they say, “Nicole, help me. I want to fix this because this is not how I want to show up.” They also say, “This has happened. How can I fix it so it doesn’t happen again in the future?”
But what happens in all of these cases is that my clients were feeling that way: “I should have said this better. I should have handled that better. I can’t believe I did that.” They start to beat themselves up, and they’re really hard on themselves. But the issue isn’t usually the wording or even the content because my client did manage in that situation to say what she needed to say. The issue was what happened to their authority and how she stopped holding it once there was pressure on her to, in the moment, come up with something and then also to really stand her ground. It was pretty tough for her in that moment.
We really came up with a plan for her to address it. But I want to tell you that this is what happens when we are not in the practice of holding authority. Again, these are experienced, smart people. I mean, I cannot even tell you how smart my clients are. I’m always so impressed and amazed when they come to me. They are people with massive degrees. They have been working in their fields for years and years, and they are experts in what they do. Yet what’s going on when it comes to leadership is that they are dropping their authority anchors.
They’re really having trouble in those moments. But this all starts, oh my gosh, before work. This didn’t start once you got to work today. This is something for Asian American women in particular. This came from when you were much younger. This is because you were rewarded as a kid for being considerate, for letting other people speak first. Leadership in Asian countries can actually look like you never interrupt. You listen all the way to the end.
So that can be interpreted in America and the West as very passive. You might also have been rewarded for being obedient, like you listened to the people in charge. You followed the rules of what your teacher laid out. So when you’re in an environment where someone else is in charge of the agenda, you might wait until somebody else speaks.
You’re always trying to make it easier for other people instead of recognizing that this is causing you to lose your authority in that moment. So what you learned at that time is that you learned to adjust, right? You learned to adjust by being quiet, holding back, trying to be the, you know, maybe you were the goody two shoes who just followed the rules all the time. But the problem is in leadership environments that people see this as uncertainty.
Now, I want to be clear that I actually never want you to change yourself. I want you to be so connected and authentically who you are. A lot of the things that you’re doing are learned behaviors. These are conditioning that you learned culturally, growing up with Asian parents. Even when your thinking is super solid, this is not about that.
It’s not about your ability to answer a question in the moment. It’s more about what is happening for you with your authority. This is why I also say that authority has very little to do with confidence. Most of my women have worked through some levels of feeling challenged in confidence and then overcoming that and feeling confident enough that they have risen in their work environment. But what this does have to do with these moments that I’m sharing is more about these three things.
The first is whether your stability, your ability to be stable, holds internally. When someone says something to you that’s unexpected or surprises you, do you get destabilized? If you do, that’s the first place we always have to look. The second one is how you position your thinking. How do you think about yourself, how you’re thinking about things that are going on in the room, and how are you positioning yourself as an authority in that moment?
The third thing is whether you maintain your hold, like you’re holding your ground, whether there’s silence, there’s pushback, or there’s someone challenging you. Are you able to maintain what you came here to say or to do, or to even be that leader in that moment? Because leadership is not about perfect performance. Leadership is about those moments where you have to adjust to what’s happening in the room around you. Those are really the most exceptional moments.
That’s because people are never responding to the words that are coming out of your mouth. Of course, they are listening to them, but they’re also perceiving how you show up. They are responding to whether they can tell that you are standing in your authority when you talk, especially when you’re surprised, especially when things are unexpected. Once you start to see these patterns, I promise you, it’s very difficult to unsee them.
Even with my client I was referencing, when we started to talk about it, she’s like, “Oh, yeah, I can really see how this came up for me.” What we’re working on is for her to make that change, for her to practice consistently being able to hold her ground when she’s in moments like that. So all of this to say, this is exactly why I created a private audio feed, the Authority Shift. Inside the Authority Shift, it’s really about understanding these patterns that I’m sharing more deeply because they happen in literally the snap of your fingers.
You’re in a meeting, and someone calls you over, and all of a sudden you’re being challenged on something. Those aren’t the moments, again, where a communication tip is going to help you. Those are the moments where you need to be able to internally understand what’s going on so that you can make a shift. Most people have never had someone slow them down enough to actually see what’s happening. This is not what people are typically teaching in leadership trainings, but this is something where inside this feed, I break down the authority patterns in a lot more detail.
I think it is one of the most important things that I can really teach and for you all to understand is what it feels like, what the difference is, and the impact it makes on your life when you really are in that ownership of your authority so that you can recognize the patterns in your own meetings, your conversations, and your day-to-day interactions. So make sure you go ahead and grab this private audio feed. There’s a link below in the show notes if you’re listening, and make sure you go in there because this is the place where, when you recognize these patterns, that is the first step. That awareness of the patterns is when you start to really make some shifts quickly. So go ahead, grab the Authority Shift. I’m so excited to hear all about it from you.
If you have any thoughts about it or feedback, let me know on Instagram, @nicoletsong. Tell me what you think. I cannot wait to hear what you get out of it.
All right, thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode.
Before you go, don’t forget, if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you. Make sure to DM me “quiz” on Instagram, @nicoletsong. Thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life.
Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong, and this is the School of Self-Worth.
Discover the blind spots holding you back and take the Boundary Tendencies Quiz
Subscribe to her newsletter