3 Mistakes Making You Look Less Powerful at Work

• Simple strategies to counter bias in the workplace
• Stop apologizing and learn powerful new ways of speaking
• Becoming more confident by shifting your mindset
• The power of appreciation

QUOTES: 

“There’s just so much to learn about ourselves in this journey of stepping into power at work. There’s so much to learn about the experiences for Asian American women in workplaces.”

“You don’t have to be loud. You still have to be powerful.”

And so some of the things I have learned around this are really about how you are interacting and engaging with others to show authority, because you can show authority in certain ways. Like telling people about your background, the things that you’ve done.”

“You can advocate for yourself by speaking up about the things that you have done and not constantly only giving credit to your team, but also giving credit to yourself.”

“Silence is so powerful. And if you pay attention to real leaders, they don’t talk that much…. Learning to be in that pause actually allows you to retain your own power and then lean forward into speaking in a way that is meaningful and impactful.”

“The way to be a person who’s confident and powerful is to start to take steps to shift your thinking out of the negative space, out of second guessing, out of self doubt, and shifting your energy into someone who is confident, who is powerful.”

NICOLE

Hello, friends. I’m Nicole Tsong, and this is the School of Self-Worth. Thank you so much for being here. Today we have got a super fun big topic, one that is relevant to any high-achieving Asian woman, or really to anyone who is a high-achiever and wants to be able to support the Asian American women in their life, because I’m going to talk about some of the biases that come up for Asian American women in the workplace and how to start countering them, as well as other common challenges that come up for Asian American women stepping into their power in the workplace. And this one is so essential when I look at the big picture of leadership for Asian American women and really the stats that are out there, like, of all the women in management in corporate workplaces, only 3% are Asian American. So that to me alone is cause to press into this topic and wonder what is happening. There’s obviously always systemic issues, but then there’s also the ones that come from us, and this is the place where I know we have the most power to make change and to make shifts.

That’s really what we’re going to address today. The three common mistakes that are making you look less powerful at work. I’m going to share some things I’ve learned over the years, as well as some tips that have really helped my clients to step into their power in a totally different way that has led to recognition, visibility, and promotions.

Before we get started, if you are an AAPI woman who wants to manifest a promotion in 60 days, working 20% fewer hours, DM  ‘promotion’ to NicoleTsong on Instagram. I’ve got something for you. Let’s chat. Okay, friends, let’s dive into today’s conversation. 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 best-selling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfilment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight 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.

Okay, everyone, our topic today is the Three Common Mistakes Making You Look Less Powerful At Work. And when I really look into topics like this, I find it fascinating. There’s just so much to learn about ourselves on this journey of stepping into power at work. There’s so much to learn about the experiences for Asian American women in workplaces. I’m not going to dance around this with too much preamble. I’m just going to get into the topic. Because the first one, this first mistake, is a mix of both biases as well as what we’re doing and the actions that we’re taking. This first mistake is relying too much on being kind and warm, and this can also be interpreted as being really quiet in the workplace. There’s a Harvard study that shows that people have difficulty seeing Asian American women as both kind AND competent. It’s hard to reconcile both of them. There’s this perception that you can’t be both of those things.

So if you are super competent, and I know there are some of you out there listening who are just really on top of it, and you’re getting stuff done, and it’s hard for people to perceive you as warm and kind. It’s hard for people to feel like they can connect with you. But on the flip side, if you are a warm, kind person, you can often be considered quiet, and consequently, not competent. If you’re in this category, by the way, it has nothing to do with your accomplishments, your intelligence, or your ability. It’s just about perception. So if you’re in the category of being perceived as quiet, I can see how that might not put you in place for being considered as a leader at work, and I care about you being able to step into your own power in a really authentic way. We have to also understand some of the perceptions that are out there now. I am someone who falls more into the quiet, kind side, than I do on the competent side. And maybe you’re like, “Nicole, that sounds crazy. That’s not how I see you!”. That’s because I really had to learn to step into my own authority and competence, and share it more powerfully.

So we’re going to talk about that. And some of you, I know, fall into the other side, so if you want to hear me talk more about that kindness and warmth, DM me on Instagram. Let me know what you want so that I can make sure to help you out and support you. All with this podcast. So for those of you who are in that kind, warm, quieter side of things, and it’s hard for you to really step into authority, this is one way to start working on it. This is something that I had to really learn and do.  

And just a little bit of background – I have always been really quiet. I’ve talked about it on other podcasts, but to reiterate for people who are new here, that I really was a quiet kid, I didn’t talk, I was always in the back of the room. I was a younger sister. I just never really had that confidence to speak up. I was really good at school, though. I always got great grades and was always in the top ten of my class. I went to a great college, all of those things. But it was really hard for me to speak and advocate for myself. It was really hard for me to put myself out there, consistently.

So this quiet piece of me really got challenging, the longer I was in a career where you had to start telling people what you wanted. The big change, particularly, came when I wanted to be a yoga teacher, because being quiet literally is not in the job description. You have to stand in front of people and use a strong, powerful voice to instruct them to move their bodies. And while you don’t have to be loud, you still have to be powerful. So some of the things I have learned around this are really about how you are interacting and engaging with others to show authority, because you can show authority in certain ways. Like telling people about your background, the things that you’ve done. Typically, when I share my background, people are often surprised because they perceive me as having a kind and warm side. Despite this perception, I still demonstrate competency by sharing some of my accomplishments.

But I’m not here to tell you guys to go around bragging about things, because in the workplace, that’s not necessary. You can advocate for yourself by speaking up to the things that you have done, and not constantly only giving credit to your team, but also giving credit to yourself. So this is one piece of it. But how do you start to show, on a daily basis, that competency, that confidence, that real quality of being authoritative in who you are? And the thing I’m going to tell you is going to be surprising, because it’s not what you think, and this one is still really a massive way to go deeper into your own authority, and it comes from learning to pause. It comes from learning to be with silence. Silence is so powerful. If you pay attention to real leaders, they don’t talk that much, and when people ask them direct questions, they usually pause before they respond. When you look at powerful speakers, they pause a lot while speaking. Watch Barack Obama speak. He pauses all the time, because it is powerful. And when you do this, you’re not only showing the person you’re speaking with, or the group you’re with, that you are confident with silence, it also gives you the opportunity to learn to pay attention, to tune in to your own intuition, to tune into a bigger space. Listening that is not in the busyness, in the filling in of gaps, that energy of talking constantly is taking away your power in those moments. Then, when you learn that silence and pause, you learn to understand how to speak to what is most important, not to fill in the gaps, not to constantly tell people every thought in your head about why you made the decision that you did. Sometimes people need to know, but a lot of times, they really just need to know the decision. So learning to be in that pause actually allows you to retain your own power, and then leaning forward into speaking in a way that is meaningful and impactful.

That is what’s powerful – speaking with impact – and I used to hate doing this. I was definitely a filler. I would just talk to fill space, but I have learned that when I pause, and I think back to my days teaching yoga, sometimes I wouldn’t speak for 30 seconds, to a minute. And those were really powerful moments for my class, for people to feel, to get tuned in. Now I’ve learned also that the more I pause, the more I step into my own power. I am more willing to share my thoughts, I’m more willing to share my perspectives, and I’ve learned that people are often very inspired by what I have to say. So when I learned to lean on this pause, it made a huge difference.

If you’re out there, it’s important to recognize that being kind and quiet, or quiet and pausing, despite both involving silence, are actually different. When I say ‘quiet,’ I don’t mean simply not saying anything. That’s not what I’m referring to. I’m talking about when you’re asked a question, when you’re in conversation, when you’re leading, when you are the head of a meeting or you’re talking to your team, you learn to use and leverage that pause in those conversations, and it will teach you to speak in those moments you have something to say, instead of holding back.

Okay, so I’m going to take us into the second mistake that makes you look less powerful. And this one is also very common. You apologize for everything, or just too much. In general, you’re saying ‘I’m sorry’ all the time, so let’s look at the dynamic of this. When you say I’m sorry, you’re saying the other person is right and that you are wrong. You are bringing in more of this energy of you’re right, I’m wrong. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And I say this as someone who really values a true apology, so I’m not talking about true apologies here. I’m talking about people who say I’m sorry for every small thing that’s going on. What happens when you apologize like this, when you say I’m sorry constantly, is you’re giving your power to the other person. The other person then has the upper hand immediately, whether it’s your boss, a coworker, or someone on your team. That energy of having done something wrong. It’s not a powerful position to be in for yourself. Like, if you have to reschedule something, it doesn’t make you a bad human. It makes you a human with a busy schedule, with moving parts. It simply means something came up and you don’t actually have to apologize for it. If you didn’t say everything you wanted to in a meeting, you do not have to apologize for that either – you can simply realize, “Oh, wow, there’s something for me to learn or to see for next time. I don’t have to apologize for not saying that.”

During this, the way to really shift yourself out of this apology, is by a couple of simple practices. One that I really like, that I use all the time, is I replace ‘I’m sorry’ with ‘thank you’. So if I have to reschedule or do something different, I always say, “Thanks for your patience.” If I’m late on something or I haven’t replied to something, I say, “Thanks for your patience.”  I don’t have to be sorry about that. So notice in your emails, notice how you speak, can you shift your “I’m sorry” to “thank you for your patience?” And the other part of it is to remember that your brain expands from praise and positivity. That’s actually how we grow. We do not grow from criticism, which is often a very critical lack of energy. So shifting yourself into being more supportive and appreciating yourself and really learning to lean into practices like that, will allow you to stop saying  “I’m sorry” for moments that you don’t need to, and instead, you start to ask yourself questions like, “What can I learn from this? If I didn’t do everything perfectly in that presentation, instead of apologizing for it now, what can I know for next time?”

All right, so the third piece of this is the really big picture of what’s going on, and this one is about second guessing yourself. And if you are in this old habit of questioning yourself, and you say it out loud, “I’m questioning myself”, you are essentially putting in the energy of self-doubt. And when you’re in that energy of self-doubt, the law of attraction will invite more of that energy in. The more you’re focusing on your self-doubt and questioning yourself, the more it enters your life and affects how you experience things. And it’s probably very easy to do if you grew up with cultural programming that you have to do the best possible, all the time. Your parents think A’s are not enough, only A+’s,  then it’s hard for you to do that all the time. Expectations are so high that you’re really second guessing if you could do it. This kind of pressure can be part of the reason you’re doing it. This is a really sneaky thing to understand about the law of attraction and how this energy works. It’s not really just about what you think that matters, it’s about who you are being. So if you are being a person who second guesses themselves all the time, that is going to really detract from feeling confident and powerful. The way to be a person who is confident and powerful, is to start to take steps to shift your thinking out of the negative space, out of second guessing, out of self-doubt, and shifting your energy into someone who is confident, who is powerful. This again is the shift required for taking pauses in silence. Like the first step I was talking about, and then the second step of learning to shift your language from saying ‘I’m sorry’ to ‘thank you’, and this third one is about second guessing yourself, and how to move out of that.

One of the biggest steps is to practise appreciation. And this one is so simple. I like to do it with just the sentence: “I appreciate______________________.” (Fill in the blank). It can be very tiny, like, “I appreciate myself for making breakfast today. I appreciate myself for packing a good lunch. I appreciate that I have scheduled the workout that’s really going to serve me today.” It could be any of those things. It can be related to work. I think work appreciation is important and it’s important for us to appreciate all these little pieces that are happening. And the more you can do this and appreciate yourself, the more it counters that energy of second guessing, and the energy of over-explaining yourself. This is going to counter the energy of constantly needing to validate yourself through other people, by rather learning to validate yourself. This gives you that confidence, it gives you that authority. It brings back that power internally, instead of constantly sourcing that power out to what other people have to say, their praise, their thoughts for you. Now it becomes, “How do you feel about yourself? How do you think? How is your own internal dialogue supporting yourself?” And the more you do that, I promise you, the more powerful you truly will be.

So if this resonated with you, anything that I talked about here, DM me  ‘Please’ at NicoleTsong on Instagram. Share your thoughts, or screenshot this and share it out into the world. Tag me, let me know, because it is so vital to me to get this information out into the world. And if you know, after hearing this, that you are ready to manifest your promotion and success days, and you really want to know the exact step-by-step from my Asian visibility system, to go deeper into all the things that we talked about today, (because we really just skimmed the surface) and know how you go to that next level of truly getting that visibility recognition at work? DM me ‘Promotion’ at  NicoleTsong on Instagram, and let’s chat.

I’m so grateful for all of you who are here, and I will see you again next week. 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. So make sure to DM me ‘Quiz’ at NicoleTsong on Instagram.

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.