Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling | Mandy Cavanaugh | Episode 178

Mandy walk, go to the show so good to have you here today is scott. How are you doing? I’m great show

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Speaker

we’re here I got a person who is passionate about your women’s equality in the workplace and all the stuff. I gotta get your thoughts on other reality. The big news in that space write down. That is your thoughts on the first female you, as vice president, being like what were you thinking when they’re happy

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and what were you feeling you know haven’t laid out there?

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I think it’s an it’s about. Time is what you know what I was thinking that people see the title of my book and they think that I’m all about equality, but I’m really not it it’s about balanced and that doesn’t have to be fifty fifty in all areas. You know some areas are better off with majority of women and some in it’s about having a balance of mass,

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go and feminine energies, so maybe, as a as a feminine figure in the white house are in the executive branch shall inform the president of a feminine perspective, we’ll see we’ll see if that actually happens, but I haven’t been paying attention much to politics lately,

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so yeah I do I just I normally don’t go down to political roots are out on the nato of very rarely do I even mention it a fact. While all the same, I did have a former adviser to barack obama. Michelle wants anton gunn great great view, but again I just avoid politics because I to stay away from around.

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But, unlike you got your first female, u s vice vice president. In one thing, I would say is I’d even back it up to the previous election, where I felt you, the ass in the united states, you’re at a crossroads worry, and I I’m gonna unplug a robot like you’re, at a crossroads to do something good and

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indifferent, where he had just finished up having to terms of the first black raspberry, a black president and the female was running for president and now saying what a statement this could be for the united states grow from first black president to the first female president. But we all know that didn’t happen anywhere. It is what it is,

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but I like we just, but you just kind of talked about in you kind of mention- owed balance of masculine versus feminine energy in the workplace. Let’s dive into that. So when you say that what you actually mean by that forty leaders at or listening,

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we’ve all heard that we have a masculine feminine side and I think every four that everybody that’s personal. Maybe some people have never thought about that bet it’s about having the different ways of looking at things. You know. Sometimes it’s time to look at things in black and white and sometimes it’s time to be shy.

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Super objective- and you know all about key performance indicators and things like that and then other times, it’s time to look more holistically in step back from the the black and white measuring comparison.

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Let’s make our numbers at all costs and and look at the m look at decisions from holistic perspective

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in that means to look at it from all angles, not not in a logical sense but kind of an intuitive sense like what might happen you know, will like looking down the d, a timeline of a decision and how it might play out and impact. You know different things, both positively or negatively, and so on.

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Yeah, that’s what I notice about the masculine feminine and the other thing is the biggest thing that I see in organizations is that they

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they promote and they value a louder voice. On a more,

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I had a pit that so it’s a more direct way of communicating a more black and white logical way of communicating verses, sometimes a more diffused, circuitous way of expressing a point and the feminine way. Now some women will say I don’t talk like that. I’m very direct, but I’m talking about feminine. That

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means and when I do that, I’m in my masculine energy I’ll speak for myself

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and that’s okay, I love using my masculine energy, but I also took me a while to learn the hard way that

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it’s there’s a time to turn it off for me personally, and so when you’re communicating like right now, I’m being very circuitous so I must be in my mess mean my feminine energy here, but is it’s slowing things down and allowing the ability to express oneself in a softer tone and a more secure this way,

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because that’s the energy and that’s the perspective is some kind of while I’m talking about it. I’m looking at all sides of the impact of what I might say that I might leave someone out, I might be describing somebody might misinterpret what I’m saying is true of all women. So I’m thinking of that, so the feminine way of communicating is to qualify a lot.

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What gets said and that gets undervalued us and seen as a weakness in in a lot of organizations and white. What happens when you do? That? Is that? Yes, it’s more efficient like let’s just get to the point. However, you’re missing out on that kind of what I, what I’ve heard my mentor used to call it radar

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you’re missing out on some key data points. So my view is also that the that the people who are on the front lines of an organization of a company are the they’re the thought leaders of what’s going on in that industry or that that issue, and they often don’t get seen that way because they don’t they aren’t the ones

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to interrupt or take the lead in a conversation say: what’s it’s just a communication style,

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so the people who are running things get they’re they’re, they’re, missing out on valuable data and intuition and information wisdom when they, when they don’t let those people speak up or

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have a voice or weigh in

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they’re, seen as weaker,

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sometimes now now and you’re you’re talking to a guy who works in an extremely masculine space, I the army, right, you wanna, talk about you know using their voice, be very task: oriented dirt, racked hello, you’re talking to a guy who was who

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open and stark weapons training. Today

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you can’t give him you can’t get much more, you all those things, but the same time. I like what you’re saying that ah womb, when we enabled know that phantom energy and those those characteristics to come out, we get a bigger picture.

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We we we get a more holistic, pitcher and now

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are, dare I say it this way, but this is how it feels like we are now getting all this training shoved down our throats. I iii, our race now says we’re getting gender advisers and all this different stuff- and I say- and I say it in that tome because that’s how it feels

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that it’s coming out is mandated training. You will do this. You will do that. You will have these these adviser and salva stuff the same time, it’s for good reason right because, obviously we’re missing something. So for your perspective, how can we,

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as leaders, you know one identify those times when weaken your shift and enable yo yo the the females over there or feminine the only feminine voice? People because sometimes is not just females. It is men who embryo those software guys up there,

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two yeah. It was good psychological safety to speak their minds in the way that they’re comfortable doing so yeah yeah, because you have that very yang energy running running things, especially in north america. Well, what lot of places around the globe it’s very yang and- and so it’s a little bit out of balance in there are there- are consequences to that.

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That too, you know,

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we don’t need to get into all that. I guess, but in alicia’s take the environment for for one example

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or the education system, that is very linear and logical and mental and left brain oriented, and it leaves out more creative and do different kinds of of learners. We medicate children who are hyper, curious, etc. So

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yeah, I think that’s in the military I’ve seen a little bit of government training that was based on gender and what they were saying. This is you airspace

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anna europe and canada, and what they were saying is that that gender is or that

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the gender roles are gender with over they calling and I’m remember it wasn’t gender or sex, but it was basically this all socialized. It’s all programming that there’s no such thing. They were kind of discounting the fact that there is a feminine and masculine energy and they were they were making it like. That’s all in your head that there’s any difference is kind of what it sounded like to

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me, and if you do that, then you’re asking men to dial down their masculinity of women to dial down their femininity and everybody kind of meats in the middle. In this

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kind of em, you may call it professional, but I’m saying for the purpose of this conversation: let’s call it a little bit more androgynous, it’s it’s like I’m dialing, a part of my energy down in order to be in a work space. But what I find in a small company- and I talked about this in the book- that I wrote that you mentioned earlier- and I find that that energy is creative and

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gee now. So when you get the two together and you have to solve like innovation, things like that there’s, there’s kind of creative energy airmen in in mother nature backs that up right, there’s mass there are young male and female flowers, etc. So it’s a creative energy inventor em.

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When analogy you want to use

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so there ipo, I know for sure I like to go in like sometimes I will. I will be working with a group of women and I play a masculine role in that meeting. I don’t sit around and think about this huh

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all the time just on a podcast bush,

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billick I’ll, be in a room of team of women, and I will often play that masculine perspective super bring it to super logical, black and white kind of component. Let’s compartmentalize, let’s focus, let’s be linear, no logical and then,

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and then with with. If I’m in a group of men I’ll shift my energy, I mean it just happened so naturally, where I’m I’m also provide, I’m also, naturally just showing up creating an energetic balance

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in the room.

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That is, if that’s at all, subtle distinction. No, no! That’s! Actually, a great point right because, essentially, as leaders, different situations require different types of energy cars, different types of approaches, etc, etc. Sometimes you need peta director of person and sometimes you need. We sit back and be over yo laissez faire

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yeah, but oregon you don’t get the creative juices flowing and you can go through that in easily. In a day of all these different types of as you’re saying energy, I generally refer to as leadership styles, but it’s needed to have that full spectrum. Why? Because you just can’t be in that one mode, one

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hundred percent of the time, because not every single situation that you’re gonna come across requires you know that type of thing I’ll it’s to the all analogy. If the only tool you have in the toolbox is a hammered on, everything looks like a nail, but sometimes you need a screwdriver other times. You need a level, etc etc.

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Well, I I like that so much of gears little bit of the bow of your book,

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shy the glass ceiling by the way. There’s it’s another word: I’m trying to keep the ad hoc, your gag. You get the glass ceiling

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for for her dad the glass ceiling.

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No, what was the whole um? I guess the inspiration behind that free. You dude yo, to get so passion to write a book about this topic. In the first place

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it was the I on the side. I have a bit ahead of business and in the lodging industry and then I had a turnaround, consulting business and I got a coaching certification and because I was a coach and also an entrepreneur, I was asked to lead, helped lead some classes and I had such a good

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time. Anna was with women who were either thinking about starting a company or they had started wine, but it was very of small. Are they had a small business? They wanted to grow it so is micro, entrepreneurs and and entrepreneurs in the it was a women’s conference in and I had such a good time. I had never looked at that topic before I d.

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Never I’ve been mostly working with men up to that point for, like fifteen years or so male dominated industries worked in the military. I worked in the fortune. Five hundred- and I are I was in in defense contractors things like that so to be around women lanka into be talking about business. I realized that

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especially ones that didn’t go to like business school or mba school. Maybe they had a different background.

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They have a different set of concerns a little bit and then what I was used to- and

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I had such a good time

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and- and I found myself talking about things that I had never expressed before, because it was sort of my own internal journey at an hour, I started realizing that some of what I had experienced as a female in the in the late nineties and early two, thousands as a leader in a in a feminine entrepreneur.

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I thought there were. There were my personal starters struggles, but I figured out quickly that they were universal struggles and they were archetypal struggles, and so for that reason I, when, when my mentor said you should write a book, I thought you know he’s right because in I don’t want to make it complicated. It’s not complicated book, it’s kind of a how to on either growing your company. If you already have

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wine or you can decide if you want to be an entrepreneur when you read it you’ll now, I’m cut out for this. This is what I want to do, or no thank you

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and

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I forgot when he asked me to do it after those classes. I thought yeah. I could definitely put this into it’s the feminine perspective on leadership and high performance teams. Different from you know all the business books that you get on how to how to manage a lotta, high performance team or how to lead in our high performance teams. This is

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through a feminine lands, because I did the research and I ice. I saw that it actually isn’t a glass ceiling. It’s a glass cliff

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where women opt out at a certain point, and that happens in a fortune. Five hundred it happens in small businesses, and they just kind of very highly talented. Feminine figures will opt out of the game, so companies are craving more feminine. Leadership are like we really wanna, promote these high potential candidates and then at a certain point, they’re just leaving,

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so it was how to stay in the game. That’s why the subtitle is sort of the top and stay there and stay. There is like a huge operative in a phrase inside that title like how to stay there, because I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit. You know- and I would have been a statistic

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except that I had the fortune of being coached and I implemented certain processes and procedures that kept me in the game as a feminine figure. So

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that’s awesome how so, let’s, let’s let’s dive in some new struggles, because I love talking about struggles of talk fellows here because bats, how we get better and the whole goal. This podcast is to help the years out there chief peak performance in what I call the three domains of leadership: right, leaning yourself

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if I eat how you be the best lawyer possible reading your t, I e the individuals it with in your team, your organization and finally organization is all so. We can actually hit a little bit on the organizational front of enabling that those different types of energy and stuff like this will. I started us dive into yoga yourself and your team in the war

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turtles leadership struggles at the female leaders out there face that the male leaders would necessarily understand you know, will watch like glass cliff your. What is that point? What are some? The other struggles other I’ve, some ideas, my head, but yeah, I’m biased, mayor, amadou, you and know guy talking here not the same, so yeah educate this

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sky, so he’s gotta work well, and sometimes, when you’re in a business and you’re scaling or you’re having a career crisis and accompany it. There’s a thing called pressure and pressure is a physiological phenomenon. Some people might call it stress, but it there’s there’s

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sort of a subset of stress that I call pressure, and that is where you can it’s kind of pressing down on you in a way like a a looming, unrelenting deadline and a the is this unrelenting feeling of like I don’t know if I am never gonna get it all done, and it’s coming in fast.

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You know in that sustain over a period of time turns into pressure, or it could be short term pressure like there’s an interpersonal thing or there’s some kind of em.

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You know some kind of issue that you don’t have a sob irc in it. It’s massive like, let’s just say, you’re in the bank, that there’s a downturn in the bank just called in your loan that kind of pressure.

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Some some entrepreneurs know what it feels like not to be able to meet payroll. They don’t other gonna meet payroll. You know they don’t know how they’re going to find a new project they just sold. It could be any number of things in a short term. Stressful event is no big deal for an entrepreneur or ceo, but when you have unrelenting pressure over a period of time, our bodies are built a little bit.

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I’ve obviously different, but we have different and chemistry as well, and so I think that we feel things were. We feel things more

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when it comes to pressure.

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So I use this analogy. That’s kind of tired now use it so many times, but my son was a football player and you know he can take a physical hit,

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that’s harder than than the one that I can take. It certainly about strength. In this case. It’s it’s can you take the hit, and so a feminine leader

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like there’s certain there’s, a certain percentage of feminine leaders that can take hits all day long, I’m one of them. I can do it, but there’s a cost like it takes more permitted to do it over time, it’s physical and so that starts affecting the mental etc.

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Am I might have more endurance? I might have more on consistency. I might be more leveled out emotionally etc than than a masculine figure, but there’s one thing most. That’s for sure most met, that’s true for most men they can handle more physical pressure like you could you could handle more than I am

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certain situation. I think over time that kind of pressure so pressure’s one thing another one is

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but we’re talking about news when I sit browser with who would have the struggles, a recent struggles yeah, so the pressure is makes you want to quit, sometimes because you start to see the cost of it in your life. Like you come home and it’s it’s in you like you, don’t decompress on the way home and then the way you talk to your kids.

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So it’s not she’s a you know where it starts with a b, it’s she’s under pressure, and I can see that in my feminine leaders like oh, so I get I’ll get a ton of work out of them, so to speak in if you’re, a manager and you’re looking at who’s, going to get the job done and who’s gonna get the volume of work done,

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a feminine figure will get were tons and tons and tons of work done, but make sure she doesn’t get under pressure for a sustained period of time. It’s not gonna end well,

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she’ll, either quit or shall have health problems or her personal relationships. That’s what I’ve seen most often in the women that I’ve worked, leaders that I’ve worked with his their their relationships suffer their life at home. They don’t compartmentalize they don’t they don’t keep it separate mentally they’re, always retina and a man can be more likely to be

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oblivious. When he’s not that I mean, unfortunately, men are expected to to do that. Culturally and programmatic lay they’re programmed to compartmentalize, but it also comes more. Naturally, I’ve noticed like they can. They can shift gears little easier,

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so that’s been. That was a big struggle and there were days when I quit in. I was like okay him. I have to get off the business channel for couple of days and it would be a wednesday, and I would just think I’m not gonna, be any good to anybody. If I keep this app so I, but I would go, do something that would have fit get the physical pressure off of myself

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m

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and, in other, like meditation, massage is like hot bath with epsom salt. In singing karaoke I mean you, you can there’s a list of a hundred things. You could do to get your body to a different kind of vibration and that’s I know that sounds kind of silly to it. Probably too unkind got it all women wear

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r m yeah, we gotta be tuned up. I think we need to be tuned out like we’re a different kind of instrument. You know

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we just we stay tuned up a different way. You know like a guitar in a: u turn the string seen other things, whatever they’re called in finance different

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different zone. One big thing the heard from you: there is no that that that intense pressure offices, the big toe earlier, the the moral of the story and one big way for leaders at their listening. This is your monitor your people, your mana,

00:22:05

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or how much stress that you’re, placing on them expectations workload normal stuff. So let’s say I’m am in charge of demon. I’m single be switching jobs in hungary in charge of a fairly large team and a female worker females working for me again

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Speaker

and one directly for me. So what happens now? A farm like monorail, okay, you’re, given her too much like hey, I’m not give you this project, I’m going to give it to one of the guys knew wow where iron now and I wanna help you opted do you think, are not mandatory with that as our what she needs and them whenever

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she says believer

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because it might not right or how it own. I I have a crappy c r m. I need somebody to answer the phone calls after hours. I need to me to be on call. I need a better office chair. I have no! You don’t know what she’s gonna say she might say.

00:22:59

Speaker

Yes, I need more help or I’m doing these spreadsheets and they take up here thirty percent of my time and yeah. I would like for somebody in accounting to do those for me and then I’ll I’ll I’ll be able to. You know like I would ask her, because they don’t just sit there and stew they have in their head what the solution is. They know how to fix it

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most of the time

00:23:21

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right so you’re back throughout your golden seaward communication. Yes, I eat know communicating with your people to see what their yard their needs are based off of the sutures and when they tell you what it is, if they’re competent, highly competent, talented one of your strong players believe

00:23:41

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leave them when they tell you what they need. Even if I see a lot of people disagree, oh she’s, just saying that she’s working hard and not smart. Well, that’s your opinion in know. You haven’t sat down and done that were you, you don’t know what that particular project is like and if she’s proven herself in the past or he, anybody really am and they’re they’re up

00:24:01

Speaker

two here and they’re effective than if they say they need, and what, if they’re wrong, what, if you give it to him, you give him a solution and they say: well, I’m sorry that was an at. We all make mistakes. You know so yeah anybody who’s out there. Listening. If you have somebody is consistently under pressure. They might also be making themselves indispensable, like a habit, they’re kind of addicted to the

00:24:21

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adrenalin. So that’s where you say: I’m gonna get you some help, and I know you tell me you don’t need it, but I’m going to force it on you. So

00:24:30

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they’ll just sit there and watch you than you know. So, hopefully you get him some a really confident to to hand things off to when they tell you that person’s, not gonna, work out. Believe them

00:24:40

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it’s a two way street. You know you ask what they need. They tell you get to warm. It might take three tries or more to fix the situation.

00:24:50

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Yeah bros before be knows it’s back to you, communication, frost, right system, error and and teamwork. Essentially you working with each other to get the solution the end of the day,

00:25:05

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readers our job is to empower people to do their jobs on our behalf. Does the dirty ones out there better during the sales calls they’re the ones that are doing the marketing finds third ones out there doing this earning need? Name, it they’re, the ones doing it, it’s our jobs to empower them with what they need to get the job done more incentive. If there is another perk,

00:25:25

Speaker

listen to do data entry, that’s not, and do that entered at a nice new comfy chair, guess, once a nice new comforter, you know what what the cost of on box vermont is decrease, productivity and then potential turnover and all this other crap that could potentially pop out mike’s by the dang chair,

00:25:46

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geez,

00:25:47

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yeah and yeah. We could talk about management all day, but you know or talk. We start out with the feminine and masculine. Thanks for the struggles going back to the struggles, I think pressure was a big one learning how to be seen. So when I went when I made a conscious choice to go back into my feminine energy instead of being in my mouth

00:26:07

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well inside all the time.

00:26:11

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I thought it was funny because I had researched a lot about it for the book, and so I saw it happen when I went into my feminine I became invisible was like oh, my gosh they’re, taking all of my instructions are suggestions

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and em.

00:26:28

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I’m being talked over and I will say something I used to say it coming from my masculine energy and it would get implemented in you know like this is what we need to do and then it they just. They saw it as a suggestion, and I was the owner of the company. So that’s another thing you know to notice is a boss.

00:26:49

Speaker

That’s to keep things in balance, to listen to those things. You know no matter what kind of voice their said enter the energy we took. We can have said that at the beginning as well, but that was one of my big it struggles at the beginning to besides the pressure was struggling with staying in an imbalance in myself. You know so that I can

00:27:08

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maintain

00:27:10

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on my wellness unit, my emotional mental, physical, spiritual wellness, my relationships and everything it felt more natural to me and more authentic to be in my feminine side, so the kicker. That is, how do you make sure that you get taken seriously if you’re being in your feminine energy and are clearly taken the words out of my mouth bow out of my

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ign.

00:27:32

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Okay,

00:27:34

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if we’re talking a boss is right, yeah rot. Aren’t our word were talking to were talking to. Leaders in done by are a negative connotation on the show, oh yeah, to try weed, but he leave them boss right right right

00:27:48

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so talking to leaders- and I mean the the only thing that when it comes to that, the only thing that ensures that people know how serious you are is that you,

00:28:00

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you give a written performance, improvement plan to people who aren’t performing or you just

00:28:06

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you just say: you’re gonna have to shift that or your replacement. Well, I mean

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you can say it in the you know. You can be your authentic, feminine self and still hold people accountable.

00:28:19

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It’s really about your actions and then then they’ll get curious await. What did she say? You don’t have to be

00:28:28

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rough and tough and mean to get that done.

00:28:33

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No, no! It’s awesome mandy! This has been a super interesting conversation, something which I probably don’t have on the show, often enough

00:28:44

Speaker

but runaway down here. However, before wrap up, I got to lhasa, okay for you,

00:28:50

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first first being across all the guests here at the peak performance to leadership parkas

00:28:55

Speaker

and as for mandy cover what makes a great leader

00:28:59

Speaker

wow. That is a huge question.

00:29:06

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What makes a great leader I’m gonna say that your heart is open,

00:29:15

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your heart is open and you are even if you’re you know, holding people accountable or you’re protecting the company’s interest, you’re doing it from a place of love. Underneath it all

00:29:26

Speaker

naga awesome love, it absolutely love it

00:29:30

Speaker

in the fall question of the show. Where could be virginia? We’re gonna, follow you shameless plugs are allowed, it’s all yeah, I you know, I’m not a big social media person, believe it or not. I just run my businesses and do some speaking an avid. I do have a website called mandy cavanaugh dot com. It has my blogs articles. You can order my book end

00:29:51

Speaker

and I’m obviously linked dan on clubhouse him on telegram

00:29:55

Speaker

so yeah. I would like to stay connected awesome. We might have to adjust guy clubhouse. We may have to jump on. Do a do a room. Some thought, oh, that began yeah lotta restock without a care eric thanks thanks again for c’mon show. It’s been a pleasure pleasures been on er ma’am. To have you on in talking with a super thanks sky

00:30:16

Speaker

great.