Jamie Lee  0:00  
Welcome to risky conversations with Jamie Lee. I'm Jamie Lee, and if you're wondering why risky conversations, that's because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. I'm an executive coach for smart women who hate office politics, and I help them get promoted, get better paid, without throwing anyone under the bus. This six part series comes from my live workshop the promotion playbook for smart women in male dominated industries. You're going to hear the exact tools and frameworks that my clients have used to land promotions, increase their pay and grow their influence, plus real coaching moments and real success stories. In the second part of the six part series, I'm going to share a very simple but powerful framework that I have seen work across industries, three simple votes that put your career growth back in your own hands. Let's dive in. So here are the three key actions that every single one of I've been like, I sat down and I made myself like. Think about what are the common themes that every single one of my clients who get promoted, yes, even in this economy, even with everything going on in this world like, what are the three key actions they do? What they do is that they recognize and they act on the truth that moving yourself forward in your career is an act of agency. Right? Advocating for yourself is an act of service, but it's also an act of agency, okay? And so, as you can see, there's three ways to vote. Vote with your feet. Vote with your tribe, and vote for yourself. People who continue to grow their careers, even if they're the only woman in the, you know, room full of men, or, you know, the only minority, or you know, what have you, even if you're like encountering difficult bosses like this is what they all do. Number one, you vote with your feet, right? You choose the workplaces where growth values and your strengths align, right? You're thinking about, okay, is this a place where I can feel that I can grow? And you invest your time, energy and ideas where they'll have impact. So you vote with your feet. If you do not feel like you are in a place where you can continue to grow yourself and your career, you vote with your feet. Go get another job. And if you don't vote with your feet, you know the decisions will be made for you know that. And you vote with your tribe. I cannot understate the importance of this key principle. You want to build allies. You want to build champions. Champions are people who tend to have a little bit more authority, you know, higher position, than you. They don't necessarily have to be your direct boss. They could be your skip level boss, or it could be somebody who is more experienced within your organization, who is willing to, quote, unquote, go to bat for you, right? Because when the decision comes to promote somebody, right, it's always a group decision. And as somebody who is willing to be like, Yeah, I'm the, you know, high ranking member of this executive level team. I'm either the board member or I'm a senior vice president or C level executive, and I think so. And so they're doing great work, and we should put them up for promotion, somebody who will go to bat for you, and they will advocate for your promotion and open doors to new opportunities. So if you can call it, if you have that relationship amazing, we build on that. But if you don't yet have that, then we strategize on how to create, how to cultivate allies and champions. So I had a client who was the only woman at an all male software engineering team at a big tech company. And so, you know, she was voting with her feet. She's like, you know, I like software engineering. I used to have a completely different career, but I went to boot camp. I'm a single mother. I know I can grow myself. I know like the career opportunities, the salary growth opportunities. This is where my, you know, growth values and my strengths align. I like software engineering. I know I have a technical mind, but she didn't yet really have a tribe of other male allies, other male team members. Who could be like, Yeah, this person in our team, she knows her stuff. She's really good with her technical knowledge, so we created a strategy for her to directly ask her male colleagues to mention her in the Slack team chat, whether teams or in the team like literal team meetings. And then she also the third thing. She voted for herself. She trusted herself. She backed her own decisions. She treated herself kindness. She replaced her itty bitty, shitty Committee. She replaced herself doubt with an ounce more self belief. Like it doesn't have to be perfect, right? We're dismantling perfectionism Alice more self belief. And when she voted for herself, this is really interesting. Happened, she was advocating she put herself up for promotion. They had a very formalized process at this tech company, and she submitted her documentation to her boss, and then her boss is like, yeah, you know maybe next time, because I don't really feel that you are technical enough for the next level. And so this is where voting with her feet, voting with the tribe, and then finally, voting for herself, really kicked in, because she really had to trust herself. She had to, like, think about, what is the objective evidence? What does the objective data say about my technical aptitude? And let me compare that to the assessment, the subjective opinion of my manager. And then she decided to back her own decision. She decided not to back down from the promotion track. She, in fact, engaged her manager in a empathic confrontation. I have multiple podcasts about exactly how she did that. She She explains her process, and I also explain empathic confrontation on my podcast. Yeah, I'll put the podcast link on my in the chat. And so what she did was, she's like, you know, that's really interesting. You say that because, you know, is it possible that you may have been biased in your assessment of whether I am truly technical enough, and she presented her data right, factual information about her technical contributions, and then the manager said, You know what? You're right. I'm sorry. I think I was biased, because now you presented this data, and you, you know, you brought this up in this very non it wasn't, like, combative, it was empathic. But she still, like, said, The difficult thing of, like, please, you know, reconsider your assessment. And so her promotion got fast tracked, and she improved her overall compensation by 40% other clients who vote with their feet, vote with their tribe, vote for herself, vote for yourself. I have another client who recently got promoted, also in a different kind of tech field, but she had quit her job at this organization because she felt burnt out, but then she came back because she was recruited. And she also thought, You know what, I can really grow here. If I have new skills and new strategies to manage my energy level, I can really grow and I am the breadwinner of my family, I want to get promoted. So she voted with her feet. She came back and she voted with her tribe, somebody who was already familiar with the level the quality of her work, her direct manager, in fact, actually endorsed her promotion even before she thought she was ready, right? And so for this particular client, voting for herself meant trusting herself to be able to do the job, to do the you know, higher level position, manage more people, manage a bigger scope of responsibilities, and present to the executive level team. She voting for herself meant dismantling her perfectionism and trusting herself to do the job. Okay, let me give you one more example, and then I'm going to open the, open the conversation up for life coaching and Q and A. I have another client who not an employee. She actually is a

Jamie Lee  9:31  
public speaking coach, right? And she works with, you know, high level executives big company, you know. And she was initially, when she first engaged me, she was working with an agency, but this agency sort of managed her, and they as if they were her employer, as if this agency, the person who founded the agency, was. Somebody who was considered a mentor, right? Somebody, lots of, how should I like? A lot of experience. But for my client, she has, you know, been in her field for decades, herself, and she also grew her capacity, her authority in her field, and so she just felt that the arrangement with this particular agency was no longer really serving her, because they were taking about 40% of her revenue right? The cut was really big, and she wanted to negotiate for a bigger commission, a bigger share of her revenue, the of her revenue that she brought in and secured as a consultant, and I suggested that she vote with her feet. I suggested, you know what I based on everything that I'm hearing, it doesn't seem like this agency is going to honor you, your strengths, or offer more growth to you, right? I don't know if investing more of your time, energy and ideas to this agency is actually going to generate the kind of results that you want to have in the long term of your career as an as a consultant and as an expert in your field, because vote with your tribe, you already have a tribe of people, of dedicated of people, clients who are really dedicated and in love with working with this particular client, right? So I said you already have your tribe. You can vote with your feet. You can take your tribe with you. And so for her, it was about really learning to vote for herself and trusting that she can do this new thing right, which is creating her own company, being the CEO of her own agency, and earning 100, not 60, right, 100% of the revenue that she brings in, right? And so she did, and and, you know, the the biggest part of all this was, was just the yes, there was some heated conversations, some difficult conversations that she had to have, both with herself and with the agency that she left. But ultimately it was about seeing herself in a new light, in a new way, as somebody who is capable of having her own agency, being the CEO of her, of her career. So again, vote with your feet. Vote with your tribe. Vote for yourself. So these are the three key actions. So I want to open this up for Q and A for live coaching. If you want to, you know, ask me any questions live. I'm going to open the room up for that. And I am going to, I'm going to probably bring back every conversation. So like, let's think about one of these key actions or a combination of these actions that needs to happen. The three votes can reshape your career when you apply them consistently. In the next part in this six part series, in part three, you're going to hear directly from an audience member, someone who has not paid me to coach her, but someone who has attended these free workshops, listened to the podcast and implemented them, and she's going to share the results that she generated, and she's going to Tell us about how self care advocacy is not bragging, it is informing. Thank you for listening to the promotion playbook series here on risky conversations with Jamie Lee. If you found this episode helpful, please leave a five star review on any of the podcasting platforms on which you are listening to this podcast. Past listeners have shared that these free workshops, free podcasts, have helped them get hired, get promoted and get paid more. Your review helps other people, other women, find the 100 plus free podcast episodes, and if you come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com that's spelled j, A, M, I, E, L, E, E, C, O, A, C, h.com, you can also access 100 plus free articles I've written on Leadership, negotiation, confidence for the ambitious professional women, until next time, please keep advocating for yourself and remember advocating for yourself is not selfish. It is an act of service.