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Hello, I'm Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. And I help them get promoted, get better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. How? By blending proven communication strategies with brain-shifting neuroscience techniques. In this podcast, we explore the stories and strategies of Gutsy women and allies who've braved speaking up and navigated their careers forward. We're here to de-risk the conversations that feel the most daunting. Advocating for yourself and your growth. Let's dive in. Hello, welcome to Risky Conversations. And why risky conversations? Because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. My name is Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics, and I help them get promoted, get better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. And today I have a case study for you on how to get your team to do the work they are avoiding without micromanaging. I'm going to share a real case study from my coaching practice. I'm going to walk you through this case study in four parts. In the first part, I'll share with you what it looked like before my client and I started working together when my client was doing great work and still not getting her fair share of the credit or her commission, her pay. Second, what happened after she and I started working together and she landed a better role and the anxiety that showed up the moment she had to lead people instead of just outperforming them. And then the third section, I'm going to share with you the one sentence she almost said out loud that would have worked against her without her even realizing it. And then the fourth section, I'll share with you and I'll walk you through the reframe that we built together in a coaching session and why it worked and what it taught me about what leadership actually is. Alright, let's dive into it. So my client will call her Naomi. Naomi spent years as a top performer in sales. She prospected hard, she closed deals, she consistently delivered results. Does that sound familiar? Maybe she reminds you of you. But when it came time for taking and receiving credit or her commission, her pay, she kept coming up short. Deals that she had sourced and she had closed got split with or handed to people who did less of the actual work. Now, here's what happened in Naomi's head, and I am going to invite you to really sit with this because I hear a version of this from almost every woman I coach in male-dominated industries, and there are many. Yeah. And it was just around that time that we started working together, that she and I started working together in a coaching container. And in the first completely free hour-long consultation, which you too can book from the link in the show notes, Naomi described to me that she felt she had misplaced agency, that her she she didn't have agency. And I told her something that is that I think is really worth repeating out loud right now to whoever's listening to this. Her agency had never actually left the room. She had unintentionally allowed certain choices to persist without realizing the choice was hers to make all along. And if this resonates, if this resonates for you, think about that. Systemic biases will do this. It will cloud your perspective. It can make you feel like you're the one that needs fixing when really you're simply operating inside a system that was never built with you in mind. And so when I shared with her, you you have your agency. You've just let these choices to persist, right? And you get to make new choices from here. When I said that to my client, her clo her response to me was, Whoa, I never seen it that way. But it does make a lot of sense to me now. So we started working together, and as our coaching continued, Naomi landed on an opportunity to join a more inclusive organization as a manager with junior staff, with people who would be reporting up to her. And in this role, the comp structure actually reflected the work she did. It was a more equitable split. She would take home more of the commission that she actually earned. It was better terms, it was a solid win. And the role came with something she hadn't yet, she she wasn't yet familiar with. She now had to lead and coach other people, junior staff. And that stirred up some anxiety in her. But you need a new perspective, you need a new sense of identity and definitely some intentional choices, right? Activating that agency. Otherwise, it can trigger some straight-up imposter syndrome, right? You might hear the voice that says, Who am I to do this? So here's the the other part. Here's the third part. We're going to talk about the line that Naomi almost said out loud that would have, that would have gone in the opposite direction of the kind of leadership she wanted to embody. Naomi gets into coaching her junior staff and she notices the real gap right away. They're not doing an essential task that's very important for salespeople. None of them are doing the prospecting properly. They're not doing the research, they're not putting together a list of prospects to call, right? This is the slow grind of building a list. And people don't want to do it, so they're not doing it and they're not closing, they're not closing deals. And Naomi, my client, being genuinely empathetic, she felt, she really felt inclined to just tell them. She wasn't really thinking about this. You know, she she just said, you know, I know how hard this is. I know this is painful. She said, building the list is the worst part. And it takes a long time. It's the worst part. She said she said it twice with emphasis, right? She's she's saying that because it is true to an extent. True isn't the same as useful. Because every time that Naomi said that out loud, it's the worst part. She was training herself and her team to dread the one activity that actually makes them money. So she was making her job as a new leader harder unconsciously. And here's what's wild though. In our one-on-one coaching session, she would say, you know, I when I asked her some more questions about that, she said of the same task, of the same task of building a list, she'd tell herself, the money's in the list. And that's how she would make herself build that list, and that's how she created, you know, six figures of commissions in her career. I'm sorry, nearly seven figures, high six figures. So the money's in the list. It's true, but it has a completely different effect. It's the same task, two sentences. One, the earlier sentence sort of deflates you, and the other one lights you up, it gets you going. It would have my client, Naomi, building the list, calling the list, closing deals. So in coaching, what did we do? In coaching, I taught her this concept of reframing. And reframing, very simply put, means how you introduce something, how you describe something shapes how the other person experiences it, how the listener experiences it, even before they've themselves started engaging or doing the thing themselves. It's not about spinning, it's it's not lying. You're choosing intentionally which true thing, which true perspective to lead with. So instead of opening with this is the worst part, we built her a new opener to use with her team. It went something like this Together, we're going to make a lot of money. And I'm going to show you exactly where the money is. It's in the prospecting list. Same task, same effort, completely different frame. So here's why this works: a good reframe does three things all at once. And I am going to walk you through all three because this is the part you can actually take and use today. Number one, it sets an expectation of winning instead of an expectation of suffering through the worst part. Number two, it changes what the list actually stands for, what it means. It goes from being a chore to being the actual source of income. Number three, this is the one that matters most. It generates motivation towards something instead of away from discomfort. Moving away from pain, you know, the motivation to move away from pain is not bad. Sometimes that motivation is required for us to just get up and start doing things. But motivation towards a clear and compelling goal is sustainable. It gives you a sense of purpose. It's sustainable energy. So it's the difference between, oh, I have to do this, dread, to I get to do this for a reason that's clear and compelling for me. And in conclusion, here's what I loved most about working through this very simple reframe, very simple little bit of a slice of coaching that I offered her. My client, Naomi, did not need a personality transplant. She did not need to change who she is. She didn't need to fake enthusiasm. She didn't feel, she didn't need to perform some version of leadership that is sort of prescribed to her that wasn't already hers. She already had the belief that motivated her, which is the money's in the list. And it's true, and it's also true for the people that she's now coaching, mentoring, and leading. She just hadn't yet thought of offering the same truth to her team yet. And once she did, she said that she saw her junior staff's face just light up with motivation. And she loved that. And that was motivating for her too as a leader. And so coaching them and mentoring them is not like some impossible chore for Naomi. It became the thing that made her a better leader. A better leader than the previous managers who had chronically underpaid her in the years prior. And here's what I want you to really take away from the story. At the start, Naomi's agency, she felt that her agency had gone missing. Not because she actually lost it, but because a system, a biased system that wasn't built with her in mind, had convinced her it was never really hers to begin with. So my job as a coach wasn't to hand her her agency, she had it all along. It was to help her see that she had had it and how to reactivate it, just with a simple reframe. And leadership is the same work, just aimed towards others instead of inward towards herself. Naomi didn't just reclaim her own sense of control. She learned how to hand that same clarity to her team. She stopped asking her staff to grind through the quote-unquote the worst part, just so that, you know, they can get through the day. She started showing them what was in it for them, their commission, their income, with their skill, their name on the deal. And that's that's that's like having your agency activated and then and then seeing it multiplied in other people. That's a beautiful thing. And that's the real shift I want for every single woman I coach. It's not just about reclaiming your own voice in a system that keeps trying to talk you out of it. It's not just about making more money, even though making more money is a lot of fun and it's a really happy byproduct of the work. It's learning how to activate that same voice in everyone who reports to you. You don't have to play inauthentic games, you don't have to play office politics, you don't have to shrink yourself, you don't have to apologize, and you definitely don't have to become someone else, someone who is harder or colder or more masculine or whatever to get taken seriously. You just have to get intentional about which perspective you're leading with. And you will help build trust in yourself and help build trust with the people around you as you help them connect with their own agency as well. Reconnect with their agency. So if you're leading a team or about to, and you can feel yourself almost unconsciously talking your team out of the hardest, most valuable part of the work, hear me on this. This is not a personality flaw. There's nothing wrong with you. It's a fixable pattern. And so if you are ready to get intentional, be who you are, lead with integrity, and influence positively. And the link is in the show notes. And the link, if you would like the direct URL, it's jameleecoach.com forward slash apply. J-A-M-I-E-L-E-E-C-O-A-C-H dot com forward slash A-P-P-L-Y. And in this free hour-long consultation, I'll help you break out of the draining frames, the frames that you're currently in that has you feeling like you don't have agency or power or choice or confidence. And I'll help you reclaim what was what was never outside your realm of control. And I'll help you activate that agency and everyone else who's counting on you to lead them well. So that's it for this episode of Risky Conversations, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today on Risky Conversations. Remember, everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And when done well, your self-advocacy becomes an act of service. If you're ready to de-risk your own career evolution, I invite you to book a free hour-long consultation at jcoach.com slash apply. J-A-N-I-E-L-E-E-C-O-A-C-H dot com slash apply. We'll map out your custom blueprint to confidence and get you on the path to being better paid on your own terms. Let's make your next conversation the one that changes everything. Talk soon.