“Internal work means everything changes externally.”

In Fitzgerald Power’s interview series, we’re speaking to people, with different perspectives, who feel they can offer more to the workplace – from the water cooler all the way up to C-Suite.

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you: the future is female. Research shows that companies with more women on their boards outperform those without by a significant margin, and organisations with greater gender diversity in C-Suite positions are more profitable. Yet, despite significant progress, the proportion of women in senior management roles is still far less than 50%. The reasons for this are tenfold. “Two of the barriers I come across often are unconscious bias and gender stereotypes,” Lucy Gernon, award-winning Executive Coach and acclaimed international speaker supporting women in leadership, tells Fitzgerald Power. “So at the moment, just 32% of senior leadership roles globally are held by women. Which means that 68% is held by men. We are living in a business world built by men for men – and I’m not saying that in a derogatory way, it’s just a fact. However, times are changing. And, say, there’s a lot more talk about work life balance now, as well as diversity and inclusion. But unfortunately, a lot of those unconscious biases against women still exist. So for example, a lot of the women I would work with would be told that they’re too emotional or too people focused, or they can’t make tough decisions, all that kind of stuff. That’s where I come in, to show them how their feminine energy can be appreciated, because it’s currently not.”

Gernon is an industry leader. Her day job consists of supporting ambitious women (and sometimes, men) in senior leadership roles to advance their careers and achieve success through high-performance mindset work. She also delivers keynotes and training to corporate teams in the areas of career acceleration, productivity, mindset, confidence, diversity in leadership and more. She, too, is the founder of a well-known leadership coaching brand Powerhouse Revolution, an acclaimed international speaker, a multi-award-winning businesswoman, and the host of the global podcast Powerhouse Revolution. Becoming a mentor, for her, didn’t come easy. “I was two decades in the corporate world before I decided to go out on my own,” she says. “I then came to realise that I had gifts and talents when it came to working with people. And then Covid-19 hit, and my father-in-law was, very suddenly, diagnosed with cancer. Six weeks later, he died. And it just made me realise how finite and fragile life is. So I decided to start my business back in 2020 and I went full time then in 2021. Which means that everyday for me consists of supporting women in their career, showing them how to avoid burnout and telling them that they actually can have at all if they’re strategic enough.”

In 2009, an article in the Harvard Business Review insisted that women accounted for about $20 trillion in annual consumer expenditure, making them a more substantial potential market expansion than both China and India put together. A decade later, women’s spending power was seemingly around the $31 trillion mark. Furthermore, US measurement firm Nielsen predicts that by 2028, women will own 75% of the discretionary spending. Yet, women are repeatedly and systemically left out of entire conversations and industries that rely on them to keep afloat. “I think what’s really important for women in male-dominated rooms and industries, is to not see yourself as a woman, or indeed the only woman in the room.” Gernon says.

“See yourself as an equal. There’s this model called the OK-OK communication model which talks all about the ego states that live within all of us. So we have a parent ego state, a child ego state, and an adult ego state. And so where we want to be is in the adult ego state, which means we’re rational, logical and results-focused. As opposed to the child ego state, which is either rebellious or compliant, or the parent ego state, which is either controlling or nurturing. And so what can happen if you’re walking into a room with a lot of powerful people and you’re feeling intimidated, your subconscious will trigger the submissive child ego state, which means that you’re giving away your power. So the way to kind of reframe that is to remember that we’re all equal. We all came into the world the exact same way: butt naked and vulnerable. I think it’s super important to remember that nobody’s better than anyone, and we are all just the same when you go into a room.”

Though the soft leadership qualities that women often possess often feel like they’re underappreciated, Gernon insists that the opposite should be true: because women are natural born leaders. “So, women are used to multitasking,” she laughs. “And I get that that’s me gender stereotyping, but let’s call a spade a spade. All of the data shows that we can multitask, because we’re largely the ones who have to consider childcare or domestic work or a lot of the other unseen work that keeps companies going. Women are more prone to doing the office housework like taking notes. Stop taking the notes, girls! Tell them it needs to be rotated around! There was actually this study done by Harvard back in 2016, that surveyed 1000 of the top companies in the States, and what they found was that companies that had more women in senior leadership roles made 34% extra cash. So they had a higher return on equity to their shareholders and they had a higher equity value in their company. So in summary, women in senior leadership make companies more money. So the ball is in the corporate world’s court.”

Of course, a discussion about women in the workplace would not be complete without considering a work-life balance. Women, statistically, bear the brunt of domestic work – something which inevitably leads them to burnout, or even removing themselves from the workforce altogether. “I think the most important thing when it comes to burnout is knowing your own threshold,” Gernon says. “And everybody is different. So it’s about understanding your own capacity, and knowing what it is that’s draining your battery. The second thing then is obviously delegation. I think a big thing about women is that we take on way too much because we don’t want to upset our team. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers. I hear it all the time, and I often even do it myself. What you’re actually doing though, is robbing from your future self when you do that – so it’s about being intentional, and intentionally strategic. To put in the work with the people around you, instead of doing it all on your own, so that they can take some of the load. And that really helps with burnout.”

From her vantage point of working with thousands of professionals, Gernon has built a toolkit of strategies for women looking to advance their careers in leadership. The first is personal development. “Personal development is about working on yourself,” she says. “So most people go around trying to change everything around them. They blame the culture, they blame their colleagues, they blame not having enough resources, they blame the external environment. Whereas personal development is about working on yourself, and working on what’s in your control. And you have a lot more control than you think. I remember back when I worked in the corporate world, I thought that everyone and everything else needed to change, except me. And I remember someone said to me that when you change, the people around you change – and it’s so true. When you become a better version of yourself, so do others. I’ve seen it time and time again with my clients. They’ve got promotions, pay increases, found dream roles, reduced conflict at work, blown the revenue targets out of the water… all because they started to work on themselves. Internal work means everything changes externally.”

In her time working with women in leadership positions, one of the most common themes Gernon has observed is a tendency to play it safe with their potential. This is something she wants to change. “Women don’t advocate for themselves, and that is a huge mistake,” she says. “In the corporate world, we tend to look at what’s not working before we look at what is, but where someone can gain a competitive edge is when they start to become the bearer of good news; talking about what’s gone well; how they are going to make things even better, that kind of thing. The second thing is how to actually break through to senior leadership, it is about playing the game. And most women tell me they hate corporate politics – but they do exist. So you’re either going to be played by the game, or you’re going to be a player in the game without you even realising. And if you want to be a player in the game, it’s about understanding who you need to influence, how to work on your visibility, and how to promote your personal brand. That’s so important if you want people to see you as a leader. And I know people hate doing that, but if there’s one thing I can share, it’s that there’s a big difference between having an inflated sense of self and giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.

“The final thing then is all about listening,” she says. “People think communication is talking, but the majority of it is actually about listening. When I worked in the corporate world, I was brutal for speaking too much, because I wanted my voice to be heard. But I really missed a trick by not listening more. So for anyone who’s reading this, let me just urge you to take control, promote yourself and listen more than you speak. We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason.”

For more information on Lucy, her work and podcast, check out her website here.