How Women Speak: The Professional's Playbook to Harness the Power of Feminine Energy
Let’s talk about something that isn’t necessarily new, but is rather a much-needed approach for successful women and men in today’s professional environment to break limiting gender stereotypes inside of communication at work, helping them cultivate healthy professional relationships on all levels. Hint: this has got nothing to do with sacrificing any part of who you are. This involves creating a conversation to help:
Understand this approach to leadership development and personal growth as an effective path to cultivating powerful, grounded and authentic leaders;
Embody the idea that there’s no such thing as being “too feminine” or “too masculine” and these perceptions are only relevant in terms of how one sees themselves;
Understand what “energy” has to do with it all and make the connection between heart and mind in a non “woo-woo” way that makes balancing the duality of “energy” a natural and empowering part of everyday success practices.
I always say speaking is an inside out job. And my work has become more important than ever because we are living in an age where corporations are investing more – more than 50 billion annually to be exact – in health and wellness programs to have their employees bring their “whole” self to work. Whole self is mind, body and spirit. We are experienced at bringing our minds and bodies to work (though sometimes the body is all we can imagine… especially on Mondays), but when you look at WHY we are still quite unsuccessful at having a collective work society that is “happy” and “satisfied” in spite of all those billions of dollars being invested into professional well being, it's quite clear it's the spirit aspect that’s missing.
And when I say “spirit” I’m not talking about anything woo-woo. I’m talking about science. I’m talking about energy. Albert Einstein proved long ago with his E=mc2 theory that everything is made up of energy. Everything means everyone and everyone means you and me.
While I do work primarily with female executives, this is not just an approach for women. As I’ve said before: this isn’t about one gender learning how to overcome or defeat the challenges of years of discrimination placed upon it by another gender. If you haven’t noticed, while there has been some progress in that battle, there’s still a lot to be desired.
Consider this: maybe our lack of progress in this gender-equality-conversation stems from the fact that we’ve been fighting over the wrong thing. What I’m here to talk to you about today actually has nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with energy!
I was reading an article in Forbes the other day that talked about how for generations, women have felt the need to exert their influence through masculine energy in order to advance their careers in predominantly male-driven industries. The stigma around “being too feminine” has been associated with a lack of efficacy and weakness, leaving ambitious women with few options. Meanwhile, men have had the social pressure of checking their emotions at the door in order to be perceived as strong. As a result, men who are comfortable displaying compassion have been labeled as soft or touchy-feely. Typically, this has been seen as a quality that diminishes leadership capacity rather than strengthening it.
But here’s the deal: our society is shifting. Just in case you haven’t noticed, we are moving away from these limiting gender stereotypes. In order to perform at our highest potential, it is important to tap into both our right brain and our left brain, our anabolic and catabolic energy, aka positive and negative, feminine and masculine energies irrespective of gender.
Why is this important? Because just like a battery needs both a positive and negative charge to properly function, so do we.
Our brains have functions associated with masculine energy as it relates to being rational, logical, and linear in our thinking and understanding. And there are also functions of the brain associated with feminine energy – those which have to do with being open, receptive to new ideas, displaying compassion and empathy, and bringing emotional qualities to our work.
Balancing masculine and feminine energy is simply the act of intentionally connecting your heart with your mind.
This is the approach needed to be seen as powerful, grounded and authentic inside your leadership. And whether or not you are leading a team or leading a family, remember that each and everyone of us are leaders (a leader is simply someone with the capacity to influence anyone at any time around anything). Bottom line: if you are interacting with other human beings every day, you are a leader.
Here are 3 things you can do immediately to lead without feeling the need to exert mostly masculine energy and instead capture the hearts and minds of the people around you, i.e., operate in your feminine energy:
Engage in healthy dialogue with yourself daily. It's important to ask yourself questions that help you explore how you're showing up each and every day. Questions like “What is my intention here?” “How am I showing up externally and internally?” “Am I solely focused on performance and outcomes?” and “What might be missing in my own performance?”
Make balance the priority. It’s not about needing to be more masculine or more feminine or exerting more effort and authority to get your point across. It’s actually about being aware of what each specific situation needs and what ways of being you possess that you can bring to it. It’s also about how you feel. As part of your self assessment, be honest about where you are tipping the scales one way or the other in terms of your energy… Are you being too forceful…too passive… what specific behaviors are related to these ways of being and how can you create more balance? What specific behaviors will help to support balance for you and your team?
Be purposeful about your energy. Once you're clear about what’s missing, set the intention to bring forth that energy into the room. Get clear on your ways of being and behaviors associated with that energy and commit to practicing them. For example, if you notice that your feminine energy is lacking in a certain scenario, you might choose to inject a more intuitive approach, or invite more creativity. Maybe you’ll listen more instead of calling out everything you may judge as wrong, choosing instead to remain silent and wait in certain circumstances. Of course, there are situations that might call for the reverse, where more masculine energy is required. This is where becoming more structured, outlining deliverables and focusing on timelines might be more appropriate inside your communication.Energy can be challenging to describe and manage, yet we are all familiar with how it feels when it’s directed at us. With practice, this approach to directing both our masculine and feminine energy becomes less of an intellectual exercise and more of an energetic dance.
Of course, I’m passionate about women in leadership – those with both dominant masculine or dominant feminine energies – and that passion has very little to do with gender. In fact, my How Women Speak Training is just as effective for men as it is for women!
Does this sound like you? You’re successful. You’re accomplished. From the outside, your career, your business, your climb up the success ladder all appear to be going well. But deep down, you may know something is still missing….something still doesn’t feel quite right…you may not know what it is exactly but you know it’s costing you …. and potentially your dreams. This is a training about communicating from the feminine perspective but it’s not just a training for women! Remember: in this new age,the goal should be to have a balanced energetic approach between both the masculine and feminine.
