49· Powerfully Likeable with Kate Mason
Podcast show notes
In this episode, I’m joined by Kate Mason. We discuss the common dilemma many women face in leadership, feeling like they have to choose between being authoritative or likeable, and how to break free from that false choice to embrace both.
We talk about the importance of managing perfectionism, embracing ambition, and how to communicate confidently, even when faced with self-doubt.
This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone looking to lead with authenticity and purpose!
Here are the highlights
(01:26) Kate's Career Journey
(03:51) The Concept Behind "Powerfully Likeable"
(06:35) Challenges of Ambition and Perfectionism
(13:03) Perception and Lens in Communication
(17:49) People Pleasing
(25:30) Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways
Connect with Kate on LinkedIn
Check out Kate’s website
Get the Find Your Power audio-course HERE
Get the 5 Day Resilience Kickstarter
Connect with Ruth
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity or your resilience.
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Today I'm joined in conversation by Dr Kate Mason. Kate is a communications coach, a world champion debater and an author, her forthcoming book, Powerfully Likable - How To Communicate Your Best Self And Get What You Deserve, is a toolkit for anyone looking to amplify their voice, reach and impact at work. Kate is highly experienced in communications. She spent her career working with founders and executives from tech startups to major global brands in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, like Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Uber and many more around the world. She currently lives in Sydney, Australia with her partner and their two sons and I really think you'll enjoy this conversation. It's focused on issues that really impact women in leadership. I mean they've impacted everybody in leadership, but I think women especially and Kate has really tailored this conversation to that and I think you're going to get a lot out of it.
Ruth
Kate, it's lovely to see you today. Thank you so much for coming on Frustrated and Exhausted and for being with us to share your your expertise and your knowledge and your own kind of journey in leadership and with kind of where that's led you to today. We've done some, some time zone juggling
between here and Australia and we've, we've kind of managed to figure out a time to talk, so it's really great to see you and thank you for being with us.
Kate
Oh, thank you so much for having me Ruth, it's a real, a real treat.
Ruth
Our pleasure. So, I kind of just alluded to the fact that there's been a bit of a journey in terms of your career, could you just sort of just so that other people kind of get a feel for what that's been like. Can you kind of give us a little synopsis of where you started and kind of what's led you to communication and where you are now?
Kate
Absolutely. Well, there's been a couple of common threads through the whole thing but I started out thinking I'd be a professor. I thought I'll absolutely want to teach literature, teach English and so I did my PhD thinking that that was going to be my path. And in that process realized I loved the teaching and the talking to people component but I found it ultimately quite lonely and quite hard to be away from people so much. I loved writing, I loved thinking but I, I found I didn't really have the same sort of community around me that I had imagined. And so I went into corporate communications jobs, straight away into Google which was, you know, the very, very opposite world you could imagine. Slower-paced academia, and you know gray beige walls to the sort of hyper primary colored experience and I, I guess I got a taste for technology communications at the time and really spent the next 10 or so years at Google and at startups afterwards working with founders and companies on really how to articulate their stories. The same thing that I liked about academia which was translating something to a broader audience, was I realized what people needed and companies needed, and in that time I started working really, particularly with individuals on well how are you communicating your particular piece of that story? And how can I be of service or assistance in doing so? So that's, that's led me to today where I, that's the work that I predominantly do with, with companies and individuals.
Ruth
You have a book coming out next year entitled Powerfully Likable, which I think is such an interesting juxtaposition I guess, you might think of it as, what's kind of led you to write the book and why that particular sort of area to explore?
Kate
It's, it's been a long observational journey I suppose in a lot of ways, so certainly my work in tech companies when I'd work with women particularly although some men as well, I kept seeing this invisible rope that they kept tripping over which was I've come to a position of authority, or perceived authority, and I feel like I must make a choice between these two doors as a leader. Right? I must choose either the powerful door and be potentially brusque or short or mean even, or I can choose the likable door and I can be friends with everybody but really have no authority and power in doing so, and many people would come to me with this, at this fork in the road. And what I had realized and what I've learned and I'll talk a little bit about how, was those doors are really an illusion. There's no, there's no reason that we feel this fork other than that the pictures that we've been given in life offer that that is the option but really there's so many ways in between those two things that we can show up, so we can actually be both of those things at the same time, and that's really what I wanted to talk about in the book which was how can we borrow from each such that we are showing up in a way that feels right for us but not making a concession at the outset, and that journey for me personally, we had spoken a little bit about this, but I had started debating from a very young age and that was I think the exact way to realize I'm often in teams with other men, and I was a woman, and how could I differentiate or delineate myself as distinct from them without aping, you know without becoming masculine, but retaining some of my own sense of self in a very adversarial environment that demanded certainty and authority and power.
Ruth
Yeah, it's an interesting one and I've interviewed a couple of lawyers on the show as well and worked with quite a lot of people in that profession as well and that, that sort of not always but that sense of
adversarial kind of that competition even with peers and colleagues sometimes can really influence the way in which we think about presenting ourselves and the way in which we feel we should communicate. You know there's so many beliefs around all of this, aren't there?
Kate
Oh, they really are and we, we have somewhat stereotyped or limited role models of what that can look like. You know I think we're very familiar with that Miranda Priestly you know, a Vogue Editor from Meryl Streep and, and that often feels like one of the few ways to show up and I have countless clients who say to me you know that doesn't really feel like me or what if I were to do... And they're all just on that edge of thinking, is this possible? You know can I, can I show up in these various ways? And of course the answer is yes, it's just we're sort of building the airplane as we're flying in it. We're trying to make sense of it in mid, mid flight and that's a really discombobulating and strange place to be you know we would love a fully finished airplane and that's not always what we get.
Ruth
Yeah, discombobulating is, is right and I've certainly found with clients that when people are in some way ambitious or, and I don't mean that necessarily in the stereotypical sense of ambitious, but somebody who shows up every day who wants to be at their best, who wants to do their best work, you know whatever their definition of success is they want to be successful, there can be such a drive almost for perfectionism in that and so that sitting with that discomfort can be really, really hard when you're, as you say discombobulated which is just the best word.
Kate
So I think you just touched on two words Ruth that are so important for this conversation. One is ambition and one is perfectionism. So on the ambition side I think a lot of women particularly feel really uncomfortable with that word because it feels like we, we want to take something or we're entitled to have something or we believe we're good enough for it and that's culturally and in our in the world that we've grown up in something that's kind of not necessary, not necessarily something that feels normal or easy for women to grab at, right? I think there's, there's a feeling that we would rather say oh I couldn't possibly or not me or you go first and, and that's fine, we want to be a little bit more deferential you know put ourselves second and so ambition feels counter to a lot of those narratives. So, so one of the things I do in communications consulting with folks is really think through what might be the personal landmines you're jumping up against when we hear those sorts of words, right? Because they're different for all of us. What, what did you hear as a child? Where did you grow up thinking? And how do we manage those so such that when you're communicating you're able to do so in a way that feels full and ready to accept, you know those opportunities.
The second word that you said that I think is really pertinent to this discussion is perfectionism. All of the research bears out, and you would have seen this too that women only apply for jobs for example when we feel we meet 100% of the criteria and men apply when they feel that they meet far fewer and I think that same idea sort of spreads into the way we communicate, right? I better not say something until I know it's perfect, or I, I'm not sure about it so I won't, I won't bring that up in the meeting and we often feel like, well hang on I probably need a couple more degrees before I, you know before I do that next step in my career or, or even participate in that meeting and, and that idea of the perfect answer or the perfect response even, really I think can hold a lot of us back from saying a very, very good thing. So one of the strategies I use for folks is, well, could you not maybe be the world authority on something but could you be a very good explainer of it, or could you be a good translator of it, or could you be a good listener in the room, right and and be able to pull out different things so there's lots of different ways that may not be the quote “perfect answer” but that allow us to give a contribution that is received really warmly and gratefully by our audience.
Ruth
It's such a fascinating area and I hear a lot from people and I've sat there at the table in the room and done exactly the same myself in my career where you're sort of, you're mentally kind of trying to word
as the conversation's going on your kind of contribution. So you're kind of not really listening fully to other people around you often, and you're tying yourselves in knots trying to find the right phrase or whatever it is, and before you know it you've sort of missed the moment, and it's, it's passed you by and that opportunity to contribute and to be heard has just gone and you know that is frustrating.
Kate
10 minutes later you think hang on, I've got the perfect thing. And you're exactly right. I have had that scenario described to me so many times and I talk about it being like having open tabs in your mental browser. You know when you have too many tabs open and your computer starts generally sort of slowing down, I feel like that's often what we do in those meetings or that situations you know, open tab, I hope they don't ask me to get a coffee. Open tab, hang on how do I word that so it's perfectly, and suddenly we've got open tab, open tab particularly then you add on open tab, the kids need new trousers you know for the start of term or whatever it might be and suddenly we're not present in that meeting, right? We're not as receptive as we could be, we're not listening as well as we could be and this is by no means I'm saying as a fault, I think this is a very natural multitasker approach but what it does is keeps putting us one degree away from that person whom we might be interacting with instead of coming towards them, and great communication is when we can try and get rid of all of those tabs and just be in the one and really, really present and connected and you'll probably find you, you're noticing more, you're hearing more, you might be able to pick up on an anxiety, maybe in your manager or your report, all sorts of different things come to light when we can close those tabs, so it's not to say you're doing anything wrong if you're feeling them, but it's good practice to try and think about what if I just stayed in this tab, you know what, what could I, what could I do and and give to my interlocutor in this moment that might be of value?
Ruth
We talked a bit about kind of this being seen as powerful or likable and the fact that actually we're, we're much more than either of those two sort of stereotypes or kind of the way that people are portrayed, women in particular are portrayed. We obviously have the challenges of the way that we see ourselves,
and kind of our own beliefs set around that, obviously communication is also, you know it's a two way, multi-way street, so it's not even just a two way street but you know it's not just our beliefs about ourselves that kind of come to this it’s also thinking about how we are perceived and the lens through which other people kind of see us. How does that play in when you know female leaders are thinking about how to communicate effectively, how to kind of be listened to because you can't force somebody to listen to you but how do you think about the other lenses that will be on you and, and how to counter some of those?
Kate
It's a great question. So I think those are immediately other tabs, right? What should I wear? Is there going to be a lectin? Can I stand in my shoes for that long? These are all I think we naturally think about right? It to some degree, I think of them myself, right? It’s not a judgment but suddenly we're starting to come out of ourselves and not exist within ourselves. I think a lot about this when we tell people just be confident, right? Suddenly we're trying to come out of ourselves and do this performance rather than being in ourselves. So I think it's a fairly straightforward way of thinking about this. When those thoughts come up, and again they're not wrong but when those thoughts come up, couple of things are useful. Work out what am I going to wear? Is it comfortable? Can I move? Do I feel free to, if particularly if you're on stage or something you know am I wearing something that I'm gonna feel comfortable and good in and that I would never prescribe what that looks like, that's your answer, right? Is it, is it something that I feel comfortable and happy in? Work that out early, get that, close that tab.
The second thing to do is to then say, what value can I give this room? So instead of thinking about how are they going to be looking from outside in what can I think about inside out? And ideally if you can think of something that you're really excited about or that you think is going to be really useful or some research that you want to share that's really animating and thrilling to you, that will be the way to get through to that room. Straight away you're in it and you're excited and you're providing value and people can see that almost immediately. And so it shifts that instead of the outside in perception and lens and what lens are they going to look through, which by the way we can't control, right? That's entirely up to someone else. The thing we can control is our own excitement, drive, energy that we can give out. And that's, that's I think a much more liberating way to think about it because no matter how that reception works, you've been able to put in that energy. And of course, you may still have learnings from it and you may still come away thinking oh I didn't land exactly as I'd like and I need to sort of tweak some things for next time, but it's such a better investment of your energy because it comes across immediately to anybody who's meeting with you and I see that shift all the time, it's really, it's extremely exciting actually to watch.
Ruth
Yeah, I bet it is actually and I think it comes back as well to that you know we talk a lot about authenticity and leadership and authentic leadership and I think that, that view that you describe of that sort of inside out, actually if you're grounded in that, then you are showing up in a real way, and people are much more likely to connect to that than, than any other version that you might think you're trying to portray.
Kate
I think so. I think words like confidence and authenticity, although I believe in both of them and I think they're very interesting, often do rely on an element of performance, and even, and that's really kind of contradictory when you think about authenticity because surely I'm just me, but if you'r, if you're stuck thinking, “how do I be authentic?” suddenly there is an element of performance as you think like well is this me or is this me? And it becomes again another open tab that sort of can undermine you a little. What I think is a much easier way is to do well what animates me, what makes my heart beat faster, what's really exciting about this thing I'm going to present or maybe it's counterintuitive or perhaps under discussed, that's a good way to start that conversation and feel I think some of that energy.
Ruth
Yeah I think that's really great advice. When we think about likability we've sort of not used the term people pleasing but I know for a lot of women that can be quite a driver because it's kind of how we're conditioned often. Where does likability become a trap?
Kate
So the likability unfortunately has had a really bad PR run. I think people think it's a backhanded compliment, or it's something that we shouldn't want. And to me likability means I want to bring you in on my team to work with you on something, or I recommend you to someone else or I put your name down for a promotion, right? There's a sense of I want to go into that for you, that's, that's a professional likeability which is a currency. It's a really brilliant thing to have and my belief on likability is not that you have to bend over backwards to be everything to everyone else, and again thinking about that external lens, right? How do I, how do I be likable to you? It's like if you can just show up and be who you are and be warm and connected and present and useful, that is likely going to be very favored by people around you. It's not a performance it's thinking about the usefulness of your contributions flowing outward rather than oh gosh what are they going to think? So that could be something simple as you know if your boss says, hey could you also do this thing and you think oh I don't know how I'm going to say no and I have these people pleasing tendencies and maybe I want to say yes sure I'll be able to do it, you could say something like you know I, I'd love to, can you help me work out which of these things, which areas of my work can I prioritize such that I can get those done for you by when you need them to be done, right? So it's, it's a mindfulness when you're taking on something like that and it's, it's not unlikable to be like help me, help me prioritize that or give me a sense of what you need first and I think and then sometimes the boss is like oh actually I forgot you had those four other things that are also due on Friday you know, let's discuss. So, so there's lots of different ways likeability doesn't even though as you say we've been conditioned and acculturated to think saying yes is the way to likeability oftentimes great boundaries can be very likable to be able to say, actually I can't take that on because I really want to make sure I'm delivering on those other four things, can we talk about that next week and, and I'd love to be helpful then, right? That's, that's an equally likable response but it's also protecting what you need to protect.
Ruth
Yeah I love that because it's sort of that sense of likeability not meaning saying yes necessarily, actually it's just good clear communication.
Kate
Exactly, and actually there's a lot of instances, you've probably had these, i've had these where someone has said yes, I think in the pursuit of being likable and they've not been able to deliver that which ultimately makes them kind of unlikable, right? It's frustrating, you think I wish you would have told me that earlier because I could have intervened or I could have given you more resourcing, or you know we'd be in a different better place now so sometimes a quick yes is actually a longer term headache as well which I think we forget.
Ruth
Yeah, I think that's a really important point and that it's that link through to actually being perceived as trustworthy and reliable and kind of a team player, all of those things because as soon as you start not hitting deadlines and things, that's where we kind of get into, get into it actually.
Kate
Yeah, if you want to please people you should be really honest about where you're at and what your capacity is and that's, that's a harder people pleasing, but it's a longer term, and as you say trust building, people pleasing.
Ruth
Kate there's been so much value in this conversation for people and I've definitely taken away quite a few things myself to kind of have more of a think about. Just as we kind of start to wrap up, you obviously advise other people, companies, kind of extensively around these sorts of issues, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received about communication?
Kate
Oh that's such a good one. I think it would’ve been a had and have a wonderful mentor and friend who was a close colleague of mine, and I was talking to her about a difficult CEO that I was working for at the time, and I reported into him and he was quite intimidating to me at the time. I was much younger and I was having these moments where I was retelling them to her saying he's so hard to read and I don't understand and this is what I'm doing and he seems really irritated with me and she said, assume you are right. And I said what did you, what do you mean? And she said, I think you're going in there and you're saying, oh well do you mean it this way or this way? And do you mean that way or that way? And he's getting annoyed because you're trying to be everything in these meetings and I said oh my gosh that's exactly what I'm doing. Being vague and obscure, just assume you know what he's talking about and answer the question. And it absolutely opened up this like, oh of course I can, if he's saying trailer and he means you know A, then I'm going to answer it as if it's A and if he then can clarify no actually I meant B well fine then I'll answer B but I don't have to go in so head up and unsure of myself because that I think was communicating to him a sense of uncertainty and he was, he was thinking, oh can I trust this person and of course that was flowing back to me thinking oh he hates me, this is awful.
So we were stuck in this loop. So she just said assume you know what he's talking about and it was such a revelation because I went through other conversations, assume that I have the right knowledge and again if I don't I can clarify but don't start off on that like oh gosh silly me, what do I know sort of footing that I think I was putting forward, so assume that you know and answer accordingly is probably the best advice that I got because at the time it really changed a trajectory, and this is a long time ago now, but it really changed the trajectory of how I initially showed up and it gave myself a lot more permission, because I would say most of the time I probably did guess the right thing and then was able to build trust and, and camaraderie and rapport rather than being on hot coals and and jumping all over the place.
Ruth
Yeah, that's that's really great advice because and it even plays into that what we were saying earlier on about that when you're sitting around the table and the conversation’s moving and you're trying to think of the perfect answer, actually if you just assume that you've got the right answer already and say it, if nothing else you're going to learn something you know about other people's perceptions of that or knowledge about it or whatever it is you know.
Kate
Yes, and if you truly don't know, which has happened to me many times, I got very comfortable with just asking, can you talk me through what that acronym means or when we say this, what, what do we are we referring to, x or y or like tell me more about that, oftentimes people are like oh actually I'm not sure we any of us really know exactly right? So oftentimes it's able to bring all of you together in a moment and work out exactly what's at stake or what that aim is so a question like that is can be actually very powerful and not a sign of weakness. You have to have done your homework, you can't be asking super, super obvious questions but most of the time if you're really, really stuck on something and you've, you've been there for a while or you've been in those conversations for a while it's worth asking but otherwise assume that you know the answer and and you can contribute and it's such a liberating feeling.
Ruth
A lovely word, liberating. I like that. Okay thank you so much for your time today. It's been a really interesting conversation. There's a lot for people to take away from this, which I will kind of sum up in a little bit but yeah, no thank you so much.
Kate
Thank you so much for having me Ruth, it's been a pleasure.
Ruth
Loads to take from that conversation. So here are my top three things. First of all I think the biggest one for me was that sense of when we're communicating and when we're thinking about communicating and thinking of how we are being received, it's really actually about grounding ourselves in ourselves rather than worrying about how other people are kind of going to perceive us, and I think Kate's point about actually as soon as we slip out of that and into worrying about what other people think we start to get that element of performance in in what we're doing and when we do that, that can really get in the way of actually connecting with people and landing our message.
I think her point about really focusing you know that open and closed tabs thing, you're closing as many tabs as we possibly can so that we're really present with people in the moment and you know her point as well obviously as women we got a lot of tabs open whether it's school trousers for the kids or what's for dinner tonight plus all the work stuff and everything else, when we can kind of close off as many of those as possible, take as many decisions out as possible early and really focus on where we're at now it can make a huge difference to the way in which we communicate, and we kind of get ourselves, our points across to other people and kind of really hear them too. So really thinking about what value you can give in that as well then you're really focusing on those people around you in that moment rather than all the other million things going on around about.
And finally I think her point about likability not necessarily you know having got a bad rap and not actually necessarily being a bad thing at all that actually likability can be a real currency in our communication. You know that being liked by other people and perceived as likable can be massively important, but it also doesn't always mean saying yes. It means being a trusted partner. It means somebody being kind of warm and approachable but it doesn't necessarily also mean saying yes to everything in order to be likable and I think that is such an important point you know we all take on too much very often so actually being able to set and hold boundaries is also an important part of being likable and if we can think about it like that it can really help us cut back on the overwhelm, stay focused and kind of really deliver and be true to ourselves.
I hope you got as much out of that conversation as I did. I'll pop all Kate's details in the show notes so that you can connect with her on LinkedIn. Keep abreast of the new book that's coming and yeah, it'll all be in the show notes for you. Thanks very much. Take care, speak to you soon.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood, I'd absolutely love to hear from you.
Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
