Talk About Talk - Executive & Leadership Communication Skills

Imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and feeling like a fraud at work are more common than most people realize, and Dr. Andrea Wojnicki has the research to prove it. Learn where the term "imposter syndrome" came from, a new confidence framework to help you find your equilibrium between self-doubt and arrogance, and three tactics to boost your confidence in the moment, including a breathing technique and a mantra you can use before any high-stakes meeting.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA:

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

Check the full episode transcript at https://www.talkabouttalk.com/ethe-imposter-syndrome-epidemic-ep-223

Looking to boost your confidence? Struggling with self-doubt or imposter syndrome? Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, bestselling author of "The Confidence Habit," breaks down why confidence is a habit you can build. Andrea and Cindra dig into the difference between confidence and credibility, why 68% of Americans believe we're in a confidence crisis, and the small daily practices that rewire self-belief over time.

You'll learn Cindra's three-word mantra for bouncing back from setbacks, how to "capture your wins" even during your hardest days, and why confidence is often borrowed before it is built.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA:

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

CONNECT WITH CINDRA:

🌐 Website: https://cindrakamphoff.com/

📖 "The Confidence Habit" book: https://link.amazon/B08i6oLDl

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindra-kamphoff/

🎙️ Listen to Andrea on Cindra's "High Performance Mindset" Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/774-unique-is-better-than-better-how-to-communicate/id1034819901?i=1000788323865

RESOURCES:

📖 The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1455884324?

Check the full episode transcript at https://www.talkabouttalk.com/the-confidence-habit-with-cindra-kamphoff-ep-222

Executive presence, gender bias, and imposter syndrome collide for ambitious women trying to get ahead. If you’ve been interrupted mid-sentence, had your idea repeated back by a man, or been told to "take up more space," you already know the double standard. In this live training, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki breaks down her leadership presence framework and provides 3 techniques to build your confidence and credibility, without changing who you are.

Join the Women’s Executive Presence & Personal Branding Masterclass starting Sept. 23, 2026. Sign up at https://talkabouttalk.com/fall26.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

Check the full episode transcript at https://www.talkabouttalk.com/executive-presence-for-women-ep-221/

Wondering how to build your personal brand? Executive communication coach Andrea Wojnicki walks you through three exercises straight from her upcoming book to help you identify your own unique and valuable personal brand themes. Learn how to organize your strengths using the three Cs, clarify exactly how you make money, save money, solve a problem , and how skill stacking your abilities can make you distinctive.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

RESOURCES MENTIONED

🧭 Take the Archetypes Quiz: TalkAboutTalk.com/ArchetypesQuiz

🎧 Episode 179 with Christina Wallace, The Portfolio Life and Your Personal Brand: TalkAboutTalk.com/Portfolio-Life-179

📖 The Portfolio Life, by Christina Wallace: https://amzn.to/4czgBFZ

TRANSCRIPTION:

Andrea Wojnicki: You are in for a treat with this episode. I am really excited about this one. It’s gonna be a short one, but I promise it will deliver impact. I’m gonna coach you through three brand-new exercises that I share with my executive coaching clients in private coaching and in workshops. These are exercises that will help you develop your own unique and valuable personal brand.

Sound good? Let’s go. I want you to think of this podcast episode as a private coaching session just between you and me. Are you ready to work on your personal brand? Then you are in exactly the right place. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please, just call me Andrea.

For the next 15 minutes or so, you can consider me your personal executive communication coach. I coach ambitious leaders like you to communicate with confidence and credibility so you can achieve your career goals. You can learn more about Talk About Talk and everything that I do if you go to TalkAboutTalk.com.

You’ll see information about keynote speeches, corporate workshops, masterclasses, online courses, private coaching. It’s all there. There’s also plenty of free resources. So I encourage you to explore, and while you’re there, sign up for my free email newsletter. That’s more free coaching.

Okay, now I have something exciting to share. I am writing a book. This may or may not be news to you, but it’s not on the website yet, and it will be soon. It’s due to be published in 2027, and I have to tell you, it is way, way more work than I expected, but it’s also way more enjoyable. The title of the book is Let Me Introduce Yourself.

As you can probably guess from this title and from the topic of this podcast episode, the book is about how to introduce yourself with confidence and how to build a strong personal brand. Writing this book has pushed me to think in an even more disciplined way about how I coach people through this process.

And as I’ve been writing, a few things have bubbled up, you could say, and I just wanna share these things with you now. Three things, in fact. Today, I’m gonna walk you through all three, and I’m gonna coach you on how to use each one to help you identify and develop your own unique and valuable personal brand themes.

How to Identify Your Personal Brand Themes

First, though, I need to provide you with a little bit of context. When I work with these clients, these leaders, whether it’s one-on-one private coaching or in a group workshop, our goal is to build a succinct list of between 10 to 15 personal brand themes that are positive, unique, and resonant things about you that you wanna reinforce as part of your personal brand.

I use all kinds of exercises and prompts to help you build that list. And the most popular of these exercises is the Archetypes Quiz. If you go to talkabouttalk.com/archetypesquiz, you’ll find it there. It’s absolutely free, and it will help you identify which one of the 12 archetypes is your default. This output will give you confidence, focus, direction, and a real sense of identity, not to mention a whole new way to think about yourself and talk about yourself.

Okay, context is set. You now know that our goal is to come up with between 10 to 15 personal brand themes, and you know one way of doing so. It’s through the Archetypes Quiz. I’m gonna take you through three more. 

The Three Cs: Credentials, Character, and Context 

The first one I call the three Cs. As I was writing my book and describing this personal brand building process, something struck me.

The list of possible personal brand themes is so extensive, it’s actually exhausting. It can feel overwhelming. Think about it. We’re talking about your industry expertise, your functional expertise, your sector, your current title, your educational credentials, your past jobs, your archetype, your personality traits, especially where you’re off the charts, your leadership style, your geography, where you live and where you’re from, your hobbies, your family, and on and on.

You get the idea. Overwhelming, right? So when I was writing the book, I asked myself, “Is there a better way to organize all of this?” And that’s when I came up with the three Cs. The three Cs are credentials, character, and context. So here’s your exercise. Grab a piece of paper or open a document and write these three words across the top: credentials, character, and context.

Then, under each heading, brainstorm the positive, unique, and resonant things about you that belong there. Under credentials, you include things like your title, academic achievements, awards, certifications, past positions, and so on. Under character, you would include things like your archetype, which I just mentioned, and you can find a link to the quiz in the show notes.

You would also include your personality traits, your leadership style. You get the idea. These are your character traits. And then in the third column, under context, you put your family role, your stage of life, where you grew up, where you live now, your hobbies, and so on. Simply categorizing this previously overwhelming list can help you think more clearly and more strategically about which themes belong in your personal brand.

It might even surface something that you’d otherwise overlook. Okay, so that’s exercise one, the three Cs: credentials, character, and context. 

Make Money, Save Money, or Solve a Problem 

Moving on to exercise two. This exercise comes from a quote from a very good friend of mine named Sharon Ma Jin. You may have heard me mention her before. I’ve even had her on this podcast a few times.

She is a very successful executive recruiter, and we’ve worked together in workshops and coaching sessions to help people identify their professional identity and personal brand. And she is adamant about this, and I love her for it. Here’s her quote. Sharon says, “You need to know how you help a company make money, save money, or solve a problem.”

Say it with me. Make money, save money, solve a problem. Think about that. Here’s your exercise. Write those three phrases down. Then for each one, brainstorm the specific ways that you do this and include real examples and real experiences wherever you can. This exercise has a way of illuminating strengths and personal brand themes that people don’t even realize they had.

Okay, so that’s exercise two. Make money, save money, or solve a problem. Thank you, Sharon. Okay, we’re already onto the last one. We’ve covered the three Cs. Do you remember what they are? Credentials, character, and context. And we also covered Sharon’s suggestion of identifying how you help a company make money, save money, or solve a problem.

Skill Stacking: Find What Makes You Unique

And now onto the last exercise. I’m gonna be honest here, this one is my personal favorite. Have you ever heard of skill stacking or talent stacking? This concept is credited to Scott Adams. Yes, the Dilbert cartoonist. His idea is that you don’t need to be exceptional at any one thing. Instead, if you can combine two or three things where you’re, say, in the eightieth percentile or so, this combination will make you truly exceptional.

I like to think of this as a Venn diagram. Picture two or three circles, each representing your different skills. Where they overlap, that is uniquely you, and that is how you, my friend, are exceptional. I spoke about a related concept to this back in episode number one hundred and seventy-nine with Harvard Business School professor Christina Wallace.

Christina wrote a book called The Portfolio Life. I’ll leave links to that episode and her book in the show notes. Christina encourages us to create our own personal Venn diagram. Sound familiar? Consider three or so of your skills. Each of them is a circle, and where they overlap is magic. This is similar to skill stacking or talent stacking, isn’t it?

For Christina, her three circles are entertainment, technology, and business. Now, I have to say, there is nothing unusual about someone with business experience and expertise or someone with a tech background or someone in entertainment. But how many people do you know with all three? That is Christina’s sweet spot, and that is her brand.

For me, my circles are, I would say, marketing and branding is one, communication is one, and teaching and coaching is another. So now, when I work with clients who feel like their value proposition isn’t distinctive enough, like they’re just not unique enough to stand out and get noticed, skill stacking is the exercise that changes everything.

Think about the finance expert who’s an AI pioneer and also happens to be a genuinely collaborative leader. Or imagine an HR executive with an entrepreneurial mindset and a passion for data. When you combine these skills, suddenly you really see these people as unique. Do you see what I mean? So here’s the exercise I want you to try.

Identify your two to four unique skills. I’m gonna say target three. Make sure these are your distinct strengths and stack them. Then, craft a short phrase, even just a sentence, that captures the unique value at their intersection. That is your skill-stacking statement, and it might just become the cornerstone of your personal brand.

Your Personal Brand: Three Exercises to Try 

So there you have it. Three new exercises straight out of my upcoming book, Let Me Introduce Myself, to help you identify your personal brand themes. Let’s do a quick recap. One is the three Cs: credentials, character, and context. Organize this overwhelming list of themes into something meaningful. Two, make money, save money, or solve a problem.

Get crystal clear on the value that you bring. Thanks again, Sharon. And three, skill stacking or talent stacking. Find the magic at the intersection of what makes you you. Now, I’d love to know which of these three resonates most with you, and I have an ask. If this episode gave you even one useful insight, please share it with someone who could use it.

It could be a colleague, a friend, someone who’s navigating their career, or maybe they’re building their brand. Yes, I am asking you to talk about Talk About Talk. I had to say it. And if you haven’t left a rating or a review for Talk About Talk yet, now would be a great time. It takes you about 60 seconds, and it costs you nothing, and it makes an enormous difference in helping new listeners find this Talk About Talk show.

I gave you three exercises for your personal brand. I’m asking you for one review. Sounds like a fair trade, right? Okay, you got this. Thank you for listening, and talk soon.

The post 3 Ways to Identify YOUR SUPERPOWERS (ep.220) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Trust comes down to three pillars: logic, authenticity, and empathy. But when you’re under real pressure, one of those pillars usually starts to crack.

Leadership coach and bestselling author Anne Morriss joins Andrea to unpack the trust triangle and introduce two ideas every leader needs in their back pocket: your trust anchor (the pillar that holds firm no matter what) and your trust wobble (the one that slips the second things get hard). You’ll learn how to spot your own anchor and wobble, why this same pattern shows up in even the most accomplished leaders on the planet, and how knowing the difference can help you build trust faster and hold onto it longer.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

CONNECT WITH ANNE

🌐 Website: AnneAndFrances.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Anne’s LinkedIn

🎙️ Anne’s Podcast, Fixable: Anne’s Podcast: Fixable

▶️ Anne’s TED Talk: Anne’s TED Talk

BOOKS MENTIONED

📖 Move Fast and Fix Things by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4wcl5JM

📖 Uncommon Service by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4wF8i3D

📖 Unleashed by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4ySGhqR

📖 The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Full-Engagement-Managing-Performance/dp/0743226755

TRANSCRIPTION

Anne Morriss: If I’m underslept or haven’t fed myself properly or under stress, I am more likely to wobble. And when I’m wobbly on authenticity, what will happen is a people-pleasing part of me will show up and tell you, Andrea, what you want to hear and not necessarily what I think, know, and believe. 

Andrea Wojnicki: That was entrepreneur and leadership coach Anne Morriss.

And if her name sounds familiar, it might be because she’s also the co-author of three books, one called Move Fast and Fix Things, one called Uncommon Service, and one called Unleashed. I am really excited to share with you my conversation with Anne. Amongst other things in this episode, you’re gonna learn the three-ingredient recipe for how you can establish trust.

Okay, so first of all, yes, of course it is a three-ingredient recipe. The power of three, right? And secondly, trust is critical. I realized that I really don’t use this term trust very often. Instead, I talk about personal branding and credibility, but these are all related terms, aren’t they? So if you wanna make an impact, and I know you do, then you need to establish trust.

In this episode, you’re going to learn the three pillars of trust, how to identify your trust wobble and your anchor, and a lot more. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. 

Welcome to Talk About Talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please, just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, where I help ambitious leaders and aspiring leaders to communicate with confidence and credibility so that you can get ahead in your career.

A quick note before we get started. If you wanna go deeper on improving your communication skills and your credibility at work, I encourage you to head to talkabouttalk.com. That’s where you’ll find lots of free resources, plus information about my keynotes, my corporate workshops, my master classes, my online courses, and lots more. It is all there. TalkAboutTalk.com.

About the Guest: Leadership Expert Anne Morriss

Okay, let me introduce today’s guest, and then we’re gonna get right into this power-packed interview. I encourage you to stay with us through the end, though, because as always, I’m gonna wrap up with three key learnings that I wanna reinforce for you. People tell me that they appreciate this. I get lots of emails saying this.

So basically, you do not need to take notes. Okay, let me back up. I came to know Anne Morriss through her partner, Frances Frei, an award-winning faculty member and exceptional teacher who generously mentored me when I was a student at Harvard Business School. So the three of us, Anne, Frances, and myself, we all share a passion for helping leaders communicate more effectively.

I was absolutely thrilled when Anne agreed to join me on this podcast. As I mentioned, Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, a leadership coach, and an author. She’s also a TED speaker and the founder of the Leadership Consortium, a first-of-its-kind leadership accelerator that prepares emerging leaders for senior leadership.

Over the past 20 years, she has helped organizations around the world strengthen their leadership, culture, and transformational change. Here we go. Thank you very much, Anne, for being here today to talk to me and the Talk About Talk listeners about trust and communication. 

AM: Oh, Andrea, I’m so delighted to be here.

The Three Pillars of Trust: Logic, Authenticity, and Empathy 

AW: Let’s get right into this. Let’s talk about trust. I know that you and Frances say that trust is the foundation of leadership. Can you share with us what the three core components are of trust? 

AM: Yeah. It actually goes all the way back to Aristotle’s logos, pathos, ethos, which was a persuasion framework. So it will not surprise you that these ideas are very relevant to your mission on this podcast and in so much of your work, Andrea.

But the three component parts of trust are, I’ll go through them the way we often teach it, which is that I am more likely to trust you, Andrea, as a leader, if I believe you can do the job, if I think you’re competent at the wheel, if I think your reasoning and judgment are sound. It is not enough; I also have to believe that I’m interacting with a real version of you, so that your, you know, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions are all aligned.

We call that authenticity. It is still not enough. I also have to believe that you’re not just in it for you; you’re also in it for me. You’re also committed to my well-being, and you care about my interests and success, often in the job. When all three of, we call them the trust pillars, when all three of these trust pillars are sturdy and strong, trust is a very natural byproduct.

And by the way, this is all from the perspective of the other person. So I have to be convinced of your logic, authenticity, and empathy so that I can trust you. And as you said right at the top, it is very foundational. Leadership is a relational practice. We often forget that when we tell the story, you know, these great men and women stories of leaders.

We forget that it is fundamentally about having impact through other people. So that’s why this is just, this is so critical to anything you’re trying to accomplish as a leader. 

AW: So first of all, the power of three. Anyone who listens to the Talk About Talk podcast knows it. And actually, Aristotle, I was looking back at evidence of the power of three, and this is one of the things that comes up.\

What’s Your Trust Wobble—and Your Anchor? 

So logic, authenticity, and empathy. Can you comment on, as folks, you know, are climbing the corporate ladder, as their careers are progressing, they’re becoming more senior, they’re leading more people, where those wobbles in this triad might be more likely to happen? Or may- and maybe this is a different question, where they can be the most damaging or catastrophic in people’s quest to create, I guess, leadership presence or identity?

AM: Yeah, absolutely. We think about this question all the time. And as you suggest, so we use this word wobble to describe this other very stable pattern. So one stable pattern is, we call it the trust triangle. So logic, authenticity, empathy, you need all three. The other pattern we see, even among the most accomplished leaders, is that all of us lose trust some of the time.

And when that happens, it’s not that all three of these pillars collapse. One of them tends to get a little shaky. We call that your wobble. So that’s pattern one. And then the other pattern, the good– that’s the bad news. The good news is that one of them tends to be rock solid. So if I were to drag you out of bed, Andrea, at three in the morning, you would be logical or authentic or empathetic.

So we call that your anchor. So we’re constantly working with leaders on these two questions of how do you lean into and leverage your anchor, and how do you keep your eye on your wobble? So it is different for each of us. And it is tied more to personality, is just a layman’s way to think about it, than role.

What we do find, however, is that empathy wobblers, so that’s the language you use, I’m an empathy wobbler and an authenticity anchor, is a common leadership profile. That’s actually not my trust profile. I would tell you my trust pro- profile in a second. But we do find that empathy wobblers are disproportionately represented at the top of organizations.

AW: Do you think that that’s changing? ‘Cause I have this conversation a lot with folks that this, you know, think back to the Jack Welch era, right, compared to today. Do you feel like this might be changing in terms of the emphasis or significance? 

AM: Yeah, I think with the pattern we are seeing more than empathy wobbler.

So we, we are still finding empathy wobblers disproportionately represented at the top, and I think a longitudinal study of that I think is a really interesting question. What does seem to be reinforced in 2026 is that authenticity anchors are disproportionately succeeding and ascending the hierarchy in organizations.

So if that’s your anchor, then you have two wobbles to choose from, and I think we’re finding that profile of authenticity anchor, empathy wobbler to be pretty stable at the top of the hierarchy. 

Authenticity vs. Transparency: How Much Should Leaders Share? 

AW: So can you define what authenticity is? I just wrote a paper, and I write about this and think about this all the time.

What’s the difference between authenticity and transparency and being a professional, and how do you walk this line? I’d love to hear your take on that. 

AM: Yeah, so and I will use myself as an example. So I am an empathy anchor, authenticity wobbler. The way we define it, we are very practical people. When I say we, um, you know, my partner in all things, including my co-author, Francis Frei, who’s on the faculty at Harvard Business School.

So the way we define it is the alignment between, which is, uh, between what you say and what you do and what you think. And then we’ll sometimes throw in what you feel, because often in leadership roles, we forget about this powerful variable that is our emotions, the emotional experience of the people around us, the role we can play and to change both of those things, both what we’re feeling and what other people are feeling. But we talk about it in terms of the alignment. 

AW: Right. So alignment is different from full transparency, and I, I, I actually really like that term. I say, you know, this whole idea of sharing your whole self at work, the full transparency folks, I’m like, “I don’t share my full self anywhere,” and I don’t suggest that my clients do either.

You can be authentic to yourself without being fully transparent simply by filtering what parts of you you want to share, and I totally agree that this consistency and alignment is much more important, and I, I see how that ladders up to trust. 

AM: Yeah, I, I agree with you. Again, we’re practical people, so we’ll sometimes say 80% is plenty.

You know? 80% of any of us is plenty, probably tops out at 80%. But the metaphor I like is window, not a door. So what is the window that… of transparency that’s most useful to you and most useful to the people you’re leading? 100% transparency is not helpful in most cases. It just, it creates a lot of friction and noise and anxiety, and it’s not helping people make better decisions, including about their own lives.

So that’s part of your job as a leader is to curate information very thoughtfully, but you can, you have to continuously solve for that authenticity piece, or other people won’t be willing to be guided by you. And that’s really our, my favorite metric of leadership. When you boil it down, are other people willing to be guided by you?

Like, that’s what matters, and that’s why trust is so foundational and that’s why communication, which you focus on, Andrea, is so critical, because that is the way that you are engaging with these other people and influencing their discretionary behavior. 

AW: So I can see the significance of effective communication skills in all three of the pillars.

AM: Back to our friend Aristotle, it’s not surprising that I think actually all three of these are quite material to the challenge of communication. So I think about logic as content, as how we would traditionally think about content. Like what is the message? What are you trying to say? Is it persuasive? Is it rigorous?

Is the credit is the content effective? I think authenticity is, is voice. Like, does the messenger… If logic is message, now it’s about does the messenger match the message? And it is– I am increasingly, like, interested in and persuaded by how important that alignment m- has to be for, like, the story to land.

And then the last one, empathy, I think of in terms of mission. Like, when you walk into a room, are you there to perform? Are you there to get what you came for, which is affirmation from the crowd? Or are you there to be in service of your audience and give them a gift that they would not have otherwise received?

I think that is a very, also a very powerful variable in effective communication. 

AW: Definitely. But I was actually having this conversation this morning when I went for a walk with a girlfriend of mine who just got promoted into a big new position, and she’s meeting with the board chair, and she’s talking about what she’s gonna wear.

And she goes, “Well, the… I guess it doesn’t matter.” And I said, “Actually, it matters ’cause they’re gonna see you before they hear one word that comes out of your mouth.” And it’s not that we need to overemphasize this, but I said, “We are constantly checking each other out. We’re looking for signals of, do we trust the person?

Do we like the person? Are they capable?” And I realize now that I was, in a different way, kind of talking about exactly the same thing as the three pillars here. 

AM: Yeah. And it will have a huge impact on how she feels in the room, which arguably matters just as much. Like, is, you know, what is she putting on her body so that she can show up in the way that she wants to show up?

Personal Branding, Trust, and Leadership Influence 

AW: Yeah. And that, that’s a big theme of the personal branding work that I do. ‘Cause one of the big criticisms of personal branding in the context of establishing your professional identity at work is that you’re caring too much about what other people think. And then the epiphany that happens when I’m working with clients on developing their unique identity is that it, it elevates their internal confidence.

They feel validated, and their confidence grows. So I’d love to shift it to personal branding here. I see a very strong link between trust and establishing a strong personal brand. Do you agree? 

AM: Yes, 100%. I think it goes back to, like, what is a personal brand? And to me, it’s very connected to this metric, are other people willing to be guided by you?

Like, you, you want to show up in a way where you can be an influence on the way other people think, act, feel, behave. Ideally, in your absence eventually, but in the beginning, in your presence, and you need to live into a version of you- Yeah … that allows that exchange, that beautiful exchange to happen. Yeah.

Call it whatever you want. Um, but personal brand is certainly a good word for it. 

AW: Yeah. Yeah, personal branding may have a branding problem, but I agree, as long as we’re defining it purposefully. I say that personal branding is being yourself on purpose, and yourself, it’s your whole self, your true self, and your best self.

So you are filtering what parts of you you’re sharing, but it’s your best self. And I think the, um, the whole idea here that you mentioned the word alignment and consistency, I think that’s a huge part of personal branding, right? Yeah. So I’ve got a question for you: Do you think that leaders should encourage their folks to invest time and energy into developing their own personal brands?

And I’m asking this not facetiously. I’m not, I’m not trying to, whatever, get more coaching clients. I’m asking honestly. Many of the folks that I coach on communication skills will come up with a list of 10 or 12 topics that I’m gonna coach them on over the course of six months, including personal branding, and then when they share this list with their manager, their leader, they’ll say all the topics on the list are approved with the exception of personal branding.

I have some ideas about why that is, uh, and it could go back to the definition, but do you think generally leaders should encourage their folks to invest their time and effort into this? Or what, what’s your take on that? 

AM: Yeah. So I think I agree with your, uh, I don’t know if we… If, if it’s strong enough to be a premise, but your suggestion that personal branding might have a branding problem.

And I think part of it is when we hear that word, and that is no fault of the people who created the term; it’s a term of art, a very reasonable thing to call, like, this phenomenon. It reads as self-distracted. It reads as self-promotional versus, you know, how do I get better at advancing our shared mission?

Like, if we go back to our trust triangle, it raises questions about empathy. You know, it seems to be the phrase and the way people hear it; it sounds like, okay, authenticity, yes, and maybe, maybe a little logic, but the, like, where is e- you know, leadership is the practice of setting other people up for success.

So in the personal branding, like, universe, where is that part of the story, is where I come at this phrase. There are other things, but if we define it the way we just defined it, which is around, you know, being intentional about being the leader you wanna be in the moment, that to me is a critical part of effective leadership, and bringing intention to it is a very reasonable thing.

You know, you can call it executive presence. I have a very humble relationship with language in the sense of this stuff gets locked in and weaponized. And when that happens, like, move on to another term. Let’s just move on. As opposed to fi- dying on the hill of, like, “Oh, you’re getting it wrong.” I feel the same way about psychological safety.

The world’s very confused about what this means. I think we just need another term instead of like, spending so much energy fighting people on this is what we mean. 

AW: I am so with you on that. And in fact, e- even before I went into academia, I would be in meetings, you know, people would start talking about something, and then they’d get all riled up, and I’d be like, “Hang on a second. We need to define some terms here, or come up with better terms.” 

AM: Yeah. I think this kind of friction is an indicator that we need different language because I do think in the way the world hears this term, it’s missing a very critical part of leadership, which is that it’s not about you. It’s actually about the other people.

We use the metaphor of a mirror versus a window, and I spend a lot of time coaching people to move away from the mirror and look out of the window at the people you’re here to serve and the mission you’re trying to achieve. 

AW: So this conversation is reminding me of an experience I had recently. I was coaching 14 executives at a pharmaceutical company, and I did one-on-one coaching sessions with each of them, where we were identifying some of their personal brand themes.

And by personal brand themes, you can just think of it as the… It could be expertise or credentials or leadership styles that kind of define them, okay? They’re typically unique things about them. And so as we were creating this list of themes, I noticed that some of them, some of these pharmaceutical executives, most of whom had PhD degrees, they’re scientists, and they would very easily list their scientific and academic credentials, right?

So I feel like this is the logic foot on the, on the stool, okay? And some of them, they would just keep adding these things, right? And, and I said, “What about your leadership style? What about your default kind of social interaction? Are you a leader? Are you a follower? Are you a collaborator?” And then they’d be like, “Oh, I never really thought about that before.”

Whereas others were… It came naturally to them. Like, they would say their number one strength is their scientific background and their schooling, and then that in combination with their people leadership skills. And I think that this is actually a, a new lens for me to coach folks through this exercise.

It’s like, so when it comes to logic, substance, and style, what are your personal brand themes there? And then when it comes to empathy, this would be your interpersonal communication style, and then your authenticity. So what would that be if we’re thinking about personal brand themes? 

AM: So I’ll show you how my an- authenticity wobble shows up for me, and this might lead your beautiful mind somewhere interesting.

But, so for me, the exposure, and this is true for all wobbles, so if I’m underslept or haven’t fed myself properly or under stress, I am more likely to wobble. And when I’m wobbling on authenticity, what will happen is this, as a people-pleasing part of me will show up and tell you, Andrea, what you want to hear and not necessarily what I think, know, and believe.

And so your personal brand doesn’t happen in isolation. There’s no personal brand until other people come into the scene. So it is always about you in relationship to others. And so how does that other person experiencing me is the material question. And is what I am saying, doing, selling persuasive? You know, that feels like logic.

Is, like, do they think that I am telling them the truth instead of bull them is a very material personal brand question. You know, like it sometimes shows up in the workplace as, you know, like, it’s too salesy or, you know. It’s like, so that, to, to me, that’s where th- that all of those questions live. And then is it like, a- am I, as the person outside this, you know, this, this hu- this system of this human being, like, do they care about me?

And can I be persuasively convinced of that? And it feel, it, they all, those all three feel relevant, but quite separate to me. 

AW: I, I hear, you’re reminding me of another theme that, that people will represent themselves when they’re talking about themselves and their brand. They’ll talk about, like, “I’m a very direct person,” or they’ll say, “I’m really not direct.

I communicate implicitly to people,” right? So I feel like that belongs in there somewhere. This is fascinating. I love this idea of merging these frameworks that we’ve developed. 

AM: Yeah, someone who says they’re direct tends to be an authenticity anchor and an empathy wobble because they’re saying, “I’m direct,” and unspoken is regardless of the cost of that directness.

And so what, how, when we work with that person, we’ll often say, “Okay, like, how do you make sure that your empathy, you’re coming in hot,” right? Sometimes, ’cause that’s sometimes the goal of the triangle is that it’s balanced. So if you are gonna come in hot with a strong point of view and like calling it like it is, ’cause that’s the other story people like, then you have to make sure that your empathy is just as strong, that I understand as someone receiving your directness that you are doing it in service of something that we both care about, or you’re doing it to make me better, or you’re doing it for this thing that we both decided is important, this shared mission that we both signed up for.

So you might wanna dial it back a little bit, but the real solve for most people is to dial up the empathy, not dial back the authenticity. 

AW: Yeah. Generally, these are three things that we want to increase. Like, we wanna keep them all in a nice equilibrium, but we, the higher they all are together, the better.

High Standards, Deep Devotion: Leading Without Performing 

Yeah. Okay, so last question before we get into the three rapid-fire questions is, what advice would you give to emerging leaders, especially women and other underrepresented minorities who wanna build visibility and influence and this leadership presence? And to do so, how can they achieve this without feeling like they’re performing leadership, even when they have this beautiful triad that they’re aspiring to?

AM: It’s a very deep question. So for those of us who don’t fit the expectation of who we think is gonna be at the front of the room, the world has notes, right? 

AW: Oh, I love that, Anne. You are gonna be quoted on that. 

AM: Yeah. And so it can lead to a higher, like, self-distraction, self-consciousness, which is totally understandable.

But the mindset shift, the story shift is also counterintuitive, which is not like, oh, you know, our instinct, the spotlight is brighter, and so our instinct is to not it up. Sorry if this is a family show. Not screw it up, right? And then, and that, that can, like, pretty quickly tip over into perfectionism, so we’re not taking the risks we need to have the impact that we can have in advancing our career.

And so the mindset reset is often it’s not about me. It’s about this, this thing bigger than me and beyond me. Leadership is a team sport. The people who are most effective, even at the very top of organizations, they are not lonely at the top, right? They are deeply interconnected with the people around them, and they’re playing this leadership game as the team sport that it is.

So the work on that one is around like resisting the story that it is about you and that you are isolated in some way, and just, like, treating isolation as the enemy, playing leadership as a team sport, like, waking up every day, even though, even when the world wants you to look at yourself, like refu- like refusing to take the bait.

So I think that’s part one. And then when we look at the demographics around wobbles, if we are Xs in an organization of Ys, and that can mean a lot of things. It do- it’s not necessarily, like, visible demographic differences. It can also be, you know, like level of education or geography or, you know, it can be so many things.

Like, there’s so many of us walking around with this “I don’t belong” story that’s getting in the way of the impact we can have and the le- the leader we can be out in the world. So if you identify with, “I don’t belong,” for whatever reason, those of us who have that experience of being Xs in a, in an organization filled with Ys, we are more likely to wobble on authenticity.

And again, this is for very good reasons. We are more likely to have these people-pleasing habits because it is a safety tactic. It’s a security tactic ’cause, you know, we weren’t faster, fiercer. Like, back on the savanna, early Homo sapiens, we were not stronger, faster, fiercer. The thing that we were better at was working with each other.

We weren’t even smarter in the beginning. The thing that we were better at was collaboration. And so it was an existential threat. Like, we could not survive on our own. We had to survive in tribes. And so we have this very ancient cellular biological memory of that being a, a, a big problem for us to be separated from the herd in some way.

So I think all of that gets, gets swirled together for those of us who feel different in any way. And so bringing the same strategy. I mean, I have two sticky notes on my computer. One of them is tell the truth. Because if I’m not intentional, like, that’s the one that’s gonna slip. The other one is host the party, which is ’cause if we have this storyline that we don’t belong, we’re also less likely to properly take care of the people around us.

And that’s one of the advantages of these, of authenticity anchors, is it doesn’t occur to them to not host the party. Obviously, they’re hosting the party, right? So yeah, I mean, uh, you’re asking a very deep question. We could have another 30-minute conversation about it, but that’s my top-line response.

AW: I love your metaphors. And as you started answering that question, Anne, I was thinking about the tightrope metaphor that I hear almost every day from women saying, “If I show up and I’m too empathetic, kind, nurturing, they dismiss me. And then if I’m too focused on performance, the logic stuff, getting things done, the expertise, the maybe bit of command, leadership style, then they think I’m a jerk,” right?

And it’s, like, really impossible. And what I’m hear- The metaphor that I saw in my mind was you’re desperately trying to balance on this tightrope, and maybe what can kinda pull you up and help you with that balance is shifting the focus to the greater cause or to the other people around you. 

AM: I do think that’s the exit from this safe room that feels like a trap. I also think resisting the false trade-off of those two experiences is really important.

‘Cause what, when we, we, the most effective leaders we see are setting high standards. They’re making the expectations really clear, while also signaling their commitment and devotion to the people around them. So we call it high standards, deep devotion leadership, ’cause you can do both, and the most effective leaders do both.

AW: High standards, deep devotion. 

AM: Those are the two axes, and most of us spend most of our time, like, on the off-diagonal, thinking that we have to pick one or the other, when in fact, you can and should most of the time choose both. 

AW: So it reminds me of the lovable fools and competent jerks 2×2, right? Everyone thinks they’re in, on the offside, and we- you really wanna be in the top corner.

I was gonna say, I recently interviewed the recently retired CEO of McDonald’s Canada, and she was relentless about this, and she actually had this mantra that she used to say, which is, “Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.” She said, “W- I created this virtuous cycle of high performance,” because we were creating an environment of psychological safety, right?

Where people were coming up with new ideas. They were truly being themselves. They were admitting their mistakes. They were learning from them. We were learning fast. We were kind to each other, and then it, this flywheel started, and it’s like that. Yeah. Another metaphor. Gosh. 

AM: I love that phrase, uh, my kindness mistaken for weakness. I think Rihanna put it in a song. 

AW: Do you know who said it first, Anne? 

AM: No. Who said it first? 

AW: Al Capone. 

AM: No. 

AW: The mobster. 

AM: No way.

AW: Wow. He meant it in a very different way. Yeah. “Do not mistake my kindness for weakness, ’cause if you piss me off, I’ll kill you” is what he meant, right? Yeah. 

AM: Yeah, that follow-up sentence is, is, is, it’s a little brutal.

AW: There you go.

AM: Um, but that’s, that is so fun to know. Thank you for that fun fact. I grew up in Ohio, and I think Midwesterners in the US and Canadians, I think, have a little bit of advantage on this one because we can visualize it. I think we are more likely to grow up with role models, coaches, teachers, and parents who at least some of the time were in that upper right of, like, revealing high expectations without, like, without being an, to be, to just actually use…

I don’t know why I’m swearing like a sailor in front of you, Andrea, today. That was not my intention. 

AW: I was, uh- You sound like my 19-year-old son. 

AM: I was trying to be on such good behavior. 

AW: That’s funny. You’re being authentic. 

AM: Yeah. 

Wrap-Up & Rapid-Fire Questions 

AW: Okay. Speaking of authentic, let’s get on to the three rapid-fire questions. Are you ready?

Yeah. Okay. Question number one: Are you an introvert or an extrovert? 

AM: I am an extrovert. Your follow-up question, which is how does this affect your communication? This one is, uh, th- we could spend another 30 minutes on this, so I was really contemplating this. I think it’s not necessarily an advantage. I think that what’s helpful is it makes me more interested in my audience.

It makes it easier for me to connect to that mission orientation, being of service, bringing my audience a gift. All of that helps because I really like people, right? I like being around them. It does make me more distracted when the guy in row three is, like, on his iPhone instead of paying attention. So I am paying attention to the other humans around me, and sometimes that’s not helpful to me as a speaker or as a messenger.

The other thing I will say is some of the most effective speakers I know are introverts, and I think there is some advantage built into, I think, a couple of things, including– Well, and it depends on the, um, like, scale of the audience. But you put an introvert up, like in a stadium of thousands, okay, like, and there is an advantage in that dynamic somewhere that we can tease out in a follow-up conversation.

AW: Yeah. I think introverts, I’m also an off-the-charts extrovert, but I think introverts are underrated, and I know based on the research that they are, uh, typically exceptional listeners, which can make you a great presenter and communicator, right? Okay. That wasn’t very rapid fire, but it was awesome.

Question number two, what … I’m curious about this one, Anne. What are your communication pet peeves? 

AM: Talking down to your audience. 

AW: Yeah. Also using terms that aren’t well-defined? 

AM: No, no. Language is a living, breathing thing. Something that was well-defined and well understood 10 years ago is now not … I, I mean, I, I have two Gen Z kids, and nothing is more fun than them bringing new vocabulary home.

So I love how dynamic language is. I think this is the only communication sin. Really, the only communication sin is, is not treating your audience as, you know, sophisticated, complex human beings. 

AW: With respect. Agree. Yeah. Okay, last question. Is there a book or a podcast that you find yourself recommending lately?

AM: The work I’ve been talking about in the last 72 hours is the original peak performance work, which is Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr. Their kind of breakthrough book was The Power of Full Engagement, and they were the first to really make the case persuasively in a way that broke through into the business world, that high performance really is about managing energy and not time.

And I think there’s a lot of people, the world is moving fast, there’s a lot of uncertainty, there are a lot of forces acting upon us that are outside of our full control, and I think many people are trying to feel the illusion of control by working harder and working more, and it’s not working. 

AW: Yeah, it backfires.In fact, it backfires. 

AM: And so I think they have a lot of insight that is still very relevant today on an alternative way to live and to work. 

AW: Okay, I’m gonna put a link to that in the show notes. Now, before I let you go, do you have any last words, suggestions, advice for the Talk About Talk listeners on developing trust in their communication?

AM: We spent a lot of time on defining the terms. There is so much power in understanding your message so deeply that you can describe it simply And so actually taking the time, back to respecting your audience, taking the time to figure out, okay, though a lot of people are s- speak in a complicated way, like bringing a, the next level of intention to translate what I’m saying in a way that other people can really absorb.

I think that’s one. I’m gonna do two because I can’t resist. The other thing is just get, like, is just the power of, of reps and, like, practicing in low stakes environment before you walk into any high-stakes environment. No serious performer or comedian, w- you know, or like pick a performing art that is hard, that is about, that rests on communication.

So I go to comedy all the time because, I mean, it really is distilled down to, you know, the power of saying things to affect another human being. There’s no serious comedian on the planet that would ever go out on a stage that matter without working out their material in smaller rooms and on smaller stages.

And then we have this illusion that we’re gonna like make some slides and like run through them in the privacy of our own mind and then go and nail it in the room, you know, where our nervous system has no preparation for what we’re asking it to do. So deeply, simply, and get your reps in. That’s my, my final advice.

AW: I love it. Thank you so much, Anne, for sharing your frameworks and your coaching and your advice. Thank you. I really enjoyed the conversation. 

AM: Very mutual, Andrea. Thank you for bringing me on the show. 

AW: Thanks again to Anne. I absolutely loved this conversation. I always enjoy speaking with people who challenge and expand my own thinking.

That’s part of why I love what I do, and this discussion certainly did that. As I promised, I’m now gonna leave you with my three biggest takeaways, the things that I want you to think about. Number one, trust is earned through three pillars, or dimensions, or ingredients. The three pillars are logic, authenticity, and empathy.

And Anne traces all three of these back to Aristotle. So logic is good judgment, authenticity is being real, and empathy is genuinely caring about other people’s success. As Anne said, when all three of these trust pillars are sturdy and strong, trust is a very natural byproduct. The second insight that I want to reinforce for you is that every leader has an anchor and a wobble.

All of us. And under stress, one pillar tends to get a little shaky. That is your wobble. One tends to stay rock solid. That’s your anchor. So Anne shared that her anchor is empathy, and her wobble is authenticity. For the record, mine are the opposite. My anchor is authenticity, and my wobble is empathy. Why is this important, and why should you diagnose your anchor and your wobble?

Well, this is really about self-awareness. Rather than trying to become perfect, understand where you’re naturally strongest and where you’re most likely to lose trust under pressure. How could this not help you show up and build trust, right? Okay, last, the third point that I want to reinforce for you is that leadership is not about performing.

It is about serving others. If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite belong in the room, Anne’s advice is to shift your focus off of yourself and onto the people that you are there to serve. She said it best. She said, “For those of us who don’t fit the expectation of who we think is gonna be at the front of the room, the world has notes.”let m

I love that. The way through this is not perfectionism; it’s connection. Lead as a team sport, because it is one. I love this. There are so many quotable moments in this conversation with Anne. Another one that stayed with me is Anne’s description of the best leaders as combining high standards with deep devotion.

I think that is a beautiful reminder that kindness and accountability are not opposites, and that strong leaders consistently demonstrate both. Okay. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be very grateful if you’d leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help more listeners discover Talk About Talk.

And if someone on your team or maybe in your network is working on building trust and executive presence and their brand, and they’re looking to become a more influential communicator in their career, please send them this episode. I think they will thank you for that. And I thank you for listening.Talk soon.

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