45. From Nice to Powerful: How to Lead with Authority in High-Stakes Rooms
Power and niceness are not mutually exclusive, but in high-stakes leadership rooms, the order matters. When women lead with niceness - that autopilot response designed to keep others comfortable - they become invisible at the exact moment they need to be seen.
In this episode, I break down the critical difference between being nice and being powerful. I explore how our cultural conditioning as women has taught us to prioritize likeability over leadership, creating a pattern where we apologize before speaking, defer decisions to others, and position ourselves as supporters rather than strategic allies.
Tune in this week as I reveal how to make the shift from nice to powerful while maintaining warmth and building trust. You'll discover practical language swaps, understand why conviction and command energy create more respect than agreeability, and learn how to interrupt the autopilot niceness that's diluting your leadership impact. This episode gives you the exact framework to lead with power first, then choose when and how to express warmth - not the other way around.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why leading with niceness backfires and makes you invisible in strategic decisions.
The difference between authentic kindness and fear-based niceness in leadership.
How to replace apologetic language with powerful, direct communication.
What conviction and command energy looks like in practice.
The specific phrases that signal niceness versus power in corporate settings.
Why power must come before pleasing if you want lasting influence and impact.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Let me be clear. You can be powerful and nice. But if you lead with nice, you will never win. Because in high-stakes leadership, niceness isn't seen as kindness. It is seen as weakness. And while you were taught to lead with likeability, I teach women to lead with truth. Power, presence, and emotional maturity. That's what actually earns influence and creates lasting impact. And today, I'm going to show you exactly how to make that shift.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
All right, welcome podcast listeners. This is episode number 45, and it is about how, as women, we were taught to be nice and not powerful. This is coming off of the back of a masterclass I recently did called How to Be Heard in Rooms Full of Male Leaders. And if you are a woman leader that's listening to this, I really want to unpack what it is to be nice and what it's not to be nice. And I also want to talk about the hidden cost of being nice and why when you lead with being nice, it doesn't create the influence, the impact, and really the long-term income that you could expect if you are focused on being nice and you're leading with nice and likeability, right?
I'm going to talk about the hidden cost about these things because one of the things that as I am talking to a lot of women and even through my own experience, the conditioning that we have gotten from our childhood, from our culture, from our patriarchal society is a lot about how we should be nice, ladylike. Almost like we should be agreeable, likeable. And really what it's also saying is that we should be non-disruptive. But if you think about a leader, if you think about a really powerful leader, they are going to be disruptive. They are going to be commanding, they're going to have conviction. They are like the complete opposite of a nice girl. They are bold. They make an impact.
And I'm here to tell you that you don't need to be a man, you don't need to be something different than you are now, but you need to be tapping into the part of you that has that command and conviction energy. I'm going to be talking a lot more about the energy of command and conviction. As I continue unpacking with the women that I'm coaching, how to really show up in these high-stake rooms, in these situations where there's a lot of men and they want to show up as an authority with their inner authority first, it is really to cultivate this energy of conviction and command. So, you're going to hear more about that. You'll hear about it in this episode, but I'm going to have more episodes about this particular energy and how I see that this energy is present in women that are heard consistently, that are able to speak up and make the impact that they want. Because the conviction and the command energy really creates trust with people.
But it is an energy that a lot of times, as we're growing up as women, as females in this Western society, we are taught to hide, right? We are taught to make other people comfortable at the expense of ourselves. And we want to be comfortable too. It might not feel comfortable for us to have this level of conviction and command. But as I talked about in previous episodes and I will continue talking about it, this is the type of energy that's needed in certain situations that will set you apart from all the other leaders and will have people listening to you and basically following your every word.
Because what happens is likeability and being nice, this might have helped you get promoted early on when you were getting tasks done. But now, it's making you invisible. The nice response isn't seen as kindness. It is oftentimes in these high-stake rooms, more of a fear response. And when I talk about what nice really is, I'm not talking about kindness. I'm talking about this performance of being non-threatening, designed to keep others comfortable and to keep you safe. And safe in a way where you are almost over-calibrating the threat that's in the room and relying on being small or shrinking or being overly careful or nice because you don't want to ruffle any feathers. And it's really not about being authentic. It's about really a safety fear response.
And if you're really authentic, when we talk about authenticity, we're talking about showing up as your true self and reacting the way that you want to react when you are feeling safe, right? We're more likely to be authentic when we've created safety around us so that we can be more real. It's like if your husband asks you how you're doing and you're like, I had a terrible day. This has just been a really crappy day and these are all the things, right? You're just going to be more honest. Whereas maybe your boss asks you and you're not like, it's your new boss, your boss asks you like, hey, Sarah, how are you doing? And you're like, I'm doing great. But really, the authentic response would have been something similar to your husband's, but you're trying to be nice or you are trying to come off as nice versus real.
So, I want you to also notice like what does nice sound like? And in this world, when I'm talking about nice in this episode, it is really more of an autopilot response. It's almost like an unconscious programming conditioning that you have, right? So that's my definition of nice just so that people don't take this out of context. But what I want to shine a light on is where are you being autopilot nice and how is it costing you? This is what nice often sounds like in the corporate world or even in your personal life. I don't want to overstep. It's already you're like already apologizing for speaking up. Another one is, sorry, just wanted to check in. So again, starting with an apology is already trying to be overly nice. It's like you're giving this person so much more respect and entitlement than maybe you're even giving yourself because you're already apologizing before asking for what you need.
The next one is, I'm here to support whatever you all decide. Again, this is trying to be nice, but it's really pushing responsibility onto other people and just saying, I'm here to support. Which is not positioning you as a leader, it's positioning you as a support.
The last one is, they probably have a direction. I don't want to derail it. Right? Like if somebody asks you for your opinion on something and instead of you giving your opinion, you choose to be nice and say, they probably have a direction, I don't want to derail it. Basically what it sounds like again is that you are not being responsible to give your authentic opinion that's uniquely yours and you are trying to be nice and say, I don't want to get in that functional leader's way. But the way that I talk to people about this too is because sometimes my clients will tell me, I don't want to, you know, get into other people's swim lanes.
And I'm like, listen, you are a leader of this company. You are a department head. And as a department head leader, you are also holding the purpose of the company at a bigger level. And so if what you're saying is going to be better for the company as a whole, then you need to speak up. That is not about getting into other people's lanes or stepping on other people's toes. That's the way that you're thinking about it because you're focused more on being nice than being powerful. A powerful leader steps in and says what's so, no matter what lane it's in. They will say, and most things are if they're big enough cross-functional.
The people that see themselves as powerful feel entitled to step in and to talk about other people's functional areas. Because they see it as the greater whole, right? They see it as one thing. Like we're on one team trying to support the bigger company. We're not here to be nice or friends with each other. We're here to help the company be profitable so that the employees get paid, so that the clients get what they need. And then, of course, as leaders, so that we get to make an impact, right? And I'm not saying that we shouldn't have these basic ways of being able to be social with each other. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that sometimes, and oftentimes it's women that use niceness too much, unconsciously, in a way that pushes leadership away from them and positions themselves more as a support or reliable person to execute versus a powerful person to share their opinion, to make things happen, to make their recommendation even in the face of disaffirmation.
When you feel powerful, you are more willing to do those things. You are more willing to say what's so because you're not focused on everyone else being comfortable. And even yourself being comfortable, right? You're willing to say what needs to be said. And that's why being nice is not powerful. And truly, nice isn't about being authentic. You have opinions, you have experience, you have education, you have a lot of things and that makes you a valuable member of the room, of the leadership team. So if you are more placating to being nice, it's not you showing up authentically. And it's more about you feeling and wanting to be accepted and liked versus being in your full power.
And there is a price to this, right? So I'm going to talk to you more about why leading with nice backfires. When you lead with nice, people don't know what you stand for. When you give other people the decision rights and you don't share your recommendations, your value becomes invisible. And you don't get included in strategic decisions because you haven't owned your space. People kind of see you as a helper versus a strategic ally.
And I'm going to give you some examples of this. I actually have a client who oftentimes, she's the only woman in this leadership team. So she's pulled into kind of talking to people and kind of being the therapist for people a lot of times. And she finds herself feeling like she is being nice to them by giving them time and space to talk about their problems, but then she's also starting to realize, as we do this work together and she's consciously noticing like, actually, I don't want to be this person for other people. I don't want to be the person that people come to complain about things. Like, this is not who I am anymore. I want to be a strategic person. I want to be a powerful leader and I don't want to just be the sidekick or the wingman of somebody who needs emotional support. It doesn't mean that she doesn't want to be there for her colleagues, but she doesn't want that to be the only thing. She doesn't want to be known for helping to fix all these emotional upsets or to hear people vent for hours. There could be some of that and where she really wants to engage in that versus it's just an autopilot thing. People just come to her office and talk to her about things. Because she's realizing that there's a cost to her for doing that. When she's talking to her boss and her boss is just complaining about other people, she's not talking about her own agenda. She's not talking about what she wants. She's not talking about the impact that she could be making to the organization. She's being nice.
And that nice isn't authentic because guess what? She's annoyed. Like when we talk about this, she's like, I'm so annoyed. Why do they keep coming to my office? And I'm like, well, what are you doing to allow them to do that? This is also about creating boundaries that work for you. You know, the way that this relates to her childhood is her mom used to go to her all the time to complain about her brother. So she's very used to this role of being sort of the therapist or the peacekeeper or the helper. But she didn't like that role either because guess what? Her mom doesn't really know her. Her mom consistently talks to her about her brother, but doesn't say, hey, I want to get to know you. You are my daughter. Tell me more about your life. They spend time gossiping about some other people's life and she's thinks she's being nice, but what she's really doing is enabling the system to continue, a system where she is nice and has this space for other people to be comfortable, but where she isn't getting heard, seen, or authentically leading or being the authority in the situation.
And so you want to watch yourself. Where are you being nice and how is it backfiring? When you are being nice, there is a cost, there's an expense. And somewhere along the way, I stopped being nice because I think I realized that it's not authentic. And if you were really kind, if you were really real, authenticity and being genuine is more in line with me and my values than being surface level nice. I think surface level nice when you're just saying things so that you can manage other people's feelings, when you are overvaluing how they feel about you and undervaluing how you feel about yourself or the space that you're in for yourself, that is not authentic and that doesn't create real relationships. That actually is the opposite of it, right? It creates fakeness, it creates distance, and when you are leading with niceness, it's not you leading with power.
When you lead with power, you build respect by being clear, calm, and direct. You're really clear on who you are, right? And what matters to you and what satisfaction looks like for you. Senior leaders see you as a trusted peer, not just a reliable supporter when you lead with power and authority. You become the person that other senior leaders turn to when stakes are high because they know you're going to tell the truth. You're not just going to give them lip service. You're not just someone who needs to execute or to support. You are willing to say I disagree with this. I like this about the plan. I don't like this about the plan. You become that power, that authority, and it doesn't mean that you'll always get your way, but you actually are truthful and honest and clear and direct. You're not, you know, placating so much and you're not making things easy for other people to digest. You're just being really truly you, using your authentic leadership.
And so I'm going to give you some examples of when I chose to lead with more authority and power and let go of like just the niceness. Because I realized earlier on, as I was younger than a lot of the people that I led, I needed to show that I was powerful and commanding and authoritative even if my years of experience didn't show it, right? Versus the people I managed or even if I was younger than the people that I managed. There were a lot of things that might position me as somebody who could be walked over or could be easily sort of overlooked or dismissed. But I knew what my role was and I knew what was important in the way that I showed up in these spaces, especially with new people. People who've known me for a long time will say that I'm kind, that I'm nice. They will even use that word. But I'm not just going to show up and be nice, bubbly, Yann because that doesn't serve me in certain situations.
And again, this is about being authentic, but me being authentic also means me leading with purpose and power when people were way older than me that had much more experience than me. I really amped up my command and my power, and I really worked on being more real and less nice, right? Nice or kindness could come later. And that is something that when I'm working with people, I show different parts of myself as it feels good for me and it feels authentic to me. So when I just got to Singapore, I remember I was leading a team. I actually led a ERP systems team and I never led that team before. I knew enough about it and the leaders trusted me to lead that team, but I had to show my expertise. I had to show my authority. I would not just be somebody who was like, oh, I'm here to learn. I, you know, really positioned myself as somebody who was knowledgeable, but I was also very clear and direct and calm in terms of what I wanted. I wasn't waiting for them to accept me. I already accepted myself. I had that position for myself. And so I would amp up more of that authoritativeness.
And another circumstance that happened also when I started working in a new company where I was leading the finances and this very senior, older, white male guy who I had heard had a reputation of not always working that well with finance. And so in that moment, when I met him, I was kind, I was respectful, but I also respected myself a lot. And I told him what my role was and what it's there for, and I let him know how things were going to work. And I was very clear about that. I wasn't asking him how he wanted things to work. I was very clear on the way that we would work together. And I was open and I was curious, but I was very authoritative. And I could notice subtle moments where he would try to kind of take over the meeting. And that's when I had to jump in and be powerful and purposeful and take that meeting, take the reign of that meeting back.
But if I came in wanting to be nice and hoping that he liked me, then he would just walk all over me. I mean, he might have not even done it consciously. He just would have done it because he's like, oh, here's a nice girl. I need to tell her what to do. I need to take command of this meeting and take control of it because she clearly is not. So this is what I'm talking about. Being nice is not being powerful, but you can be powerful and nice, but you've got to lead with power and purpose. And that is why this piece is super important. And I'm going to give you some examples of what it sounds like to sound nice versus sound powerful.
So instead of saying, I just want to check, you would say, I'm following up to move this forward. Here's another thing that sounds nice. Sorry to bother you, but And instead, if you're somebody who is powerful and authoritative, you would say, here's what I need clarity on. Another question, does that make sense? Instead of saying that, you say, let me know if anything is unclear. And then here's the last one. I think we could maybe see when you use these tones like maybe or think, it is less formal and it seems like you're trying to be more likable, versus, here's what I recommend and why.
So you just want to notice in your tone of voice, in how much you apologize, in how many words you use to sort of make things safe for the other person, versus how much more in command could you be? How much more powerful could you sound, right? And this is also a great way if some of you are using AI tools, this is a really great way to even check your emails to say, hey, I'm trying to come off as powerful, not nice. And I'm trying to come off as respectable, professional, and clear versus overly nice. This is where, you know, using that AI tool can really help you come back and forth and look at the sound that you want to have. Again, it needs to be conscious and it needs to be you being authentic. And it's about power and purpose. It's not just about playing some part, but it is about flexing your muscles in this skill set and to make more and more conscious the places where you're being nice because it was conditioned and because it becomes autopilot after a while, right?
You want to pause and create more of that conscious awareness so you can choose consciously how you want to show up. Because you weren't meant to be palatable. You were meant to be powerful. But oftentimes we don't realize that because we've been conditioned to be palatable as nice young girls, right? I do it to my husband and I catch ourselves doing it to our daughters all the time. Be nice, be nice, you know? But a lot of boys don't get that messaging. And that messaging causes us as women oftentimes to shrink when we could be standing tall and proud, even in the face of criticism, even in the face of people not liking what we have to say, even in the face of, you know, not getting what we want. We could still stand tall and proud and be powerful. We get to choose to do that. But like I said, if you are leading with niceness, you will oftentimes not be standing tall and proud.
So this next piece that I want to talk to you guys about as well is how to be a trusted ally and not a threat, right? Because I think oftentimes people are like, but I have to be nice, otherwise I'm going to come across really threatening to people. But here's what I want you to know. True leadership means you can hold power with warmth, clarity, with kindness, and boundaries with respect. I'm going to say it one more time. True leadership means you can hold power with warmth, clarity with kindness, and boundaries with respect. Again, this is about being authentic and it's leading with purpose and power.
So here's what it looks like in practice, when you're leading with shared goals before disagreeing. To protect our timeline, I want to raise a concern. Here's another one. Disagree up the chain without apology. Here's another lens I think we should consider. And then here's a way to protect the team with clarity and not over functioning. That's not sustainable. Let's find a more aligned sustainable way to move forward. If you lead with that clarity and that warmth and that empathy, you can still be powerful. It's not either or, but it is really about leading powerfully first and choosing your words wisely and making sure that autopilot niceness isn't diluting your power.
The most powerful women lower threat for people they lead and they raise standards for the ones they report to. So if you are leading people and they're feeling scared, you want to be able to lower the threat for them but still hold a standard. And it's the same thing with people that are senior to you. You want to hold a standard for them and you don't want them to feel like you are not aligned with them, right? So there are going to be places where you're very aligned and places where you're not. But in certain situations, you want to underline that alignment so that they can start building trust and rapport with you.
So when I had a new boss, I would always lead with something that gave us common ground. I would always lead with that. And it wasn't about being nice. It was creating that common ground and then powerfully recommending something. So I might say something like, since our goal and our target for the whole company is to reach this level of income and this is our profit target for Q2. These are the steps that I would recommend for us to reduce cost and to increase revenue. So before I'm making my recommendation, I'm already letting her know there's common ground. And that's what's creating trust. And that is what creates not me being like a bulldozing person that's just commanding and saying, hey, we need to do this and this and this. And they're like, what why do we have to do all these things? Why do we have to cut this cost? Why are you doing all this stuff? And then they're more threatened by your command energy without the context. So you have to give them the context and the common ground up front and then tell them what you're thinking, but not in a nicey nice way, but in a really clear, powerful, grounded way.
All right. So this is how you use your being powerful, not being a threat, but being powerful, but not also being super nice where you're such a non-threat that people don't even see you and you're invisible and people don't trust your leadership. So that's where I want you to start discerning because this is really important as you continue accelerating in your career. How important it is to notice that autopilot niceness and how can you amp up your ability to lead with more power and more purpose?
All right. So this is what I want you to practice this week. This is a little bit of a leadership lab for you too, is to check in with yourself and notice the power over pleasing. This is the shift to really choose power over pleasing. And what I'm saying pleasing, this is that niceness. So you want to replace just checking in with following up to move this forward. So try it on. And you want to say your recommendation before asking for validation. Again, saying what's so instead of asking for validation of something you've done. That's more about being pleasing and nice. The next one is you want to pause before softening your voice or overexplaining. So asking yourself this question could be very, very impactful for you. If I trusted I belong here, how would I speak right now? Again, this is giving you permission. If I feel safe here and authentically able to be me, what would I say? Because this is where your leadership lies.
And you also want to reframe some of this for your nervous system, right? This could feel scary, especially if you have really held on to this identity that you are a nice person. This isn't aggression, this is leadership. You can remind yourself this because there might be fears coming up, especially if you had a really aggressive, authoritative father, you might have said to yourself, I'm never going to be this type of leader. But what you want to reframe for yourself, instead of just reactively avoiding being your father, you need to proactively shift towards being the leader, the authentic, powerful, unique leader you are. So instead of thinking that your aggression is taking over, you want to see yourself as leading powerfully and making this power over pleasing shift.
The next one is, this isn't disrespectful, right? I have a lot of clients who, especially with authority figures, they feel like they have to be nice or they can't take up as much space or they can't say what's so. But you want to reframe it for yourself that this is self-respect. If I respect this person who's asking me my opinion and I respect myself, then what would you say? Again, this is reframing that nervous system, rewiring it to not think, oh, if I disagree with my senior leader or my authority figure, in this case, maybe it's your boardman chair, maybe it's your CEO, you want to reframe it for it's self-respect for me and it's respectful for them because this is going to calm your nervous system down if you notice yourself wanting to stop yourself.
All right, so that was today's episode. It is really, again, about your ability to lead powerfully and on purpose versus being nice. If you're still leading with likeability, you're leading at half your power. And I want you to listen to this episode again and just notice for yourself, where is this showing up in your life? Where is being nice showing up? And how is it costing you? Very specifically to you because this will give you more insight into how to interrupt the pattern.
As you know, I help high achieving women drop the performance and step into presence and lead with conviction. If you are ready to make this shift for yourself and you want to go in deeper, I'm inviting you on to an empowering clarity call with me. Go ahead to my website or my LinkedIn profile and you can just book that call. But this is really what unlocks women from feeling overlooked and invisible to undeniable in their value, in their leadership, in their authority, and it starts with you.
All right, everyone. It was great to connect with all of you this week. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. Feel free to again, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me directly. I reply to everything myself. Okay. I will see you next week. Go out there, lead with power and purpose. Leave the nice girl behind. All right, take care. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
All right, welcome podcast listeners. This is episode number 45, and it is about how, as women, we were taught to be nice and not powerful. This is coming off of the back of a masterclass I recently did called How to Be Heard in Rooms Full of Male Leaders. And if you are a woman leader that's listening to this, I really want to unpack what it is to be nice and what it's not to be nice. And I also want to talk about the hidden cost of being nice and why when you lead with being nice, it doesn't create the influence, the impact, and really the long-term income that you could expect if you are focused on being nice and you're leading with nice and likeability, right?
I'm going to talk about the hidden cost about these things because one of the things that as I am talking to a lot of women and even through my own experience, the conditioning that we have gotten from our childhood, from our culture, from our patriarchal society is a lot about how we should be nice, ladylike. Almost like we should be agreeable, likeable. And really what it's also saying is that we should be non-disruptive. But if you think about a leader, if you think about a really powerful leader, they are going to be disruptive. They are going to be commanding, they're going to have conviction. They are like the complete opposite of a nice girl. They are bold. They make an impact.
And I'm here to tell you that you don't need to be a man, you don't need to be something different than you are now, but you need to be tapping into the part of you that has that command and conviction energy. I'm going to be talking a lot more about the energy of command and conviction. As I continue unpacking with the women that I'm coaching, how to really show up in these high-stake rooms, in these situations where there's a lot of men and they want to show up as an authority with their inner authority first, it is really to cultivate this energy of conviction and command. So, you're going to hear more about that. You'll hear about it in this episode, but I'm going to have more episodes about this particular energy and how I see that this energy is present in women that are heard consistently, that are able to speak up and make the impact that they want. Because the conviction and the command energy really creates trust with people.
But it is an energy that a lot of times, as we're growing up as women, as females in this Western society, we are taught to hide, right? We are taught to make other people comfortable at the expense of ourselves. And we want to be comfortable too. It might not feel comfortable for us to have this level of conviction and command. But as I talked about in previous episodes and I will continue talking about it, this is the type of energy that's needed in certain situations that will set you apart from all the other leaders and will have people listening to you and basically following your every word.
Because what happens is likeability and being nice, this might have helped you get promoted early on when you were getting tasks done. But now, it's making you invisible. The nice response isn't seen as kindness. It is oftentimes in these high-stake rooms, more of a fear response. And when I talk about what nice really is, I'm not talking about kindness. I'm talking about this performance of being non-threatening, designed to keep others comfortable and to keep you safe. And safe in a way where you are almost over-calibrating the threat that's in the room and relying on being small or shrinking or being overly careful or nice because you don't want to ruffle any feathers. And it's really not about being authentic. It's about really a safety fear response.
And if you're really authentic, when we talk about authenticity, we're talking about showing up as your true self and reacting the way that you want to react when you are feeling safe, right? We're more likely to be authentic when we've created safety around us so that we can be more real. It's like if your husband asks you how you're doing and you're like, I had a terrible day. This has just been a really crappy day and these are all the things, right? You're just going to be more honest. Whereas maybe your boss asks you and you're not like, it's your new boss, your boss asks you like, hey, Sarah, how are you doing? And you're like, I'm doing great. But really, the authentic response would have been something similar to your husband's, but you're trying to be nice or you are trying to come off as nice versus real.
So, I want you to also notice like what does nice sound like? And in this world, when I'm talking about nice in this episode, it is really more of an autopilot response. It's almost like an unconscious programming conditioning that you have, right? So that's my definition of nice just so that people don't take this out of context. But what I want to shine a light on is where are you being autopilot nice and how is it costing you? This is what nice often sounds like in the corporate world or even in your personal life. I don't want to overstep. It's already you're like already apologizing for speaking up. Another one is, sorry, just wanted to check in. So again, starting with an apology is already trying to be overly nice. It's like you're giving this person so much more respect and entitlement than maybe you're even giving yourself because you're already apologizing before asking for what you need.
The next one is, I'm here to support whatever you all decide. Again, this is trying to be nice, but it's really pushing responsibility onto other people and just saying, I'm here to support. Which is not positioning you as a leader, it's positioning you as a support.
The last one is, they probably have a direction. I don't want to derail it. Right? Like if somebody asks you for your opinion on something and instead of you giving your opinion, you choose to be nice and say, they probably have a direction, I don't want to derail it. Basically what it sounds like again is that you are not being responsible to give your authentic opinion that's uniquely yours and you are trying to be nice and say, I don't want to get in that functional leader's way. But the way that I talk to people about this too is because sometimes my clients will tell me, I don't want to, you know, get into other people's swim lanes.
And I'm like, listen, you are a leader of this company. You are a department head. And as a department head leader, you are also holding the purpose of the company at a bigger level. And so if what you're saying is going to be better for the company as a whole, then you need to speak up. That is not about getting into other people's lanes or stepping on other people's toes. That's the way that you're thinking about it because you're focused more on being nice than being powerful. A powerful leader steps in and says what's so, no matter what lane it's in. They will say, and most things are if they're big enough cross-functional.
The people that see themselves as powerful feel entitled to step in and to talk about other people's functional areas. Because they see it as the greater whole, right? They see it as one thing. Like we're on one team trying to support the bigger company. We're not here to be nice or friends with each other. We're here to help the company be profitable so that the employees get paid, so that the clients get what they need. And then, of course, as leaders, so that we get to make an impact, right? And I'm not saying that we shouldn't have these basic ways of being able to be social with each other. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying that sometimes, and oftentimes it's women that use niceness too much, unconsciously, in a way that pushes leadership away from them and positions themselves more as a support or reliable person to execute versus a powerful person to share their opinion, to make things happen, to make their recommendation even in the face of disaffirmation.
When you feel powerful, you are more willing to do those things. You are more willing to say what's so because you're not focused on everyone else being comfortable. And even yourself being comfortable, right? You're willing to say what needs to be said. And that's why being nice is not powerful. And truly, nice isn't about being authentic. You have opinions, you have experience, you have education, you have a lot of things and that makes you a valuable member of the room, of the leadership team. So if you are more placating to being nice, it's not you showing up authentically. And it's more about you feeling and wanting to be accepted and liked versus being in your full power.
And there is a price to this, right? So I'm going to talk to you more about why leading with nice backfires. When you lead with nice, people don't know what you stand for. When you give other people the decision rights and you don't share your recommendations, your value becomes invisible. And you don't get included in strategic decisions because you haven't owned your space. People kind of see you as a helper versus a strategic ally.
And I'm going to give you some examples of this. I actually have a client who oftentimes, she's the only woman in this leadership team. So she's pulled into kind of talking to people and kind of being the therapist for people a lot of times. And she finds herself feeling like she is being nice to them by giving them time and space to talk about their problems, but then she's also starting to realize, as we do this work together and she's consciously noticing like, actually, I don't want to be this person for other people. I don't want to be the person that people come to complain about things. Like, this is not who I am anymore. I want to be a strategic person. I want to be a powerful leader and I don't want to just be the sidekick or the wingman of somebody who needs emotional support. It doesn't mean that she doesn't want to be there for her colleagues, but she doesn't want that to be the only thing. She doesn't want to be known for helping to fix all these emotional upsets or to hear people vent for hours. There could be some of that and where she really wants to engage in that versus it's just an autopilot thing. People just come to her office and talk to her about things. Because she's realizing that there's a cost to her for doing that. When she's talking to her boss and her boss is just complaining about other people, she's not talking about her own agenda. She's not talking about what she wants. She's not talking about the impact that she could be making to the organization. She's being nice.
And that nice isn't authentic because guess what? She's annoyed. Like when we talk about this, she's like, I'm so annoyed. Why do they keep coming to my office? And I'm like, well, what are you doing to allow them to do that? This is also about creating boundaries that work for you. You know, the way that this relates to her childhood is her mom used to go to her all the time to complain about her brother. So she's very used to this role of being sort of the therapist or the peacekeeper or the helper. But she didn't like that role either because guess what? Her mom doesn't really know her. Her mom consistently talks to her about her brother, but doesn't say, hey, I want to get to know you. You are my daughter. Tell me more about your life. They spend time gossiping about some other people's life and she's thinks she's being nice, but what she's really doing is enabling the system to continue, a system where she is nice and has this space for other people to be comfortable, but where she isn't getting heard, seen, or authentically leading or being the authority in the situation.
And so you want to watch yourself. Where are you being nice and how is it backfiring? When you are being nice, there is a cost, there's an expense. And somewhere along the way, I stopped being nice because I think I realized that it's not authentic. And if you were really kind, if you were really real, authenticity and being genuine is more in line with me and my values than being surface level nice. I think surface level nice when you're just saying things so that you can manage other people's feelings, when you are overvaluing how they feel about you and undervaluing how you feel about yourself or the space that you're in for yourself, that is not authentic and that doesn't create real relationships. That actually is the opposite of it, right? It creates fakeness, it creates distance, and when you are leading with niceness, it's not you leading with power.
When you lead with power, you build respect by being clear, calm, and direct. You're really clear on who you are, right? And what matters to you and what satisfaction looks like for you. Senior leaders see you as a trusted peer, not just a reliable supporter when you lead with power and authority. You become the person that other senior leaders turn to when stakes are high because they know you're going to tell the truth. You're not just going to give them lip service. You're not just someone who needs to execute or to support. You are willing to say I disagree with this. I like this about the plan. I don't like this about the plan. You become that power, that authority, and it doesn't mean that you'll always get your way, but you actually are truthful and honest and clear and direct. You're not, you know, placating so much and you're not making things easy for other people to digest. You're just being really truly you, using your authentic leadership.
And so I'm going to give you some examples of when I chose to lead with more authority and power and let go of like just the niceness. Because I realized earlier on, as I was younger than a lot of the people that I led, I needed to show that I was powerful and commanding and authoritative even if my years of experience didn't show it, right? Versus the people I managed or even if I was younger than the people that I managed. There were a lot of things that might position me as somebody who could be walked over or could be easily sort of overlooked or dismissed. But I knew what my role was and I knew what was important in the way that I showed up in these spaces, especially with new people. People who've known me for a long time will say that I'm kind, that I'm nice. They will even use that word. But I'm not just going to show up and be nice, bubbly, Yann because that doesn't serve me in certain situations.
And again, this is about being authentic, but me being authentic also means me leading with purpose and power when people were way older than me that had much more experience than me. I really amped up my command and my power, and I really worked on being more real and less nice, right? Nice or kindness could come later. And that is something that when I'm working with people, I show different parts of myself as it feels good for me and it feels authentic to me. So when I just got to Singapore, I remember I was leading a team. I actually led a ERP systems team and I never led that team before. I knew enough about it and the leaders trusted me to lead that team, but I had to show my expertise. I had to show my authority. I would not just be somebody who was like, oh, I'm here to learn. I, you know, really positioned myself as somebody who was knowledgeable, but I was also very clear and direct and calm in terms of what I wanted. I wasn't waiting for them to accept me. I already accepted myself. I had that position for myself. And so I would amp up more of that authoritativeness.
And another circumstance that happened also when I started working in a new company where I was leading the finances and this very senior, older, white male guy who I had heard had a reputation of not always working that well with finance. And so in that moment, when I met him, I was kind, I was respectful, but I also respected myself a lot. And I told him what my role was and what it's there for, and I let him know how things were going to work. And I was very clear about that. I wasn't asking him how he wanted things to work. I was very clear on the way that we would work together. And I was open and I was curious, but I was very authoritative. And I could notice subtle moments where he would try to kind of take over the meeting. And that's when I had to jump in and be powerful and purposeful and take that meeting, take the reign of that meeting back.
But if I came in wanting to be nice and hoping that he liked me, then he would just walk all over me. I mean, he might have not even done it consciously. He just would have done it because he's like, oh, here's a nice girl. I need to tell her what to do. I need to take command of this meeting and take control of it because she clearly is not. So this is what I'm talking about. Being nice is not being powerful, but you can be powerful and nice, but you've got to lead with power and purpose. And that is why this piece is super important. And I'm going to give you some examples of what it sounds like to sound nice versus sound powerful.
So instead of saying, I just want to check, you would say, I'm following up to move this forward. Here's another thing that sounds nice. Sorry to bother you, but And instead, if you're somebody who is powerful and authoritative, you would say, here's what I need clarity on. Another question, does that make sense? Instead of saying that, you say, let me know if anything is unclear. And then here's the last one. I think we could maybe see when you use these tones like maybe or think, it is less formal and it seems like you're trying to be more likable, versus, here's what I recommend and why.
So you just want to notice in your tone of voice, in how much you apologize, in how many words you use to sort of make things safe for the other person, versus how much more in command could you be? How much more powerful could you sound, right? And this is also a great way if some of you are using AI tools, this is a really great way to even check your emails to say, hey, I'm trying to come off as powerful, not nice. And I'm trying to come off as respectable, professional, and clear versus overly nice. This is where, you know, using that AI tool can really help you come back and forth and look at the sound that you want to have. Again, it needs to be conscious and it needs to be you being authentic. And it's about power and purpose. It's not just about playing some part, but it is about flexing your muscles in this skill set and to make more and more conscious the places where you're being nice because it was conditioned and because it becomes autopilot after a while, right?
You want to pause and create more of that conscious awareness so you can choose consciously how you want to show up. Because you weren't meant to be palatable. You were meant to be powerful. But oftentimes we don't realize that because we've been conditioned to be palatable as nice young girls, right? I do it to my husband and I catch ourselves doing it to our daughters all the time. Be nice, be nice, you know? But a lot of boys don't get that messaging. And that messaging causes us as women oftentimes to shrink when we could be standing tall and proud, even in the face of criticism, even in the face of people not liking what we have to say, even in the face of, you know, not getting what we want. We could still stand tall and proud and be powerful. We get to choose to do that. But like I said, if you are leading with niceness, you will oftentimes not be standing tall and proud.
So this next piece that I want to talk to you guys about as well is how to be a trusted ally and not a threat, right? Because I think oftentimes people are like, but I have to be nice, otherwise I'm going to come across really threatening to people. But here's what I want you to know. True leadership means you can hold power with warmth, clarity, with kindness, and boundaries with respect. I'm going to say it one more time. True leadership means you can hold power with warmth, clarity with kindness, and boundaries with respect. Again, this is about being authentic and it's leading with purpose and power.
So here's what it looks like in practice, when you're leading with shared goals before disagreeing. To protect our timeline, I want to raise a concern. Here's another one. Disagree up the chain without apology. Here's another lens I think we should consider. And then here's a way to protect the team with clarity and not over functioning. That's not sustainable. Let's find a more aligned sustainable way to move forward. If you lead with that clarity and that warmth and that empathy, you can still be powerful. It's not either or, but it is really about leading powerfully first and choosing your words wisely and making sure that autopilot niceness isn't diluting your power.
The most powerful women lower threat for people they lead and they raise standards for the ones they report to. So if you are leading people and they're feeling scared, you want to be able to lower the threat for them but still hold a standard. And it's the same thing with people that are senior to you. You want to hold a standard for them and you don't want them to feel like you are not aligned with them, right? So there are going to be places where you're very aligned and places where you're not. But in certain situations, you want to underline that alignment so that they can start building trust and rapport with you.
So when I had a new boss, I would always lead with something that gave us common ground. I would always lead with that. And it wasn't about being nice. It was creating that common ground and then powerfully recommending something. So I might say something like, since our goal and our target for the whole company is to reach this level of income and this is our profit target for Q2. These are the steps that I would recommend for us to reduce cost and to increase revenue. So before I'm making my recommendation, I'm already letting her know there's common ground. And that's what's creating trust. And that is what creates not me being like a bulldozing person that's just commanding and saying, hey, we need to do this and this and this. And they're like, what why do we have to do all these things? Why do we have to cut this cost? Why are you doing all this stuff? And then they're more threatened by your command energy without the context. So you have to give them the context and the common ground up front and then tell them what you're thinking, but not in a nicey nice way, but in a really clear, powerful, grounded way.
All right. So this is how you use your being powerful, not being a threat, but being powerful, but not also being super nice where you're such a non-threat that people don't even see you and you're invisible and people don't trust your leadership. So that's where I want you to start discerning because this is really important as you continue accelerating in your career. How important it is to notice that autopilot niceness and how can you amp up your ability to lead with more power and more purpose?
All right. So this is what I want you to practice this week. This is a little bit of a leadership lab for you too, is to check in with yourself and notice the power over pleasing. This is the shift to really choose power over pleasing. And what I'm saying pleasing, this is that niceness. So you want to replace just checking in with following up to move this forward. So try it on. And you want to say your recommendation before asking for validation. Again, saying what's so instead of asking for validation of something you've done. That's more about being pleasing and nice. The next one is you want to pause before softening your voice or overexplaining. So asking yourself this question could be very, very impactful for you. If I trusted I belong here, how would I speak right now? Again, this is giving you permission. If I feel safe here and authentically able to be me, what would I say? Because this is where your leadership lies.
And you also want to reframe some of this for your nervous system, right? This could feel scary, especially if you have really held on to this identity that you are a nice person. This isn't aggression, this is leadership. You can remind yourself this because there might be fears coming up, especially if you had a really aggressive, authoritative father, you might have said to yourself, I'm never going to be this type of leader. But what you want to reframe for yourself, instead of just reactively avoiding being your father, you need to proactively shift towards being the leader, the authentic, powerful, unique leader you are. So instead of thinking that your aggression is taking over, you want to see yourself as leading powerfully and making this power over pleasing shift.
The next one is, this isn't disrespectful, right? I have a lot of clients who, especially with authority figures, they feel like they have to be nice or they can't take up as much space or they can't say what's so. But you want to reframe it for yourself that this is self-respect. If I respect this person who's asking me my opinion and I respect myself, then what would you say? Again, this is reframing that nervous system, rewiring it to not think, oh, if I disagree with my senior leader or my authority figure, in this case, maybe it's your boardman chair, maybe it's your CEO, you want to reframe it for it's self-respect for me and it's respectful for them because this is going to calm your nervous system down if you notice yourself wanting to stop yourself.
All right, so that was today's episode. It is really, again, about your ability to lead powerfully and on purpose versus being nice. If you're still leading with likeability, you're leading at half your power. And I want you to listen to this episode again and just notice for yourself, where is this showing up in your life? Where is being nice showing up? And how is it costing you? Very specifically to you because this will give you more insight into how to interrupt the pattern.
As you know, I help high achieving women drop the performance and step into presence and lead with conviction. If you are ready to make this shift for yourself and you want to go in deeper, I'm inviting you on to an empowering clarity call with me. Go ahead to my website or my LinkedIn profile and you can just book that call. But this is really what unlocks women from feeling overlooked and invisible to undeniable in their value, in their leadership, in their authority, and it starts with you.
All right, everyone. It was great to connect with all of you this week. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. Feel free to again, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me directly. I reply to everything myself. Okay. I will see you next week. Go out there, lead with power and purpose. Leave the nice girl behind. All right, take care. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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