Yeah. So basically, um this concept came from actually Professor Deborah Grunfeld, the powering up and powering down mechanism. And as you said in the TED talks, I think inherently we understand what powering up looks like, but this powering down mechanism allows us to be more approachable and accessible.

And that's why I'm gonna talk to you today about those four levers that allow us to dial up our power or dial down our power. So starting with looking at the screen, there are three women in these various power poses, starting with some of you that are overseas. This is wonder woman who's about to take on a super villain. I'm sure in her power pose and in front of her is Professor Amy Cuddy who's known for her power posing advice for us to own our own confidence and to also use this expansive body gesture for us to power up. And lastly, you have Christine Lagarde who is the head of the European Central Bank who's basically staring down a shorter man in front of her who's probably cowering in her presence. So, like I said, intuitively, most of us understand what Powering up looks like the powering down will be something we also need to do in order to recharge ourselves. And like I said, to be more collaborative and more approachable. So next, let me be the first one to tell you guys that even though there's many advice about um faking it till you make it, I'll be the first person to tell you that you don't need to do that because of this recent research that came out of um uh Zenger Falkman out of Harvard Business Review.

And this is where you have the superpower to already take on those leadership roles because looking at each of these leadership traits such as taking initiative, learning agility, being able to inspire and motivate others women statistically score better than men. But even in those categories where maybe we're just dead, even such as technical expertise or innovation, I would argue that we're just as good, right? And so this is where I really want us to think about powering up means owning our superpower. So let's take a look at some specific advice about what to do about powering up. So here are the three ways that again, the Stanford Professor Deborah Greenfeld has advised for us to do so. I'm making use of Christine Lagarde here again where she is along with Angela Merkel, taking advantage of the spotlight on them, right? Where Europe is in the depth of the COVID crisis and both of them have rose to the uh to the occasion to really take on the spotlight and to lead. And in addition to these two European women, you also see Jacinda Ardern, who is the new Zealand Prime Minister, who's been effectively shutting down, well, who's been very effective in fighting the COVID crisis by shutting down New Zealand at the right time and taking those tough measures in order to take on the crisis.

And then third, you see Christine Lagarde basically getting her elbow room right. This is against Timothy Gardner on one hand, I'm not even sure who the gentleman is in, in the uh wheelchair, but no doubt she owns her space and she is willing to fight for it. And so again, powering up is something we inherently understand. But let's take a look at those mechanisms that allow us to better own our power as well as empower others. So this additional dimension that Professor Grunfeld has laid out in this two by two matrix is to look at how we might actually consider when we're powering down for our own purposes. And that's on this left hand side. And then also the right hand side of the matrix is to empower others. And so when we are seen as powering up to help others to empower our team, we're perceived positively as assured as ex you know, ex excited uh exhibit, we're able to exhibit that power and we're also very sociable. However, if we are seen as powering up in a way that's greedy or doing it for self selfish purposes, we might come across as um competitive and also um cool or or not cold, cold. And so this is the power up mechanism that I want us to consider.

Again, this additional dimension of how we might want to help the perception of we're powering up in order to help others. Now, next, let's take a look at some of the resistant forces that might come, we might come across if we have this negative perception against us, right?

And so this is actually a character is using those super um uh hero uh characters. I'm using one from Disney Plus and this is Wanda, the Scarlet Witch. And so initially in the TV series, she's seen as a very likable character, a suburban mom who's a wife taking care of her family. But then lo and behold when she now has the superpower to take over an entire town or maybe even destroy the world, she's then to be feared and vanquished. And so I think I want us to think about how has that affected you when you've tried to power up in the past? Was it always received in a positive light? Or have you encountered some of these negative resistant forces? And I'm given the 20 minutes, I won't be able to capture all the comments, but I'm sure some of you have some good story to share about what has happened to you when you try to seize the power or own the power but found some negative reactions. And so next, I want to talk about powering down, which is this lower half of the quadrant where Professor Grunfeld again is advising us to look at when we are powering down for the purpose of sharing power and being collaborative, then we are again perceived positively as being warm and trusting and even differential.

However, when we're powering down such that people see us as doing it selfishly or maybe not assured, then we might be seen as aloof or maybe even inhibited. So what are we to do? Right? When we power up, we get the resistant forces. When we power down, we could be seen as aloof and even un ass shirt, right? So this is the double by many women have come across. So let's take a look at what we can do. And so I have some advice when it comes to what I call these four lovers, right? So basically the lover, um one is having to be authoritative and still helping others participate. And the second lever is to advocate for ourselves as well as advocate for others. And the third level is to be demanding and hold people accountable, but still show that we care. And then the four level is to maintain some professional distance, but still having to be approachable. And I want to tell people, you know, again, in terms of powering up and powering down the analogy I would use. And this is the dimmer switch that you see here versus the uh on and off switch. So powering up and powering down shouldn't be this on and off switch.

Powering up and powering down should look like these dimmer switches which allow us to dial up the authoritative but still allow people to parti participate or dial down the demanding uh and allow us to show some caring or maybe even maintain a little bit of distance, but still allow people to approach us.

So let's talk about specific tips on how you can do that and navigate the double bind. So first strategy that I have for you would be to be adaptable because in times you do have to be tough, right? In a negotiation or in a client setting, you want to show up as the authoritarian figure. But there are also times like a happy hours or at some uh company gathering, you'll wanna have some niceness um projected, but also you wanna dress a bit more formally because the, the tough um negotiated negotiation that I've seen from my coaches is that when they're everybody's best friend, it's hard then to become the demanding holding people accountable manager, right?

So you want to create a little bit of distance and then adapt to the situation whether that is like I said, at a company outing or in front of some very important clients. And definitely you should own your decision power just like what we saw in the three power of suggestion to take the spotlight and own those tough decisions and create space for yourself by sitting at the table when a key decision needs to be made. And the next um strategy I have for you is to look at different negotiation opportunities. So whether that's a negotiation for resources or negotiating for your salary, you want to create opportunities where you can have everybody walk out as winners, right? So normally you look at salary negotiation as just on the salary piece or your wage. But in fact, you might be able to package, you know, the flexible work or additional coaching you wanna have. So think bigger picture as to what you want out of your work environment besides just the salary number. And then the other suggestion I have is also to acknowledge the hurt feelings. And I know this happens a lot in terms of promotions where you might have been picked as the person promoted. But then some other peers of yours actually was in the com was in the running but did not get the job, right?

So acknowledge the elephant in the room and let people know that. Yes, you know, you did get the promotion and you're now the manager for the team. But you also know that somebody might have been disappointed or some of your other team members thought that that person should have gotten the job. So you want to acknowledge those hurt feelings so that you can create those win, win strategies for people moving ahead. And the next strategy I have for you is to perhaps go in order. So again, in terms of being demanding and yet caring, it might be worthwhile for all of us to to project that niceness and collaborative first, right? Especially when you're newly, newly promoted in your role, being nice and caring is going to build trust, right? Build those key relationships and rapport that you need in order to use it later on as the political goodwill to make those tough changes. So build a relationship, then follow on with the tougher demanding piece that you'll want the team to behave or some higher um accountability you want them to follow and again, people want to follow leaders that they trust, right? So make sure you have the trusting relationships built before you ask for really demanding um objectives and priorities that your team needs to achieve.

And the next strategy I have for you is to think about how to basically say the tough message, but also frame it in a way that lets people know you still care. So Kim Malone Scott wrote this book about Radical Candor, which many of you I'm sure in the Silicon Valley may have heard of. So she, she is able to talk about Radical Candor as a way to help people improve right. So people may not always want to hear the negative feedback, but they do want to hear feedback about how they can improve. So being able to reframe your tough message as a way to show radical candor is one way. But also to let people know, you may not have all the answers, but you're very action oriented and you're gonna find out and get right back to them. OK? And then the next um strategy I have for you is this whole idea of what I call situation behavior impact. And maybe the key takeaway here is that you wanna be tough on people's um or your demands on the task. But what you want to be soft on are people's feelings, as I said earlier, right?

You don't want people to walk out as enemies at the end of a negotiation, but you want to walk out as friends, but you also want to frame your approach instead of saying, well, that's a stupid idea. But actually question the underlying assumption of something that was said. And then the third one is to make use of like I said, the situation behavior impact whereby you can describe the situation where you saw some negative behavior pop up. So let's say somebody was talking over you or somebody is talking over another colleague. The way that I would do it is somebody trying to recommend a behavior change is to say, hey, I observed that you talked over Sally at our last meeting. And so that behavior affected all of us and that's the impact, right? That behavior affected all of us in that num number one, I couldn't hear what Sally had to say. And number two, the rest of the team kind of were so shocked that they weren't able to contribute either. And so we lost out on a productive brainstorming meeting because you know, of that behavior that you exhibited so be hard on the behavior but maybe go softer and not criticize the character flaw or what I call personality issues. Um And so you're tough on the situation, you're tough on the behavior and then you'll describe the impact that that behavior has on the rest of the team and help the person understand that when they talked over somebody else or when they were shouting down another person in a meeting that they had a really negative impact, right on the rest of the team.

OK. So from there, I want to get to why we're all here, right? Why have a woman's conference? And I have heard this from some of my um business school colleagues who are like, why, why can the men have their own men's conference? Well, the difference is when women all get together and when we are in a position of power, we actually help influence and lift everybody around us. So let me give you the examples. So when women are in charge of families, we help our Children have better education and we help the entire family get better health. When women participate in business, we improve the overall profit, profitability. When women are active in our society, we see an overall increase of our GDP.

And then when our congresswoman are effectively advocating for the rest of us, they actually get 10% more funding for their communities. And the two examples I want to share here in particular are someone who is my own personal hero, Malala who says it doesn't make sense to keep one half of the population be silent or even not educated, right? So she says that she raises her voice so that she can help those voiceless uneducated girls that she knows, get um an education and get an advocate on their side such as Malala. And then I myself am very active in the woman in Bio's Board and Ready program. And so through the SB a 26 law in California, we're able to increase the board seats up to 665 this year. And again, when we have these women at these key decision making positions, we're gonna see a lot more fantastic medicine like the vaccines we've seen and life saving cure for cancer. So on that, I want to start wrapping up and let you know. So I know I only have 20 minutes but I did summarize the tips in the to this tip sheet. So if you want to email me at Coach Kelly Huang at gmail.com, I'd be happy to send that to you and feel free to connect with me via linkedin.

And at this point, can I take on any questions?

Hey, Kelly, great job. Thank you so much. Hi. Hi. Um We do have like one more minute together or so. Um you know, I know you're saying like you, you have to go through this really fast, right? And you've got these tips and you can share them. Is there any extra anecdote that you'd love to give us while we do have another minute? Like a tip that you get stands out the most to you.

Yeah. Well, I have to say the powering up the power posing now that I've been giving this talks a few times when I do this, it really does calm me down. It's, it's amazing and, and I know Professor Amy Cuddy has said this very many times that you don't have to do it in front of your audience. Go to the bathroom, do the widest act that you can do and then come out and, and it really does. It opens up my chest. I breathe better. I feel a lot more confident. It, it really is. Like I said, it's the superwoman pose.

Yeah. Absolutely. I know. I feel energized just doing it with you right now. I mean, I know you're silly. We're in front of everybody. We don't like you say, you don't have to do it that way. You can do it kind of hidden behind the scenes and it's totally really, really well and then when you step out, you're feeling really good. And I think that's a difference often too between men and women, how we stand naturally, right? So, kind of like this kind of stuff when you're sitting down to arm over the chair, kind of feel, right? It's less common for women, but those are all things that do make you innately more confident. Right? Go

for the ex.

Ok. Thanks so much Kelly for joining us today.