How To Stand Out As A Leader At Work. 

Hands up who doesn’t love…

Vanilla cake, maybe with a side of strawberries… YES

Vanilla Ice cream with a good ole’ drizzling of butterscotch sauce, yummo!

Or perhaps…

The ever faithful, ever yummy vanilla slice just as it is… Bring it!

Well as lovely as those thoughts are I am going to refocus on

Vanilla at work.

This is the one place that you cannot be vanilla. Why do you ask?

Because you don’t want to be like everyone else. Yes, that is scary talk but you want to stand out and be different.

You want to be AUTHENTIC.

I have been journaling lately on me, my story and I am going to share some of that with you today.

Me, Myself and I

As most of you know I am originally from Belgium, I moved to Australia and started my own business which is the big picture but when I was 18 I studied for a technical degree.

The consensus was a lot of people didn’t think I would be able to finish the entire degree as it would be “far too difficult.”

I did not allow that negativity to creep in, I didn’t let it stop me... so I did a bachelor in communication.

In the last year of that degree, I had a rather large health scare, I developed toxic shock syndrome and was placed in a coma.

When I woke up everything wasn’t back to normal I was half paralyzed due to one side of my brain not having enough oxygen which affected my right side.

I was unable to walk or talk, I couldn't write with my right hand (my dominant hand).

This didn't stop me!

Even though people said to me, “I don’t think it is likely you’ll graduate”. “It’s okay if you want to redo your studies”.

When I did graduate the comments still came rolling in, “Oh, it will be so difficult for her to find work and to hold on to a steady or worthwhile job”.

Because I couldn't walk properly, I couldn’t talk clearly, I still had a little bit of a lisp problem.

But hey, that didn't stop me!

I started work as an executive recruiter and within three years, I taught myself how to write and walk again.

I met my future husband who said, “I would love to go to Australia, but it will be so hot and nearly impossible to get into the country”.

Did that stop me... No!

We got to Australia, I got a job that brought us here, I also got a job for my betrothed too. We started working and living our lives in our new home.

During my career, I have had ups and downs and I’ve loved every bit of it.

I have learned so much but the one thing that never faltered throughout it all was that I always remained true to myself.

Sometimes I was liked and sometimes I was disliked.

EXAMPLE TIME:

One of my jobs I just loved, I gave my blood, sweat and tears to the position working ridiculously long hours, going above and beyond for the company... I adored it.

But as the saying goes “all good things come to an end!”

Within three years I’d had four different general managers, the last one disliking me quite a bit.

You see she wanted a “YES” person which is not me, I am more the one who questions things, gives my opinion, whether it’s asked for or not, yes I’ll always accept the opinions of others but I tend to challenge and question the what and why we do things a certain way.

For my manager, this was not OK… she didn't like it and because of that, she pushed me out.

Unfortunately, this was not the last time I came up against this type of roadblock, in my last job the exact thing happened.

I had four different bosses in those years and the last boss well she and I did not see eye to eye resulting in us going our separate ways.

THE POINT

So the point to my story is there are so many things that arise in both your personal and working life that can lead you to feel sorry for yourself, to leave you feeling scared, retreating into your shell and staying there because it's safer and quieter.

The issue is when you give so much heart and soul, devotion, commitment, go above and beyond for the company it can be devastating for someone to not like you because of your opinion or you operate differently.

It’s a rather large dagger to the gut and it’s bloody unfair.

There is a moment, a snippet of time or it could be a lot longer but it leaves you feeling inadequate, you should have changed who you are to suit the role and the people better.

CUE MY DAD

As you know I am from Belgium and in Belgium, most of my family, my friends are very conservative. They stay in their jobs for 10, 15, 20 years and they don’t rock the boat.

In Australia, people change jobs every three to five years and if they don’t change outside the company they change their positions inside the company quite different to my home country.

I remember, my dad was visiting at the time, he said to me:

“Caroline, this is the second time you have left your job, don't you think something is wrong with you?”

I was quick to respond…

“No not at all, I am not changing who I am, I am remaining true to myself. I will learn from the experiences, however bad they are. Could I have done things differently probably that’s the beauty of hindsight”.

Regardless of how differently I had done things the essence would’ve never changed. I will never change, I'm an extrovert.

I state my opinion, yes I can change that if I feel there is a really good angle to the story, and it's believable to me because we need to challenge our own beliefs.

People who are brilliant, smart, passionate, senior professionals aren’t immune to drifting.

Moving away from their inner power due to circumstance maybe even taking opportunities which were a mixture of good and bad but they haven't been intentional about the direction of their career.

Sometimes it goes further than your career becoming what you do for ALL you do.

Not being intentional, not thinking about the next step, not asking yourself is that really in line with not only who I am but how I want to be perceived and how I want to position myself and what I want to achieve in my life and my career.

That is a conscious thought…

Forget about working hard and being liked by everyone because it’s not a strategy you should adopt.

If it’s a fulfilling career you are after and stepping up from middle management to executive management or even just be...

Heard within your organization and

Have your ideas mean something, that when you bring in an idea that the executive

Have support for your ideas

Have the freedom to create and achieve what you know you're capable of.

To do that you need to step into your authenticity.

Now. Somebody said the other day the enemy of authenticity is trying to be liked.

If you are a person that constantly does things, because they want to be liked… that is the enemy of authenticity!

It is impossible to be yourself and express it if you're constantly worrying if the other person will like it.

If you are authentic, if you are true to yourself, yes, you will have lovers and haters and that is okay.

Just because you disagree with somebody doesn’t mean you can't work together to create something better, powerful or more impactful.

When you stay small, and you stay in that state vanilla, nothing good is going to come from it, you're just going to be a clone of everyone else.

Remember there isn’t a lot of “uniqueness” left in the world… except you, you are unique. You have certain skills and experience, talents and passions which all make you unique.

A lot of people don't know how to communicate and connect the dots between everything that they have ever done which keeps them stuck in an unfulfilling career.

So I invite you to first ask yourself, where are you keeping yourself small? Where are you dimming your light?

Because this is where I can help you…

6-WEEK LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

This program is for people who are:

• Ready to grow
• Ready to expand
• Ready to step into leadership
• Ready to expand your influence

Because it's not about having a title of “leader” you need to have a strong leadership brand.

Back to the program…

During the six weeks, we will build your leadership brand, we will take your personal brand and up-level that to a leadership brand.

Think of it as reinventing yourself and amplifying your talent and your strengths, we are also going to understand what your leadership blueprint is, your leadership style.

We will talk about how to overcome emotional triggers because, with any type of change, you're going to get triggered, you're going to second guess yourself, you're brain is going to want to keep you safe and sound. We will talk about how to manage that.

I am also going to teach you strategies on how to overcome roadblocks.

Because I don't want those to hold you back. So first of all, we're going to build that leadership route.

Then secondly, we're going to help you to boost your executive presence. Thirdly we will create an executive presence, how you can recruit your support squads and your alliances, how you can convert the relationships that you have into alliances.

That is a power program.

It's a very intensive leadership program. Consisting of a very small group, we're going to build your leadership brand, boost your executive presence, and increase your leadership influence.

So if you want to stand out as a leader at work, then reach out to me TODAY!

Don't hesitate to reach out to me I'm not sitting high in my ivory tower, I'm very approachable and will answer your questions.

Send me a direct email or a direct message on LinkedIn or whatever chat channel you use.

I hope this helped. I hope this inspired you to stop being vanilla and really owning your greatness and stepping into your authenticity.