When asked what advice she would give professional women, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied, “Learn to interrupt.” Sound rude? Think again. Albright learned the hard way that you won’t get anywhere if you don’t speak up. Unfortunately, a lot of women in the workplace still make the mistake of not joining the conversation, and not making their voices heard.

Now, more than ever, women need to act with a sense of urgency to increase their influence in the workplace and in their communities.  Here are several sobering data points that illustrate why, from a 2020 IBM study, “Women, Leadership, and the Priority Paradox”:

“Despite abundant evidence that gender equality in leadership is good for business, an overwhelming majority of organizations say advancing women into leadership roles is not a formal business priority. In fact, women hold only 18 percent of senior leadership positions among 2,300 organizations surveyed worldwide. In other words, men occupy approximately 82 percent of the most influential roles in today’s organizations. And promoting women is not a formal business priority at 79 percent of surveyed organizations." 

Time to step in and rattle some cages—and use our power to make change happen.

As a communications training company that is not only led by a woman, but also, is passionate about diversity in the workplace, we took action several years ago by developing a focused program called Confident Speaking for Women to help working women find their power through clear, confident communication. Not surprisingly, it’s one of our most popular workshops.

Today, I want to share some of the top tips we teach in the program, to get you started (or continue) on the path to becoming a powerful communicator who gets noticed and gets results.  

And here’s the really exciting thing: you’ll also hear directly from some of the dozens of female executives we interviewed while developing the workshop. Women like Yvonne Lin Liu, MD, Medical Director, Genentech; Lynne Zaledonis, SVP, Product Marketing, Salesforce; and Dr. Bindu Garapaty, VP of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Talent Development, Impossible Foods, offer priceless advice from their own high-powered careers.  Here’s just one example:

“I always tell people, no one is going to come tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey, it’s time to be promoted!’ You actually need to be the one asking, ‘When is this happening for me, what’s the time line, and what do you need to see from me in the next six months to make this happen?" Shannon Stubo Brayton, Partner and Chief Marketing Officer, Bessemer Venture Partners

In developing the workshop and interviewing the executives, we noticed three overarching pieces of advice. We call them the “3Cs of effective communication”:  Be Clear, Be Confident, and Be Courageous. So, all of our top tips fall under one of these three areas of wisdom.

Bonus Content: Free White Paper - "Circles of Light: Women’s Wisdom"

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Be clear

Tip 1

Avoid Talk Traps

Cindy Solomon, leadership development consultant, author, and owner of the Courageous Leadership Institute®, urges women to avoid “talk traps” that muddy their message.

“When women put a lot of inconsequential words around their thoughts or their ideas or their opinions, or they hedge, apologize, come up at the end vocally as if they’re asking permission for their opinion or idea,” she says, “all of those things diminish the content because of the delivery.”

Wondering if you’re guilty of falling into talk traps? Check out this short list of common offenders . . .

Now that you know what not to do, let’s move on to the next key piece of advice.

Tip 2

Get to the point

You’ll be perceived as a powerful communicator if you frame the discussion and focus on key findings—before becoming engrossed in the detail. 

Nina Richardson, Silicon Labs Board Member, says she learned over time that when asked to give an update on a project, she was more effective if she not only summarized, but also, synthesized the data in her response.

“Often, someone was looking to me as a leader to take the information and just give the kernels or the bits and pieces that were important, not the laundry list of everything that actually happened.”

Have you struggled with “packaging” your message and supporting data so they have the most impact?  Well, here’s a tool that can help . . . 

Tip 3

Use the PREP Model to create a clear, compelling message

This framework will help you to be clear and succinct when pitching an idea or making a proposal.

Rajani Shailender, Vice President of Sales for Tech Mahindra, offers this:

“My personal philosophy with communication is, read your audience, speak to the main points, explain where you have to. Move on when you’re done. Get your point across in the shortest amount of time that you can.” 

Here’s more great advice about being clear and concise, from several of the female executives we interviewed: