THE POWER AND COURAGE OF VOICE
Volume #32 - February 2003
When I conducted my research for Success on Our Own Terms back in the late '90s, I discovered that three major themes showed up in women's definitions of success: achieving goals in jobs that made them happy; maintaining balance; and having a positive impact - making a difference on their organizations, communities and families.
Making an impact often requires courage. It requires using your voice to raise awareness or make a point. Sometimes that means that you have to separate yourself from the pack. You have to disentangle yourself from the accepted norm. You might have to stand out and make yourself visible and that can feel extremely uncomfortable. But if you want to find fulfillment and a feeling of peace that you have done your best and have been true to yourself, you'll need to find and use your voice.
The corporate scandals that we have experienced during the last couple of years occurred because people caved into the pressure to go along. We try to teach our children not to succumb to peer pressure, but in our adult lives we succumb in small ways far more than we'd like to admit. At work, mandates sometimes come down from senior management that at their best confuse us and at their worst cause us to wonder what has gone wrong with the minds of the corporate leaders. Yet, we comply because we don't want to make waves.
When my clients encounter situations in their organizations in which they see a better way of doing things or they see management heading down a slippery path, I coach them around ways they can use their voice to provide new directions or offer rational business cases for why a different path should be followed. This generally means that they need to identify the person or people with whom to communicate their viewpoints. And it means they need to determine what the best means of communication might be - should it be a brief e-mail, a more formal written report, or should they communicate their ideas orally at a meeting. Whom they choose to talk with and how they choose to use their voice depends on the issue, the players, and the politics in the organization.
The issues that you use your voice around don't have to be big, scary ones like unearthing unethical accounting practices or revealing corporate lies; they can be small issues that simply pertain to a process or a policy that affects your department or your customers. What's important to remember is that each small correction or each small improvement you recommend ripples out. Even if your recommendations aren't followed, you've planted the seeds of awareness, which can grow and create future change. You can impact the organization in positive ways and benefit the whole organization if you have the courage to use your voice.
Using your voice, however, is not griping behind cubicles about what's wrong. Using your voice is having the courage to seek new solutions and new ways of operating that will make a positive difference on the organization and the lives of others. Being willing to demonstrate that you can present a rational business case for your ideas, that you have thought out the issues and can add clarity and insight for others to think about and learn from, demonstrates your leadership abilities.
In Success on Our Own Terms there were numbers of women managers who raised their voices in their organizations about the need for senior management to pay special attention to women's development. These women stuck their necks out in order to make change and help others to advance. They pointed out what was wrong with the system and ways to fix it. In the process their leadership skills grew and they advanced to greater positions of authority and power.
More recently, I've worked with a middle manager, who was about to lose a valuable employee. He bucked the system and educated his organization about ways to develop and retain key people. Not only did the system respond in a way that enabled him to keep this high performing employee, but he was also seen in a new light as a high potential leader. Another manager pushed back against a restructuring and sold senior management on the value of creating a new position for himself that made better use of his skills. There were risks involved in these cases, but these managers recognized that if they didn't use their voice to make change, the resulting consequences would be untenable for them - they would lose faith in themselves if they didn't speak out.
When you constructively address issues that you believe in, not only do you contribute to improving situations, but you'll also feel better about your own integrity.
COACHING QUESTIONS
- When was the last time you constructively used your voice to impact your organization?
- What holds you back from using your voice when you see that there is a better way of doing things?
- What kind of impact do you want to make?
- Who are the people you need to communicate with?
- What is the best way to communicate with them?
- What do you need to understand about the players and the political environment in your organization?
- What is the risk that you face in using your voice?
- What allies do you have?
- What strategies can you use to counter the risk?
- If you don't use your voice, what price will you pay?
Copy © 2003 Virginia O'Brien All s Reserved
