What if the career you are looking for isn't just about climbing ladders, but about coming home to yourself? Welcome to the Seen Heard Value podcast with me, Amy Bateman. These episodes are for anyone ready to move beyond surface level career advice and dive into the deeper work of authentic success.
This is where career strategy meets self-discovery. So let's go.
Hi everyone. Welcome back. I am glad that you are with me today. You know, I spend a lot of time working with brilliant women leaders, brilliant women business owners, and one of the things that comes up again and again is this question, how am I really showing up in the world? How do people perceive me?
And not just in terms of what we're doing, but in terms of the energy and the vibe that we're bringing to the room. And today I wanna talk about something that absolutely stopped me in my tracks last year, or maybe it was earlier on this year when I first heard it. And it's a concept that's so simple, yet so powerful, and honestly, once you hear it, it's really hard to unhear it.
So I was watching a replay from the LinkedIn Talent Connect Conference and Mel Robbins. Yes, that Mel Robbins, the New York Times bestselling author. My future best friend, although she doesn't know it yet, was speaking and I'm sitting there with my laptop probably. Just sitting there in awe of the words that are about to come out of her mouth.
'cause I think she's absolutely fabulous and the energy that she brings as well. And she said these four words and it was, leaders bring the weather, just four words. Leaders bring the weather. And even though I was watching the replay and I wasn't actually there, I could feel the impact. Through the screen, like you could see the audience's reaction, you could see people nodding.
It was, they were so captivated and I just knew that these words were gonna stick with me, and I've used them in so many coaching conversations since then in training sessions. And with this podcast, what I want to do is bring some of that to you so that you can go out there and be seen, heard, and valued in your, in your space.
So what I want us to think about this week is when you step into a room, whether it's a team meeting, a one-to-one, you're just walking into the office in the morning, what weather are you bringing? Are you bringing the sunshine? Are you bringing the sunshine and the warmth? Are you bringing calm, a nice, calm, clear day?
Or let's be real sometimes because we've all had these days. Are you bringing a thunderstorm? Maybe a chaotic whirlwind because as leaders we definitely set the tone. We create that atmosphere and our energy. Whether we're aware of it or not, it does ripple out to everybody around us and that impacts how they view us, how they feel about us, the things they say about us when we're not in the room.
And obviously the knock on effect of that is the impact that we make and the opportunities that will come our way. So when we think about leadership development, we often focus on the tangible stuff. What are my strengths? What areas do I need to improve? And, and don't get me wrong, these are very, very important questions.
They help us understand what we bring to the table, where we can grow. But what I really want to consider, and we don't always do this because we're busy, is what else? Do we need to ask for feedback on? Because it's not just the tangible stuff, it's also about the energy that we project and how that energy makes people feel.
So think about your own experience for a second. Have you ever worked for a leader who was always rushing around? So super chaotic, always multitasking like a complete tornado, spinning through the office, and then ask yourself how that made you feel. I've worked with people like that. How does it make you feel Anxious on edge.
Like you never could. I know quite catch your breath. And then think about a leader who was calm and considered someone who seemed grounded even in the middle of chaos. There's a woman I'm working with at the moment on my female further program. That is absolutely, when we've been working on superpowers, we've identified that is her superpower.
She can work in the most chaotic environment, but she brings this calm essence with her, and yeah, that's her superpower. And have you ever worked with anybody like that and ask yourself, how did that make you feel? Because I've worked with people like that and they are an absolute joy to be around. We just feel more settled, right?
We, we almost feel a little bit more confident in our own ability, just 'cause they're, they're so confident. They're radiating that to us. So whatever energy they brought impacted how you showed up in the past, how you felt, how you worked. So what are you doing for people around you? So I wanna talk to you about one aha moment that came to me really early on in my career.
I have talked a little bit about this in my LinkedIn learning course, so if you've watched that, you might have heard this. Basically, it was early on in my recruitment career and I was, I was killing it really. I was at the top of leaderboards. I was winning holidays. I was winning bonuses. I, I was loving life and I was thriving.
So I applied for this internal role. So it was deliver a senior recruitment consultant, but it was working in a different department. It would've meant that I would've been working on hire. Paid opportunity. So the stakeholders that I would've been working with would've been more senior. So I was about, I can't remember, 22, 23.
So I had the results. I definitely had the enthusiasm and I, to be honest, thought I was gonna get it. I thought it was in the bag really. Well, it wasn't, I didn't get it. I didn't get the role. What I did get was. Some of the most valuable feedback I think I've ever received, and even now as a 44-year-old woman, I still think in 20 years it might be one of the most valuable pieces of feedback I've ever received.
And I, and I still think about it now, and it was actually a director who interviewed me, somebody I hadn't worked with closely before. She sat me down and she said, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but she said something like this, your results are impressive. When you talk about something that you're passionate about, your energy is contagious, your eyes light up, you come alive, and it's really wonderful to watch.
And I'm sitting there thinking, yeah, great. So why didn't I get the job then? And then she continued and she said, but there's just one thing. As your enthusiasm grows, your speech gets faster and faster. And words just start flying out of your mouth at lightning speed. And your voice gets higher and higher pitched.
And that really hit me actually, because I was very conscious that I was a young woman working in a very male dominated industry. And when I was about 22 or 23, I looked about 12. I looked really young for my age and I was always really conscious of that. So when she said that, it made me, I dunno, it, it just, it really, really hit me.
She wasn't criticizing my passion. She absolutely loved that about me. She was just pointing out that the way I was expressing that passion might have been undermining my executive presence. I was coming across maybe a little bit overly giddy, maybe a bit childlike, maybe a little bit unpolished. I dunno whether that's just a Welsh thing.
'cause Welsh people do tend to talk quite fast. In fact, even now I'm having to, as I'm reliving the story, I'm thinking, you've on a podcast listening to me, so I should probably slow down my voice a little bit. And this is feedback I've had multiple times when people have watched my videos as well. Can you slow down?
Can you slow down? You talk really fast. And this is what I realized. This wasn't the kind of feedback that I'd heard before because I was always asking for feedback about skills or strengths, but this was about my energy. This was about how I made people feel. This wasn't about results or performance, and honestly, I was so grateful for that feedback.
But I still feel like I needed to position that feedback in the right way. So I still want to bring that high energy. I wanted to make sure that that feedback didn't. I dunno. Put out my fire or whatever. I still wanted to bring that energy. In fact, that's the thing I love about myself. I love that I can bring that energy and that I wake up every morning like, oh, how many people can I love today?
I'm like a, a walking, talking Labrador. Like, I like that about myself. It served me really well in my career over the last 23 years, but now I'm just more intentional about how I channel that excitement. So I would just invite you. This is not an opportunity for you to beat yourself up. This is absolutely not that.
This is not an opportunity for you to think about all of the things that you dislike about yourself and then change them. You are not broken. You are absolutely fine the way you are. That's why you've got to where you are in your career. We're not gonna start turning up tomorrow and living our life as somebody else.
That would be absolutely exhausting. All we want to do is to just be aware of how people perceive us so that we might want to make some tweaks and be a little bit more intentional at times. Or if not, you just think, well, maybe I'm just in the wrong room. If you don't get my vibe, maybe this is not the room I'm meant to be playing in.
If the feedback that you are giving me is everything that I love about myself and is absolutely how I show up in the world, then maybe you're just not my people. There's a lot of times when I get people come to me through coaching and they say, well, I need to be more this. I need to be this, or I need more confidence, and I'm like, no, you're just surrounded by.
You are just surround a bike. Can I say dickhead? Can I say that on a podcast? Um, will I have to use the explicit tick? Now when I upload this to Spotify, sometimes I think no, there's nothing wrong with you just in the wrong room. But it's that self-awareness. It's these questions. It's just understanding how we're perceived that can help us make those decisions.
Information gives us choices. So what I want you to do, just a little invitation, and I mean this genuinely, I want you to actually do this exercise this week, not just listen to this podcast and move on, actually do the exercise. I want you to reach out to maybe three to five people that you've worked with and maybe don't.
Pick people that you've worked with forever, like 15 years, because those relationships are really deep. There's history there. They probably love you. You, you know, you've gone through some stuff together. They probably know you really well. They might be a little bit too close to give you this kind of fresh perspective that I'm talking about.
So instead, pick people that you've collaborated with for maybe. I don't know, one or two, two years. You've had some touch points. People who know you well enough to have formed an impression, but who haven't been around long enough to become totally familiar with all of your quirks and your patterns. So these could be your peers, they could be collaborators, they could be senior leaders in your organization.
They could be clients, people that you've met at networking events. But you want people that you understand and appreciate will be honest with you. And when you are asking for this feedback, you want to say to them, be honest with me. Like, I really want to know how you feel, so this is what you could ask them.
How would you describe the energy that I bring? Or what's the atmosphere I create when I'm speaking or when I'm listening, or when I'm just being present? How do I make others feel? So we're not going out there asking people What are my strengths? We're not going out and saying, what skills can I improve?
We're going out there specifically asking about the energy that you bring and how it impacts them. So what is your weather? And then what do we do with that feedback? Well, I'm gonna say this again 'cause I want it to be really, really clear. This exercise is not about fundamentally changing who you are.
It's not about squashing your personality or becoming someone that you are not. Gosh, if I had, if I had stopped. Being who I was at 2324. Whenever I got that feedback from that manager, that would've been really sad and I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be as happy as I am, like, and I probably wouldn't have had the successes I've had.
In fact, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have had the successes that I've had. But when I'm pitching investors for 200,000 pounds to add into my startup, or when I'm managing a team of people that are older than me, I'm just sometimes a little bit aware. I want to come across as a little bit more considered rather than giddy, and sometimes I don't care, to be honest.
Sometimes I'm like, yeah, just I'm bringing it all. But I just love having that awareness about me because it allows me to think, why is that person looking at me like that? Or maybe they think I'm a bit giddy. Well, that's okay. They're not my people. Or it allows me to edit myself before I go into the room.
It's just that information, that self-awareness, it's just so liberating and freeing, and I want you to have that. What I don't want is for you to be missing out on opportunities or relationships and not know why. That's all I'm saying. You are enough. Your energy, your passion, your unique way of showing up, maybe you'll realize that when you're really stressed out, you tend to, I dunno, just be a little bit quiet.
Or sometimes when you are nervous, you come across as defensive when you are. Scared you come across as arrogant. I've been in those situations before. I've interviewed on panels when people have gone, oh, I think that guy was a bit arrogant, and I thought, I don't think he was arrogant. I think he was just really nervous.
But if he knew that that's the way he comes across when he's really nervous, he can do something about it or not. That's his choice. So this is all this exercise is about, is understanding ourself, learning to meet ourselves. Okay, so go ahead, reach out to those people today, ask those questions and come back to me.
If you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear it. Tomorrow I am running my Find Your Fire Session. I'll put the link in the show notes. It's an insider session where we are going to get together and talk about what 2026 is gonna bring. So if you're feeling a little bit disconnected to your work at the moment, we're coming up to the end of the year, a little bit disconnected with your work.
You're not really sure what your purpose is for next year, and you want to refine your fire and your passion, then join me tomorrow. Like I said, the link is in the show notes. Otherwise. Because I'm gonna take a break now for Christmas. I'm gonna have a nice long break. Otherwise, I'll see you back on the podcast and social media in January.
Okay? Lots of love. Bye.
Hi, do you want to spend some real time with me so that we can reconnect to who you are, what lights you up, and map out your next chapter, one that truly fulfills you? Well, each month I hold a live exclusive insider session where we work together to do exactly that, and these sessions are totally free for my brilliant podcast listeners, and that includes you.
Now, I keep these sessions really small and intimate, so spaces are limited, but you can grab your spot. The link is in the show notes, or just drop me a note and we can get cracking. I cannot wait. To see you.
