Closing the Leadership Gap for Women In Business – with Laura Khalil

If you want to hear a fiercely passionate advocate for women in the workplace, then look no further than today’s show. My guest shares nuggets of wisdom about the roles of empathy and confrontation in helping women bridge the corporate gender gap, and so much more.

Laura Khalil is the #1 transformational speaker helping Fortune 500 companies close the leadership and wage gap for women in business. She’s an executive coach who shares courageous leadership skills to help women succeed inside and outside the corporate world. Facing many of the challenges that confident, assertive, and driven women deal with in the workplace, Laura launched her marketing consultancy in 2013. Determined to thrive, she quickly learned that the traits that penalized her as an employee were her greatest assets as a leader, and she went on to work on global initiatives with name brands like Twitter, GE, Intel, and more. In this episode, Laura shares how her early years as an outlier influenced the work she does today, how women can create male allies, and how to develop the habit and muscle of courage to achieve your dreams. 

How to deal with triggers

Most women in the workplace have been told that they should smile more. It’s a specific statement that we can readily admit becomes a trigger. The truth is that every man and woman has both masculine and feminine energy, but women are ridiculed if their masculine energy is dominant. Every woman knows what it feels like to be triggered and feel the freeze. Laura says that instead of trying to respond to triggering statements, we should redirect that energy back at the person by asking them a question about what they said. Simply asking them what they mean flips the spotlight on them and forces them to be self – reflective about what they said to you.

Being judged by other women

Your perceptions of what you see in the outer world is a reflection of your inner world. For instance, when someone asks a woman why they are so emotional, they are simply manifesting their own emotions. Laura says to imagine their face like a giant mirror, and they are really asking themselves the question. When we disconnect from that energy, we can see their judgment as their way of getting love and attention because they never learned more resourceful ways to do it. 

The gifts in being an outlier

Laura’s story proves that she was an outlier during her time in Silicon Valley. She says that being an outlier accelerates the neural pathways to empathy. The truth is that we’re all doing our best. We are too focused on what others think of us, and they don’t think of us as much as we assume they do, so we should focus on ourselves and being a better person. Sometimes we find recurring situations because we need to work on skills to help us reach our highest potential. Laura learned through her time in Silicon Valley to ask what was going on with herself with her fears and limiting beliefs. 

Becoming the #1 transformational speaker

Laura admits that this title is aspirational, but her work goes far beyond inspiring others. She gives people tangible takeaways that her clients can use to experience immediate and prolonged improvement. She says that everything you do has to have a level of certainty and that your greatest gift to the world is how you serve others. With an intentional focus on authenticity, Laura readily admits her failures rather than trying to portray a picture-perfect world that isn’t real. 

Why you have to practice

When Laura first began doing public speaking engagements, she learned the value of practicing in a low – stakes environment where mistakes don’t matter as much before delivering quality information where it does matter. She says that nothing is in your way, but every experience is a step on the way to where you need to