Becoming a Likeable Badass in Law
I’ve recently read the book “Likeable Badass” by Alison Fragale and it was filled with great advice for women professionals. It’s about how you can behave in work to get you ahead whilst maintaining your likeability (in other words, how to walk the tightrope that men don’t have to walk).
I first became aware of this tightrope when I read “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg years ago. Sandberg talks about how when women behave assertively at work, they are perceived as less likeable which, in turn, affects their prospects of success in negotiations and their career more generally. When men behave assertively, it does not affect their likeability. The same goes for success: success and likeability are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women. Studies have shown that when a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.
Lessons From 20 Years in Law
A career in law isn’t for the faint-hearted.
If quitting had been an option, I suspect I may well have done so at various points in my career when it became too much. Having reached this stage, I see now how lucky I have been that quitting has never been an option for me – like most people, I don’t have a financial cushion to fall back on and need to work. If I quit, what would I do instead, that paid the same salary? And so, I persevered.
Just Say No!
In Female Lawyers’ Club last week, we were chatting about saying no to things, and how difficult we found it. I talk about saying no a lot but this doesn’t make it any easier for me to do it!
Case in point. I’d been contacted a couple of weeks ago by a colleague who asked if I could speak at an event in Leeds, as an employment colleague had dropped out. I really wanted to help my colleague out, but it would have been a nightmare.
Five Tips for Boosting Charisma and Winning in Your Career
We can all think of charismatic people, those overflowing with charm who make everyone around them feel good. I’d always thought that those people just had a certain gene and were lucky to have been born with this magical power.
It turns out that I was wrong. The good news is that everyone has the ability to be charismatic. Charisma is a skill, like public speaking and driving a car. With practice, we can increase our charisma and, in so doing, obtain significantly better results in many key areas of our role, such as client meetings, advocacy, networking and team building. In so doing, we’ll increase our overall effectiveness as lawyers and attain higher levels of success.
How to Claim Your Power as an Influential Woman in Law
We had the incredible Dion Johnson deliver an inspiring masterclass to Female Lawyers’ Club in which she talked about the P.O.W.E.R principle: the secret to unlocking and unleashing your most powerful expression as a woman, leader, and changemaker in law.
Dion is a Board-level leader, development strategist for women in senior leadership, author and international conference speaker. Dion challenges women leaders to respond to the call to show up, speak up, and shake things the hell up in their industry.