Episode 414: Being Comfortable Claiming Space With Eliza Vancort

So I do keynotes and workshops, but I also do some individual coaching, and I cannot tell you how many executives have come to me and they say, I don’t understand. I don’t get why people are so freaked out by me. And I say, well, here are the behaviors I’m observing. And then suddenly they do these tiny shifts and they come back and they say, I can’t believe the difference it’s made. Because no one teaches this, this stuff to us, you know? And it’s really important to, to make sure that we understand it. I mean, for example, smiling, constant smiling is a low playing behavior. And if you just drop your smile for a minute with somebody just a minute while you’re talking to them, it’s a whole different message than if you’re smiling at them.

Episode 414: Being Comfortable Claiming Space With Eliza Vancort

Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com as she sits down and gets to the bottom of trends, tools, and case studies for the business leader, HR, and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:01:09.78] Welcome, welcome to the Workology Podcast sponsored by Ace The HR Exam and Upskill HR. These are two courses that we offer for HR certification prep and recertification that professional development all for human resources leaders. Before I introduce our guest today, I do want to hear from you. Text the word “PODCAST” to 512-548-3005. That’s 512-548-3005. You can ask me questions, leave comments, and make suggestions for future guests. This is my community text number and I want to hear from you. Well, let’s get on to our guest for today. I am so pleased to have Eliza VanCort here with me on the podcast today. Eliza is the best-selling author of A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard, a survivor and speaker who offers simple, life-changing steps to empowerment after enduring traumatic kidnappings as a child and then surviving a life-altering bicycle accident as an adult, Eliza has become a renowned empowerment advocate. Her work sits at the intersection of political science and the performing arts. This informs her innovative approach to communication not only with ourselves, which can be challenging as it is, but across differences as well. Eliza, welcome to the Workology Podcast.

Eliza VanCort: [00:02:34.41] Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:02:37.89] I am so excited about this topic. And when it comes to the HR workplace, it’s predominantly women, so this is all in alignment as it should be. Uh, there may be people listening who know your story, but can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to write about claiming your space?

Eliza VanCort: [00:02:59.83] Well, I actually started out with a wonderful mom who was really, by all accounts, just so, so fantastic. And I feel it’s important to start with that before I head into the rest of the story, which is that when I was four and a half, she became paranoid schizophrenic and she kidnapped me three times. One of the times I went across the country by truck, from truck stop to truck stop to truck stop from New York to California. And what happened on that trip made me start to conflate invisibility with safety. I thought, if I can just be invisible, I’ll be safe. But of course, being invisible isn’t safe. It’s deeply dangerous. And when you start your life kind of striving for invisibility, especially when you’re a little girl and we’re kind of taught to be quiet, claiming space is really a lifelong struggle. And then I ended up being, getting pretty good at teaching other people to claim their space. Um, but I wasn’t good at doing it myself. And then I had a life-altering accident when somebody hit me while they were texting and driving and I was riding my bike, and that sort of blew my whole world open and was the beginning of this journey for me.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:04:08.95] Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing and thank you for being here. I think a lot of us can relate to everything that you’ve already said thus far. And let’s move on to the topic of taking up space. Why is this so challenging for women?

Eliza VanCort: [00:04:28.36] Well, I mean, women are taught that if we’re small, we’ll be rewarded. And if we’re not small, and if we raise our voice, we’re going to get all kinds of labels put on us. I have a chapter in my book called Crazy Feminist B. I won’t say it because I don’t know if this is PG or R-rated. Um, but it’s about how if women show anger, they’re crazy. If women advocate for other women, they’re feminists. And I, I mean, I’m a feminist. I don’t cannot imagine why you would have an objection to women advocating for equal rights and opportunities. That seems pretty obvious and basic to me, but they, it’s been kind of a bastardized term. And, you know, if you and if you have your own opinions, you’re a B. And so I think it’s really important for women to understand that we should be able to claim as much space as any other gender. That’s only fair. We’re over 50% of the population. We should be claiming our fair share of the space.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:05:23.65] Now, maybe for listeners who have kind of heard us chat for just a couple of minutes, maybe they can understand where I want to go with this, because the majority of HR professionals are female, and we might already have some work to do in terms of claiming space, maybe in our personal life and certainly our professional life. In the last, well, the 20+ years that I’ve been in human resources, the conversation around the, getting HR to have a seat at the table continues to be something, getting us in front of executives or being able to share our expertise and be taken seriously. Which is why I wanted to have you on to share our knowledge, because I think that there’s a lot that can be pulled from all the work that you do for us as HR professionals to be able to be seen for ourselves as an expert, but then by our executive leadership team.

Eliza VanCort: [00:06:22.30] Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely something I feel passionately about. I was just reading this study, which blew my mind that said that women do 200 hours of work, which is considered work that cannot position you for any kind of a promotion. It’s sort of like the equivalent of domestic work at home. And no matter what level you are in your organization, women are still asked to do this kind of work. And they they actually added it up. It was a month’s work worth of work that women are doing. That is not work that will advance their careers. That is basically menial work, and men are not being asked to do it at the same rate. Part of the reason why, of course, is because historically in the home, we’re expected to do that kind of work. So it was pretty it was pretty shocking to me. Pretty shocking.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:07:10.24] I think that all of us, as you’re talking, I’m sitting here thinking about things that I have said yes to, maybe even in the last 30 to 45 days, that really, uh, I didn’t want to do or I did, um, to just to, to make somebody else feel better or appease them or just get through the day.

Eliza VanCort: [00:07:31.09] Right. Exactly. It’s it’s really surprising and amazing.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:07:36.31] It adds up.

Eliza VanCort: [00:07:37.45] It adds up. And, you know, we, we do want to accommodate. We’re taught to accommodate. And I think there are times where it’s really okay to say, no, I’m not going to do that. You can do that. I’m not, I’m not going to, you know, collate all of this or I’m not going to do this particular, uh, task that you’re just as capable of doing, because I actually want to be the one coming up with the big idea, etc., etc.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:08:03.34] So talk to us maybe about some specific tools that can help us feel more comfortable claiming space.

Eliza VanCort: [00:08:11.72] Well, I mean, I guess I would start with, I don’t, this is not, this is counterintuitive to a lot of people. I don’t believe that it’s always comfortable to claim space. And I think that that’s okay. I think we’ve been given the message in society, particularly women. They’ve actually done a lot of research on this as well, that if women who are in STEM, call their parents and say it’s hard and, and it’s uncomfortable, it’s hard, the parents say, oh, you should quit and do another major. And when boys and young men call, they say, you can push through this. It’s okay if it’s uncomfortable. Um, and I think it’s really important to sort of stress that it’s okay if it’s uncomfortable. So I guess that’s the first thing I would say. Um, the second thing I would say is that. I think that there. My book has five different things, five different pillars of claiming space. And I think one of the most important ones, the foundational ones is your physicality and your voice. So my background is in political science, but I was also that was my academic background. But for 20 years I was an acting teacher and a director, and I got to see what kind of behaviors elicited, what feelings and responses in the audience. And I really learned a lot about the, the minutia of human behavior from that and from recovering from my accident.

Eliza VanCort: [00:09:29.81] And there are little things that you can do to make sure that you’re claiming your space. So here’s just one very simple example. Um, if someone’s making you feel uncomfortable, you can do what I’m doing. Now. I don’t know if you can tell. Um, but I’m just going to do it for you right now, and you can tell me if you think you can figure out what I’m doing. For those who are listening, um, I’m just going to say it because obviously not everybody’s watching this. So what I’m doing right now is I’m not moving my head. Not moving your head is a gigantic power move because we’re taught to affirmation nod, which is really a nice thing to do, because when you want to let someone know you’re hearing them, you’re saying, yes, of course I agree. But the problem is, often when women are being pushed in a situation or mistreated at work, we affirmation nod just because it’s a, it’s by rote. And so what we say to people when that happens is keep it coming, keep it coming. I’m totally down with you mistreating me. And so if somebody’s mistreating you, one thing you can do is just still your head. And that’s a very subtle way of saying to somebody, I’m not okay with this. You have to change the way you’re treating me.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:10:41.29] We talked about this in the prep call, and then I went out to the HR Technology Conference. And I am definitely a head nodder, right? I had to make a, I had to make a concerted effort not to do this, but I wanted to just try it to see if it changed the conversation with some of my friends. I didn’t tell them until after, but it did it. It really worked and I thought, wow, I can’t wait till this podcast, interview because I want more HR people to, to be really thoughtful and not targeted. Just, just thoughtful and strategic and their body language and what is either coming out of their mouths or what they’re er, emotions or just, just what they’re saying, really.

Eliza VanCort: [00:11:28.98] Yeah. I mean, I think there’s so much of the time we’re taught that our feelings are something that we need to actually, um, follow in terms of as if it is something that should dictate our actions. So, for example, if we’re afraid, we’re taught. Well, if you’re afraid, maybe you shouldn’t do the thing because your body and your, your feelings are telling you you’re afraid. Well, I mean, everything I’ve ever done in my life that was really meaningful and important for me was really scary. It’s really scary. And I think it’s really okay to say, oh, I mean, I always say courage is fear meeting action. So it’s okay to just sort of observe your body and say, oh, my heart’s racing. I’m sweating a little bit. Guess what? None of that’s going to kill me. And this is my body’s way of saying, this is really important. I need to do this. So even if it’s uncomfortable for me to keep my head straight, if someone’s going at me, it’s okay for me to simply just tell my body what to do, even if my heart is, my heart is kind of beating a little fast and now my hands are shaking.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:12:30.64] I, I feel this way when I’ve been really focused on breathing. I’m going through yoga teacher training right now. And so you when you’re in kind of like maybe a longer breathing series where you’re taking a pause between breaths, like you might have like an eight-second inhale and then you have a pause and, which I’m fine with it. Then you have your eight-second exhale and then you have your eight-second pause. And that’s when I really start to, in the past, like freak out. And I’ve had to work really hard just to acknowledge, you know, I know what’s coming next. I know that it’s just eight seconds and just to give it a moment, but I feel very strongly that what you’re talking about, yeah, uncomfortability is not bad.

Eliza VanCort: [00:13:16.57] No, being uncomfortable is not a problem. It really isn’t. And, you know, I think a lot of the bravest, most amazing things we do in life is when we feel like we’re under duress. I had a wonderful teacher in college say to me, I’m scared every single day I walk into class on the first day. And he said, and you know what? The day I’m not scared, I’m quitting because it means I don’t care anymore. And I love that I’ve carried that with me for all these years.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:13:43.42] I love that. Well, let’s, let’s go back to the book. You talk about something called Power Place. So can you provide us an example of what moving into a power position during a challenging conversation might look like?

Eliza VanCort: [00:13:57.88] Yeah. So it’s not exactly power positions, but it’s um, they’re called high and low playing behaviors. And so there are different ways that we tell people what we want them to feel in the moment without consciously telling them that. And they’ve actually done all kinds of research, that most of what people get out of a conversation is not the words that they say, it’s the way the person is delivering those words. So, for example, I can say to you, you know, I don’t like you and you know I don’t like you, or I can say, I don’t like you and suddenly I’m flirting with you, right? So it really, our words are just secondary. So, high and low playing behaviors. There’s a woman named Deborah Greenfield from Stanford. You should look her up. She’s from Stanford’s Business School, and she specifically focuses on women, um, and communication and business. And so my work is an outgrowth. This particular part of my work is an outgrowth of her work, and I always like to give credit where credit is due. Um, so a high playing behavior is opening up your body, taking up physical space with your body. Um, not blinking a lot, keeping eye contact with someone when you’re talking with them, making sure that. And then an interesting part of it is if somebody is talking to you and you really want a high play them, you don’t have to look at them.

Eliza VanCort: [00:15:16.42] You don’t have to look at them. You have better things to do. And if you want to think about that when you were little and you’d go to your parent and you’d say, look, I did a drawing and the parent goes, oh, that’s nice, put it over there. That’s a power play if they weren’t looking at you. Just as if you go to your boss and they don’t look at you and they say, oh, put that thing on the counter on my desk, I’ll look at it later. So these are all power plays and you don’t want to go really, really high with someone unless you’re really trying to hold on to your power or you’re trying to take power from someone who has taken it from you. You don’t want to just go around power-playing people all the time. It’s really not a good idea. The other flip side of that, however, is low playing behaviors. Low playing behaviors are when you talk to someone, you don’t make a lot of eye contact. You kind of look back and forth. You keep your hands kind of close to your face.

Eliza VanCort: [00:16:01.90] You have more jerky hand movements, whereas high is really open and graceful. And that’s also important. They found that that’s the foundation of rapport building is low playing behaviors, because what you’re doing is you’re raising up the person with you by lowering yourself a little bit. And when I work with young people, or if I work with someone who I think thinks that I’m in a higher status and I want to equal that dynamic, I might not make a huge amount of eye contact when I’m talking to them at first, to let them know I’m not trying to power play them. So a lot of this stuff that I talk about in my book, it’s not that there’s a wrong or a right way to be, it’s that we go into circumstances practicing what we’re going to say over and over, but we rarely talk about how we’re going to say it. And the reality is that if we practice how we’re going to say it because we know people, we know how people are going to respond to us. You always say, oh, that person always. If you know they always, then how are you going to respond to that? Figure that out as well. Don’t just work on the words.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:17:07.62] I love that, and I think that we can use this in every part of our life, not just work-related, but at home with our children, with our best friend or our a parent, somebody you know, there are a million ways to be able to, to think through this. And I’m, everybody needs to pick up a copy of your of your book that’s listening, because I do think that there’s always room for improvement in terms of communication and that rapport building component, especially for us in HR.

Eliza VanCort: [00:17:40.05] Absolutely, absolutely. And the clients that I work with. So I do keynotes and workshops, but I also do some individual coaching, and I cannot tell you how many executives have come to me and they say, I don’t understand. I don’t get why people are so freaked out by me. And I say, well, here are the behaviors I’m observing. And then suddenly they do these tiny shifts and they come back and they say, I can’t believe the difference it’s made. Because no one teaches this, this stuff to us, you know? And it’s really important to, to make sure that we understand it. I mean, for example, smiling, constant smiling is a low playing behavior. And if you just drop your smile for a minute with somebody just a minute while you’re talking to them, it’s a whole different message than if you’re smiling at them.

Break: [00:18:28.65] Let’s take a reset here. I’m Jessica Miller-Merrell. You are listening or watching the Workology Podcast powered by Ace The HR Exam and Upskill HR. I’m talking about communication strategies, how to earn your seat at the table with Eliza VanCort, best-selling author and motivational speaker. This has been some great stuff, so let’s get back to it. But before we do text the word “PODCAST” to 512-548-3005. Ask me questions, leave comments, and make suggestions for future guests. This is my community text number and I want to hear from you. I do, I do.

Break: [00:19:09.15] Personal and professional development is essential for successful HR leaders. Join Upskill HR to access live training community and over 100 on-demand courses for the dynamic leader. HR recert credits available. Visit UpskillHR.com for more.

The Five Aspects of Claiming Space

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:19:25.20] Can you walk us through the five aspects of claiming space?

Eliza VanCort: [00:19:29.70] Absolutely. So the first aspect of claiming space is what I’ve been talking about here, your physicality and your voice. The second is building community. I found that women who are really good at building community and getting anti mentors out of their community that would poison their community, do really well. The third is what are you carrying? What baggage are you carrying? Trying to make sure it doesn’t weigh you down. A lot of people say, oh you should get over this. Just move on. And I think a lot of times in life you can’t move on from many things. I mean, I heard someone say recently to me that someone said they should move on from the death of their mother. To me, that’s sociopathic. You can’t. But we do get these boulders that fall on all of us. And if you can whittle them down to a little pebble in your pocket that you carry with you, and when something goes wrong, you say, oh, I lived through this and you touch it. I can do anything or I’ve been here before, I know what to do.

Eliza VanCort: [00:20:30.54] Or oh, I miss that person and I’m so glad they were part of my life. You know, these pebbles are really not there to weigh us down. They’re there to empower us to learn and grow and move forward. There are lessons so people who can learn to make lessons out of those boulders do really well. The fourth is people who can shut down aggressors, who would make you small, whether it’s mansplaining, sexual harassment, microaggressions. And the final is intersectionality. I found that women who didn’t just hang out with people who looked like themselves, women who made a real effort to make sure all women were being raised up around them, particularly if they were white women, and they were really focusing on not just raising up white women, but raising up women of color. And they were examining their own isms. Those women did so much better overall. Not only did they help other people, but they were so much more successful because it takes a lot of self-reflection to understand your place in the world and how you can make it better.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:21:32.88] Wow. I feel like we all could grow or expand the community of people that we, we spend time with so that we can get different perspectives and end points of and points of view. That’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot of post-Covid is how can I connect with more different kinds of people just to better understand the world and, and, and how we all connect together.

Eliza VanCort: [00:22:00.63] Absolutely. And, you know, I was just talking to Doctor Nian Nian, a dear friend of mine who I quote in my book, um, and she teaches young teachers. And one of the things she talked to them about is, is the issues of race. And she said, you know, we really need, we don’t need allies. Allies, in her mind, are people who just talk a big game. She said. We need co-conspirators. We need people who are going to work with us to change things for the better for everybody. And I just, you know, I love that term. It’s like we’re all sort of, let’s do this together. Let’s make this change together. Let’s not just talk about it. Let’s do it.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:22:37.89] I love that. One thing that I, I, and I’ve gotten feedback in my professional career about this is that I should just be maybe more confident, like when I am in a situation that’s uncomfortable, or if I’m talking to my boss or with the executive team, it just feels, it doesn’t feel like enough, like just to say, hey, be more confident, I don’t know, what do you think that we should be doing instead of being more confident?

Eliza VanCort: [00:23:07.29] I think, I hate it when people say that. It’s like one of my least favorite things. It’s like saying, hey, I’m gonna put you on top of a ski slope. Here’s skis. You’ve never been on one before. You don’t really know what you’re doing. I’m going to push you off. You should just know how to do it. Like just do it. Just ski better. Like, you know, being more confident is not something that happens overnight. You can’t just be more confident. It takes work. And I think a lot of times, you know, you have to do the inner work. So you need to really work on yourself. And then you also need to do the outer work, which is how do you want to be seen by the world? How do you want to show up. And there are so many different ways you can do it. I mean, I also talk a lot in my book about imposter syndrome, but I’ve really started to also believe, you know, that women need to sit back and think to themselves, you know, because often we think, oh God, I have imposter syndrome. Think to yourself, is there someone in my situation, or is there a culture in my work that is making me feel like an imposter? Because I don’t think that you can really have imposter syndrome without someone creating a culture where you feel like you’re included, which is come into my space, I will include you rather than this is your space too. And I think once we can develop the idea that we deserve to be in a place where we don’t feel like imposters and making choices and committing together to creating those spaces for everyone, I think that that’s also one of the very important first steps that we can work on.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:24:38.54] I love that. And I also think it goes back to what you said earlier about being uncomfortable. It’s okay. It’s normal. It’s regular. Like if you were comfortable, you would just lay in your cozy bed all the time. I mean, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable. That is a normal feeling and emotion. It doesn’t mean you have to fight or, or flee. Absolutely. You have to sit in it a little bit.

Eliza VanCort: [00:25:06.47] Absolutely. I know when I was going to go on The Drew Barrymore Show and, you know, I was backstage, I got my leather pants on because they were cool. I got my red shirt on, and the person comes over and puts the mic on me, and I realize that it’s like making my collar go down in a weird way. And for some reason that just threw me off because I was so nervous. And, um, I’m walking out there and I’m watching all these celebrities on before me because you gotta watch in the green room all these people. And I was so nervous and my, my stepmom, Beth Prentiss/ mom, she raised me since the time I was younger. She said, Eliza, all these people are doing great things, but they’re not really teaching anyone anything. And that’s what you do. You’re a teacher, so you go out there and you teach. And I was like, oh yeah. And I walked out there and I said, all I’m doing is teaching. That’s all I’m doing. And I think that’s the other thing that’s really important for everyone to kind of look inward is, what is my superhero strength? Like, what am I really, really good at? And I think that’s one thing that we can, you know, sometimes we devalue the very thing we’re good at.

Eliza VanCort: [00:26:18.21] Because often I have found that our parents will actually criticize us for the very thing that is our gift. So, for example, if you’re really chatty as a kid, they’re like, she’s so chatty. Well, maybe that’s a future, you know, talk show host. Or my son could never stop moving. I remember sitting on the floor when he was a toddler crying because I was like, I can’t keep up anymore. I can’t do this. He ended up being the three-time national collegiate cycling champion for the US. He almost broke my rib inside my body when he was inside of me. So I think that like, the, it starts early with our parents making sure, you know, your kids weakness might be their strength, and then also identifying our strengths and kind of quieting the noises of those anti mentors who told us we weren’t enough and that what we are good at and who we are is really not valuable. We should strive to be something that actually we’re not good at, when really what we’re good at and who we are is, is, is enough. I love that.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:27:18.95] And I’m thinking about employee reviews when, when your boss had given you feedback that said, you know, you need to stop being so nice or quit talking in meetings all the time, or, uh, so and so thinks you’re a know it all. Uh, those kind of situations, maybe, whatever that is, could be that one superpower and they might be threatened or intimidated. It’s not necessarily about you and your skill. It’s more about them. They’re just delivering the message to you in a way so they can feel comfortable and safe.

Eliza VanCort: [00:27:55.76] Absolutely. And I think women need to really watch out for this, because I think that all of those things that you just said tend to be because of the way that we are raising different genders, quite gendered. So, you know, to say someone’s too nice. Well, what does that mean? Would you rather them be too mean? You know, like, it’s like someone says you’re sensitive. Would you rather me be insensitive? Like, you know, and I think all of those things often if you can step back, you know, and someone says, you talk a lot. Okay, well, make sure before you internalize that, you look around the room because, you know, a lot of times they have found that women who are told they talk a lot are talking no more than the men. The women who aren’t told they talk a lot, are talking markedly less than the men. And that’s not fair.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:28:49.34] Agreed. Well, and last question for you is I think about, like the traveling that you’ve been doing, The Drew Barrymore Show, which is amazing, and all these people that you’ve met in your travels, including people who are experts in their field, famous celebrities, actors, things like that. Is there anything that you’ve discovered in all this work that you’ve done and in, you know, the research for the book that you would want to share with us before we, we close?

Eliza VanCort: [00:29:20.70] Yeah, I mean, my book has a lot of tools in it. It’s, it’s packed with tools. It’s five parts, an intro, tools, tools, tools. All of those tools are useless if you don’t believe you have the right to use them. And so many of us have been given the message that we don’t. So I guess I would end it with to claim space is to live the life of your choosing unapologetically and bravely. And again, bravery is being afraid and doing what you need to do anyway. Every person has the right to claim space and so and everyone listening to this, just always remember you know you are, it’s a miracle you’re here at all. You’re a human on this planet. You have the right to claim space and from there, everything else is gravy.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:30:11.28] Well, Eliza, thank you so much for, for taking the time to chat with us. I will include a link to the book, your, your LinkedIn as well as your TikTok, which I’m so excited you’re over there. I love me some TikTok. Pick up Eliza’s book, A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard. Thank you so much for chatting with us today.

Eliza VanCort: [00:30:32.64] Thank you for having me. This is such important work you’re doing, and I’m really excited to have been a tiny little part of it.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:30:38.52] Wow, it was great to meet you and I look forward to our next conversation.

Closing: [00:30:42.36] I loved, loved, loved this topic. I loved my conversation with Eliza. Her book is great. Pick it up. I have a link in the transcript of the show. It’s A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard. It is so important for HR leaders to understand how to make room for all voices, and specifically ensure that women are being heard in the organization and more importantly, that HR at like we as HR leaders are being heard in these conversations, especially with our executive team. Imposter syndrome is not unique to gender, but the bottom line is that most companies do not have a solid representation of women in leadership roles. I have struggled with this my entire career, trying to be taken seriously and have respected from executive leaders as a leader in human resources. I so appreciate Eliza for sharing her expertise and experience with us today on the podcast. So fabulous! I also want to say thank you to you. Thank you for joining the podcast. Thank you for listening to the Workology Podcast. It, really, we need your insights and just opinions and suggestions to keep this podcast going. So I would encourage you to text the word “PODCAST” to 512-548-3005. Let me know that you’re listening. Ask questions, make suggestions, and comment. This is my community text number and I want to hear from you. Thank you again for joining the Workology Podcast. We’re sponsored by Upskill HR and Ace The HR Exam. This podcast is for the disruptive workplace leader who’s tired of the status quo. My name is Jessica Miller-Merrell. Until next time, visit Workology.com to listen to all our episodes of the Workology Podcast.

Connect with Eliza VanCort.