Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep17: Introverts are powerful leaders.

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

✅ Get My FREE '5-Day Career Growth' Guide + Training 👉 http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Grow your career in the 9-5 corporate world with clarity, confidence and opportunities! ⚡ 👋 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — corporate career coach, ex-corporate leader who has led multimillion-dollar projects across 43 countries and creator of the ultimate career course for 9-5 professionals, The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your career in the corporate world without getting stuck with Mei Phing's 3-step framework to gain career clarity, improve work confidence and attract new job opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/5days ✅ COURSE & COACHING ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡ 📌 ABOUT MEI PHING: Mei Phing Lim is a Professional Career Coach and former Corporate Leader in the financial services and consulting industries. Mei Phing went from a shy quiet introvert to leading multimillion-dollar projects with teams from over 43 countries as the Senior Director and Head of Governance at Standard Chartered, and now teaching 9-5 professionals how to navigate the corporate world and grow their careers with her career coaching course, The Corporate Survivor™. Mei Phing has been featured as a LinkedIn Top Voice 2023, sharing expert career advice in guiding young professionals to plan, navigate and grow their careers. Mei Phing is a keynote speaker on corporate culture, work performance and career growth, and sharing perspectives on what truly takes to build a strategic and successful career without getting stuck. ✅ LEARN MORE: https://www.meiphing.com

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. In today's podcast, I want to talk about why as an introvert, you are a powerful leader. Welcome to my final day of my five-day, five-part Introverts Unite series. If you haven't caught all the other days,

please follow and favorite my podcast so that you can listen to updates. Leadership. Very interesting topic and something that I'm extremely passionate about, especially youth leadership. So why would an introvert make a good and powerful leader? What do you think of when you think of a leader?

Is it someone that is very out there? Is it someone that has a lot to say? Is it someone who always looks good in an awesome suit? Or in an awesome, sharp, professional dress? So when you think of the word leader, what comes to mind? And and if we could tag a personality to that, how would you describe a leader? So based on the conversations that I've had with a lot of people, so if you guys are new to my podcast, I used to be a senior director leading a governance team at an international bank. I worked with hundreds of people at a time

and now in my coaching business, I also work with a lot of collaborators as well as clients from different generations. So what is very interesting is that there is this somewhat common consensus that is to become a leader, you need to be very loud and out there. That's not true. In my experience and what has really propelled me forward to take on very senior level positions while only in my 20s, actually is self-awareness and self-management. Like I always say, leadership ultimately is self-management.

And how do you manage yourself? It's to become self-aware first. So if you missed out on one of my podcast episodes talking about leadership is self-management from my top 10 soft skills series, check that one that one out as well so as an introvert naturally you are more self-aware more self-aware because you spend a lot of time contemplating sitting in your mind observing things and collecting, creating thoughts, insights, idea and knowledge. Not just of the environment or people around you, but also about yourself. And that's where self-awareness is built on, which is the process of understanding yourself. So in order to become a leader, firstly, you need to know who you

are because there are lots of skills out there. But those are hard skills, soft skills, whatever that is, it all comes from knowing who you are. And why I say introverts can become powerful leaders is because you have some of the soft skills required and that can help propel you forward. And a few of them are these. Self-awareness, emotional intelligence, emotionally intelligent, the ability to have deep conversations with people to understand their motivations, what drives them, and how you can create a win-win relationship, like I always say in my previous series.

So you have the skills, and there's a lot of potential to build on those. Now the question is, what is stopping you? So if you still think that introverts cannot become good leaders, my friend, you are sadly mistaken. I have worked with many, many leaders and quite a number of them are introverts. But introverts, like I said, doesn't mean that they are shy. It just means that they're more thoughtful in sharing ideas, in sharing perspectives and sometimes as an introvert, you need a little bit more time to process your thoughts. That's okay as long as you learn to manage your time and energy and all the projects around you to create that space that allows you that extra bit of time in your mind and that's all right.

So introverts are powerful leaders because they are able to connect with people deeply at the one-to-one level and that's where motivation starts. That's where, you know, mentoring starts, which is developing that genuine deep trusting relationship with your team members with your function members with your spouse with your friend with your family so it does help a lot pays massive dividends down the road the some of the key challenges that i see into why introverts are not stepping into their power and becoming that leader, it's this self-judgment, I guess at some point default that they have

to not want to speak up and just stay in the sidelines. So this bit I talk a little bit more in my previous podcast episode, which is titled Speak Up and Be Heard. So we're not going we're not going to go into detail today but what i'll say is this if you have the potential then i think you should fulfill it because otherwise you may end up very miserable for not taking on that opportunity and sometimes you know it is really ourselves it's us that's getting in our own way right so i'll give you a very very personal example so when i first started

my coaching business i obviously was hiding behind the curtains i was just i was writing some stuff on facebook and linkedin but i didn't really feel I wanted to take a lot of my photos. I was afraid of doing videos because I thought, what would people say? And I was so self-conscious and I didn't feel I wanted to put myself out there. I also thought about creating a podcast and then I procrastinated and I told myself, who's going to ever want to listen to me? And it's so scary to talk to other people. But I guess at some point of, you know, reflection and kind of deep diving into myself, asking myself, why am I afraid? And actually, what am I afraid of? And are these fears real? Or it's just imaginary? Because as introverts, we spend a lot of time in our minds so sometimes the fears can seem really real but you know what they are pretty imaginary like i mean if you ask me if i can put it very simply so ask yourself why are you afraid what and what are you afraid of and

if you're already a leader in some sort of leadership position, whether you're a team leader, you're a manager, a director, or even you're a leader at home, right? You can be a mom or a dad and you're leading your kids. You are a leader. So step into your power. And what are you afraid of? What is it?

Is it the fear of being judged? And move away from the mindset that to become a leader, it means that you need to have some sort of fancy title. It does not. You can lead yourself in many ways. You can provide guidance, support, mentor other people as well. In fact, I would say that as a coach, I see myself as a leader. I see myself as a leader of my clients' personal and professional life

where I help them navigate problems and work on practical solutions that could really resolve their issues. So it's all about the mindset and your perspective about what truly makes a leader. And why would you not want to step in? Because it makes your life so much more efficient and effective, and not just that, so much more fulfilling as well. Imagine not being able to be in control of anything that's going around you and just just getting shoved left right center that is not cool and i've heard it firsthand from my clients who have never really felt the bravery to speak up take charge and take the lead, like really leading their lives, like be the CEO of yourself, like of your life, right? So I am the CEO of Meping Limb and like that's my first and foremost role

and then as a coach, as a traveler, as a daughter, as a sister, I think that comes after. It's all about self-mastery. It's all about taking the lead, leading yourself first, and then moving on to, you know, helping and inspiring other people. So that's where you start with. So this concludes my five-day, five-part Introverts Unite series. If you're an introvert, I hope that you have enjoyed these episodes. And if there are some other parts of the introversion spectrum about the personality that you'll be interested in, connect with me on social media and let me know what you

would like to hear. And I'll probably create a series sometime down the road. If you're not an introvert and you have been listening to learn more about the introverts in your life, then kudos to you for making the effort. We appreciate you speaking on behalf of all introverts out there. We appreciate you. And I hope that you will continue to level up your knowledge and insights to understand this little breed called introverts so that you can have a more fulfilling and happy relationship with the introverts in your life. So till next time, bye!