We Are Wonder Women!
Last week, I hosted a new Joy & Moxie Empowerment Experience, for my fellow Women in CX ™ sisters! 🎉🎉🎉 It gave me the opportunity to develop content around a topic that I’m very passionate about, leadership. Since we’re a group of women in the Customer Experience (CX) profession, I thought it would be fitting to lean into what makes us unique, our superpowers, and how we can design our own personal leadership brand to differentiate us - just like we help our organizations differentiate themselves from other brands. Naturally, because I love alliteration and a heroine figure, a correlation to Wonder Women was made, and the session was entitled:
WiCX WONDER WOMEN:
UNLEASHING OUR LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWERS
I don’t know about you, but I’m much more nervous presenting to a group of people that I know versus a group of strangers. With a group of strangers, the first impression is the only impression they have of you. There isn’t former hype to live up to, you may never “see” them again, and you don’t have connections to them to bear the weight of disappointing them; in other words, you can remain blissfully ignorant if it’s a flop. Now, I’m not saying that this is wise or gives me the permission to blatantly disregard any prep or considerations for the experience to be had - it actually does the opposite. However, the actual delivery of the session is less nerve-wracking. So, needless to say, I set my personal bar for the experience I was aiming to create pretty high because the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint or underwhelm this tribe.
As I was working on designing this newest Empowerment Experience, I was reflecting on my own lived experiences to understand what has worked well for me and what hasn't. One of my realizations is that my perception of what makes a great leader was something I could easily articulate and always looked for in others. What I was missing was that I didn't need to look for it, I needed to be it.
“We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.” - Beyoncé
Too often, we overlook or take our own strengths for granted. We have it within us to be THE person.
🎉 THE person who creates her own success because you know it isn't selfish to want great things for yourself.
🎉 THE person who celebrates others' successes because it's just as important to see others succeed as is it is to realize your own successes.
🎉 THE person who can do the unthinkable because you had courage in the moment to do what was right.
🎉 THE person you know the world needs more of because you have skills, talent, and value to offer to make a positive impact.
From my self-reflection, the content was born. Within us, we hold the capacity to be great leaders and we can become them by following these three ideas:
🦸♀️ SUIT UP! Discuss what great leadership is and how we can embody it.
✨ POWER UP! Discover our superpowers and define how we can wield them to deliver maximum impact.
💪 LIVE UP! Design your actions and role-modeling to match your values and goals and create an authentic leadership style.
When it came to the delivery of this session, because it was remote, I was limited to how interactive it could be. So, what do I default to in situations like this? Yep, a costume! I dressed in my Wonder Woman-esc costume, threw on some blood-red lipstick, and held a power pose to get my energy and mind in the right place.
It was an incredibly energizing session. 🥰 The opening music the WiCX team chose was fire (“Confident” by Demi Lovato)! 🔥 The attendees were engaged. 👀 And unbeknownst to me until the end of the session, the chat was active with affirmations that the content was hitting the mark! 🎯
My heart, cup, and soul were full ❤
AND THEN, to top it all off, Clare Muscutt invited me to her Inspiring Women in CX podcast to talk more about my experiences of women in leadership. We could have chatted all day … but here are the main topics we covered about my experiences:
💻 Starting out in IT before “maxing out” and needing something to reignite her fire
📞 CX and Customer Support in a tech start-up and the scaling-up phase
👭 Stumbling upon the Women in CX ™ community on LinkedIn and feeling immediately aligned
🙅♀️ Being a “people-pleaser” and beating perfectionism
💪 Becoming a role model for my daughter and being able to help her to get where she wants to go “quicker and easier”
♀️ The differences in the way that we parent owing to gender and the impact that this has
✨ The importance of being yourself and acknowledging that you have the power to design the future that you want
I’m so incredibly grateful and thankful for the Women in CX ™ community and my sister queens! They’ve really been a light on some of my darkest days, and I’m inspired and motivated being in the presence of so many talented womxn. Thank you to Clare, the WiCX Team (Meg and Harley), and all the beautiful Wonder Women members 🙏💕
To listen (or watch!), click the links below 👇
📺 Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/SerenaRileyYT
🎙 Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MGgObg
💻 View on the WiCX website: https://bit.ly/SerenaWiCX
If you are interested in an Empowerment Experience, I would be happy to design one for your needs! Reach out and let me know your thoughts and ideas.