076 Lacklustre Male CEOs with Denise Conroy

“Men are able to fail-up, women are not.” – Denise Conroy

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few years, you’ve heard some version of the question, “Why do so many incompetent men get promoted?”

It’s a fascinating question. Mostly because we’ve all seen it in action.

If you’d like to hear a brutally honest assessment of lacklustre male CEOs, today’s episode is for you. My guest is Denise Conroy, former SVP Marketing at HGTV, and former EVP, Marketing & Research at Outdoor Channel. Denise is currently CEO of Themy LLC, a professional coaching and training business and today you’ll hear straight talk from a female executive’s perspective.

I love guests that are willing to speak the hard truth. About their own traumas, work experiences, and how others can learn from their life’s story. Denise covers all that ground and more – I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Click the play button to listen, and don’t forget to subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts!

Implementing change from the ground up

When I first go into an organization, the first thing I do is I look at systems. I want to know, can we do something great on top of the foundation that we already have here?

 

Asking people how they want to be communicated

Whenever I work with new people, I love to ask them how they want to be communicated to, because we all have different communication styles that we prefer. That way, I can speak to them how they want to be spoken to, it improves receptiveness, and it moves my day along.

Improve your self-talk

When I was a new manager, I was 30 at that time and I haven’t received treatment for my anxiety yet. And my self-talk was very negative, telling myself I was not good enough, telling myself I should push harder, etc.

But what I learned from that is that your internal self-talk has an effect on the people you work with. So if your self-talk is bad, that’s the place you’re coming from when you’re managing other people and working with them.

Links and Resources

Connect with Denise: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Website

Atomic Habits by James Clear (book)

3 Practical Ways to Be More Productive by Ian Daley (article)

When by Dan Pink (book)