Do you ever feel like your professional voice isn't being heard?
Recently, I had lunch with a woman who runs her own business. She asked me what I do and I told her that I am a coach that specializes in helping women develop authentic confidence and exude authority. Immediately she perked up.
She replied, “I could use your help??? I often feel like my clients don't take me seriously??? And I don't know why???"
These question marks are not typos, rather they are meant to communicate her intonation. The woman I was speaking to was using “up-speak.” This means that she was ending each of her sentences at a higher pitch, making it sound like she was asking me questions rather than making statements. This was the problem as to why she wasn’t being taken seriously at work.
Does this sound familiar? Why do we speak this way?
In The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why, published in The Harvard Business Review, Deborah Tannen articulates that women have learned from a young age a different speaking style than men. Women have a natural instinct to use their voice to balance the needs of others with their own.
Women tend to be more concerned with the temperature of the whole group. They learn to downplay ways in which one is better than the others and to emphasize ways in which they are all the same. Women learn early on that sounding too sure of themselves will ostracize them from their peers.
Hence, women tend to speak to invite dialogue by asking questions rather than making statements. This goes hand in hand with the common belief that if they state what they want, others will be offended.
The problem is that this habitual question asking or "up-speak" can make women come across as less competent and self assured than they really are.
So here's the question: How can you break an up-speak habit that no longer serves you? Answer: Embrace your inner power and end your sentences.
That's right, try it out right now. End. That. Sentence. With. A. Period. Not. A question mark. That means that the pitch at the end of your sentence goes down instead of up, clearly communicating that you’re finished with this thought.
You might feel aggressive. That's OK. It’s not unnatural, it just feels unnatural to you. You might get funny looks the first few times you try, but keep it up, it might just mean that your sentences are finally being heard.
End your sentences and YOU (and other people) will start to take YOU seriously.
There are many other tools and techniques that I can teach you. These are just a few....
As you can imagine, using just any technique could come across as “trying too hard” or inauthentic; thats where a coach comes in.
As a one-on-one coach, I tailor our work together to your individual communication style, helping you to make the unique shifts that you need to make to reach your career goals.
Learn more about how I can help you attain your communication goals on my website.