How High-Achieving Women Can Avoid Burnout While Confidently Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach.  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today I want to continue this conversation around confidence, and I specifically today want to talk about confidence and how it relates to compensation, especially as we climb the corporate ladder and we are compensated more. So what I have found in coaching many women is that as women climb the corporate ladder and see our compensation rise, there's often a hidden cost. There's this belief that we owe our employer more, more of ourselves. We have to give them more because they're giving us more. And so the question I kind of wanna explore today is what do we believe we owe our employer, and what have we agreed to? I think that this is something that I recognize has been running in the background of some of my clients' minds, and until they're aware of it, they're not really able to do much with it. So that's what I wanna talk about today. 

So the thought error that we often have is, because I'm making more, I have to give more of my time, of my energy, more of my whole self. And I have to give up more. And I think what happens a lot of times is that we feel some level of imposter syndrome. Am I actually worth this amount that they're paying me? What if I don't give the company their money's worth? What if I mess up and they realize that they shouldn't have been paying me this much all along? This is a crazy amount, is way beyond what I'm worth. And so I think we have these thoughts that are running in the background. We might not be hyper aware of them, but they then cause us to take actions that we might not otherwise take if we didn't have this set of beliefs. So the unwritten belief, or the unspoken belief is really that higher pay demands that I am constantly available, that I am sacrificing my family for this job, that I'm prioritizing work over everything else. I should be thinking about work more. I should be actually working more. I should be stressed out more, and the more money I make, the more of myself I need to put into this job, it just like more equals more. More money equals more of me. 

And so is this really true? Is it really true that when I get paid more money that I need to give more of myself and of my time and of my energy and of my focus and my presence? What I hear so often is I feel like I have to have work running in the background constantly, so when I'm with my kids, I can't actually enjoy that time because I'm thinking about work. And while more money may equal more, that might be true, right? That there's an expectation of, Hey, we're paying you more, so we expect something more from you. I think very often we assume it means hours, labor, energy, time on our mind, stress. And I don't know that's always exactly what the company wants more of. Maybe the company wants more strategic thinking. Maybe the company needs you to do more difficult decision making. Maybe you have more of a span of control, more employees on your team so there is a trade, there is more, but our assumption is that the more has to come at the sacrifice of ourselves. And that may not be true. I think especially if you were an internal candidate, and this was an internal promotion, then the company has seen your performance and promoted you based on that. And unless it's stated in your job contract or discussed in the interview process that you need to be working 24/7 now, or you know that you have more hours now with this new role, oftentimes those assumptions come from us. We make those assumptions because we're like, ah, I gotta cover this gap.

So where does this come from? Because it's really interesting because I've seen this actually from a lot of my clients who have gotten promotions or have gotten new jobs, where they're paid significantly more than what they were paid before. I think a lot of it comes from number one, the idea that we trade time for money. I think depending on how you were raised, what income level maybe your parents were at maybe what income level you've been at in the past or you started your career in, you may have a belief because you know there are such things as hourly jobs that you're trading time for money. But of course, if you started out your career making 50K a year and now you're making 250K a year, that obviously doesn't mean that you're working five times as much. It doesn't mean that you go from working 40 hours a week to 200. That's not physically possible. And I'm sure if it was, we would make it possible, but there are only 168 hours in a week, so we can't do that. So I think that's one thing is when we believe that time gets traded for money. I think another thing is something that is a very ingrained in us as women by our society, where we aren't really taught that we have inherent value. We're taught that we have to earn it, and so women usually believe that our value comes from being a hard worker. Our value comes from what we do, not who we are. It comes from the hours that we put in, not the value that we give. The majority of women I have coached have said something along the lines of, I didn't get here because I'm the smartest. I didn't get here because I'm the most talented. I got here because I'm a hard worker. And myself included, I used to believe this as well. We have a tendency to believe that our differentiator, what makes us special is our work ethic, is the fact that we can outwork anyone. And I think that part of the reason that we like that is because it's within our control, right? We can work harder. We don't have to have any of these ingrained talents. We don't have to bring anything else to the table, but we can just outwork everybody. And so we, and when you tie your value to being a hard worker, and then your value goes up, your value to the company, they're paying you more, you believe it means that you need to work harder.

First of all, I just wanna say that I think this mindset, it is very normal. So if you have recently gotten a promotion or gotten a new job and you're feeling this pressure to perform and you feel like, oh my gosh, this is so much more money than I was making before, or it's such a higher title than I had before, I need to make sure that I prove myself and I show my worth and my value and just, overwork and over prepare and overcompensate to make sure that they believe it's a fair investment that, that they're getting their money's worth. Just notice that, and I just want you to recognize that it's very normal for you to feel that way, and nothing has gone wrong. And so what I think is important to do is to build some awareness around this. So one of the things that I have charged some of my clients with to, to try out is to essentially write the contract. What do you believe your contract is with your employer? And not what is the actual contract, but when your employer pays you X amount of money, it means that I owe my employer, X, Y, and Z, and write it out and just become aware of what you deep down or subconsciously believe you owe your employer for paying you that salary or giving you that title. So in exchange for this amount of money and benefits, I owe the company this. Here are all the things that you're giving them.

How much of your time, how much of your energy, how much of your attention do you believe the company deserves for that salary or that title? What do you believe you owe your employer? And then also another reflection exercise is once you get aware of that. Another question you need to ask yourself is, what do I believe I bring to the table beyond my work ethic and if you have always believed that your work ethic is all you bring and it's all you need, this might be a little bit destabilizing because suddenly you're thinking what value do I bring if I can't give them all these hours? This was really hard for me whenever I became a mom because I didn't wanna work 80 hours a week anymore. As much as I loved doing that before or was doing it so that I could prove my value to a company, but I didn't have the capacity to do that as a mom. And so you don't have the capacity to do that either, most likely. And so in this new role, how are you gonna bring value to the role that does not involve you killing yourself to overwork and overthink everything and make sure that you bring work with you everywhere so it feels like you're giving them enough because you know it would be unfair of you to go and spend time with your kids without thinking about work when they're paying you this kind of money. So I just wanna bring some awareness to that because I have not heard that talked about anywhere.

And I think it's really important because of course, as we climb the corporate ladder and get higher and higher on up there, we're gonna make more money. We better be making more money. We hope we're negotiating. And if we're not, then let me know and I'll help you. I'll help you do that. But of course we're gonna make more money and then with that may come this set of questions, this set of beliefs that really cause us to overwork and overextend ourselves beyond the kind of balance that we wanna have with our work in our life. So I hope this is helpful to bring some awareness. If you're in a new role, then I would love to hear any reflections that come of this, or if you're looking back like I have on roles that you've been in before and when this might have showed up for you, did it show up? I would love to hear about how it's shown up.

I think bringing awareness to any parts of us is really helpful because the next time you go into a new role or if you get a big promotion, then you'll have thought through it a little bit. So I think that the unspoken contracts that we live by are so important to bring to the surface because there is a contract that you have with your work with your company that may not be actually what they expect, and it may not be actually matching up with your actual contract.

And I just wanna tie this back to confidence because I think that what we have the opportunity to do here is to rewrite that contract. We have the ability to decide, what are we gonna give to work? How are we gonna bring our value to work? If it's not in overworking and overthinking and making sure that we take work with us everywhere, how are we gonna show our value?

You do not owe your company every minute of your waking hours and some of your sleeping ones too when you're dreaming about work. You owe them excellence of course, within reason and above all, caring for yourself so that you can stay there at that company and give them what they need and give them your best and not completely burn out because of course that's not good for anyone. It's not good for you. It's not good for your company who needs you and wants you to be there. It's not good for your family who need you and want you to be there. It's not good for anyone if you burn out. And I think that one of the things that it's important to remember is that as we move up the corporate ladder in a company, we are expected to take care of ourselves, to make sure that our needs are met. We cannot rely on people above us to be paying attention to that as much as maybe people had time to pay attention to that earlier in our careers. 

It is also up to us as we ascend the corporate ladder to set the example for other people. So if the example has been set for you that the contract is that you work all of your waking hours and you prioritize work over everything, and you are constantly on call and you are thinking about work when you're trying to spend time with your family, if that's what leaders in your career have shown you, and you want to continue passing that along to other people, then you can choose to do that. Or you can say, you know what? I'm in this position now and I'm gonna do it the way that works best for me, and I'm gonna set the kind of example where we create sustainable balanced careers and lives. I wanna show that to other people that it's possible. And as you get into those higher level positions, you have the ability to do that, and you also have the responsibility to make sure that you're paying attention to these things and that you're deciding how you work, how you get your job done, how you get those amazing results that you've always gotten, that you have a track record of getting and you're still able to do and continue getting without giving up everything and so, so much of yourself. 

So I hope this is helpful to think about. I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I will see you next week. Bye.

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.