Power. For many, it’s a word laden with meaning—some see it as a badge of honor, while others feel uncomfortable at its mere mention. But what if we’ve been thinking about power all wrong? What if power isn’t about control or dominance, but about influence, empathy, and connection?
In the latest episode of Sticky From The Inside, I sat down with Jennifer Gardner, a Los Angeles-based trial lawyer, persuasive communications educator, and part-time administrative law judge, to explore the nuances of power and influence. Jennifer brings decades of experience from the courtroom and beyond, offering fresh perspectives on how to redefine power and wield it in a way that uplifts, inspires, and connects.
Here’s a snapshot of what we discussed—and why you should tune in to the full episode (player embedded below!).
Redefining Power: Influence Over Dominance
In leadership today, the old notion of top-down authority is fading fast. Power isn’t about control; it’s about influence. Jennifer argues that real power comes from building trust and connection—qualities rooted in emotional intelligence.
Leaders with empathy and self-regulation can inspire action without intimidation, making their influence sustainable and impactful. As Jennifer puts it,
“Power is not a dirty word; it’s about harnessing influence in alignment with your values.”
The Gender Power Divide
A significant part of our conversation addressed the biases that affect women’s access to and expression of power. Jennifer shared how societal stereotypes often label assertive women as aggressive and vulnerable women as weak—a double bind that creates unique challenges in leadership.
This isn’t just a “women’s issue”—it’s a leadership issue. Addressing these biases benefits everyone, fostering a more inclusive and innovative workplace.
Emotional Intelligence: The Leadership Superpower
Emotional intelligence emerged as a central theme. According to Jennifer, the two most critical aspects of emotional intelligence for leaders are empathy and self-regulation.
Empathy: Understanding others’ fears, aspirations, and motivations allows leaders to connect and inspire authentically.
Self-Regulation: The ability to pause and manage one’s emotions in high-pressure situations is key to maintaining composure and earning trust.
Jennifer’s practical advice? Practice slowing down, listening, and managing your “vibes”—because yes, science shows that the energy you project affects how others perceive and respond to you.
Practical Strategies to Bust Biases and Build Influence
So, how can leaders overcome cultural and personal biases about power? Jennifer emphasizes the importance of:
Calling Out Bias: Recognize unconscious biases in yourself and others, and address them openly.
Modelling Inclusive Leadership: Leaders should actively showcase diverse and authentic expressions of power.
Building Emotional Resilience: Cultivate the ability to stay grounded and empathetic, even in the face of challenges.
Why You Should Listen
This episode is packed with actionable insights for leaders at all levels. Whether you’re navigating societal biases, seeking to project confidence, or simply looking to lead more effectively, Jennifer’s expertise will leave you inspired. Her stories—from courtroom victories to overcoming biases—bring the concepts of power and influence to life in a deeply relatable way.
Click the player below to listen to the full episode, or scroll to the bottom of this post to read the transcript. Either way, don’t miss this opportunity to rethink what power means in leadership and how you can use it to create a more connected, successful team.
Join the Conversation
What does power mean to you? Is it influence, dominance, or something else entirely? Drop your thoughts in the comments below—we’d love to hear your perspective.
Full Episode Transcript
[Andy Goram] (0:10 - 4:11)
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tons more success for everyone. This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it. So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on. Okay then, leadership today isn't what it used to be.
Introduction to Power and Influence
The days of top-down authority where power was synonymous with dominance and control are possibly fading fast. And here's a question, do you need to be bold, brash and extroverted to lead well and exert power effectively? Or is there a way for all of us, regardless of personality, to find that unique it factor that makes us influential?
Power, power is a loaded word, isn't it? For some it's a badge of honor, a goal to strive towards. For others it feels uncomfortable, even dirty, as if wanting power somehow makes you less noble.
But why do we see it that way? Why do some people lean into power while others run from it? And more importantly, how do we find our own power, harness it and use it in a way that aligns with our values and brings out the best in ourselves and those around us?
And let's talk about the elephant in the room, the gender power divide. For women, stepping into power often must feel like walking a tightrope. Assertiveness is too often labelled as aggression.
And vulnerability, which can endear male leaders to their teams, may be seen as weakness in their female counterparts. Social stereotypes continue to shape how men and women are perceived when they assert themselves or show humanity. And today's guest is Jennifer Gardner.
And she's here to help us examine this topic of power and maybe challenge a few of our assumptions along the way. Jennifer is a Los Angeles-based trial lawyer, persuasive communications educator and part-time administrative law judge. Her career spans entertainment litigation, high-stakes criminal cases and complex business disputes.
But for me, what makes Jennifer so fascinating as a guest is a deep understanding of what it takes to influence and inspire people, not just in the courtroom, but in leadership and life. So in this episode, we're diving deep into the heart of influence and power. Do we all have the capacity to lead with confidence or is it reserved for a lucky few?
How do we move past cultural biases to create a more inclusive and empowering leadership model for everyone? And how do we discover, harness and confidently release our own authentic it factor that makes people listen, trust and follow? Jennifer, welcome to the show.
[Jennifer Gardner] (4:12 - 4:14)
Andy, thank you for having me.
Jennifer’s Background and Early Awareness of Power
[Andy Goram] (4:14 - 4:38)
Super, super to have you here. All around Christmas and New Year, we're taking time out to think about something almost completely anti to that holiday spirit, the topic of power. Amazing stuff we're going to get into today, I think.
Before we dive headlong into that though, Jennifer, do me a favor, just give us a little bit of your background, some career stuff, what you're focused on now. That'd be great.
[Jennifer Gardner] (4:40 - 6:11)
Sure, absolutely. Wow, where do I begin? Well, I was born, just kidding.
Well, actually, my mother will tell you I was born a natural born storyteller. I was telling stories since I could talk. I was reciting Peter Pan, the story of Peter Pan and the actual album of Peter Pan before I could complete my own sentences.
So just to give you an idea, I guess I've always had, yeah, interesting, right? And my father actually made a recording of it. And it's so cute.
I have to say, even listening to me, it's just so incredibly cute. Tell the story of Peter Pan. And I did all the voices.
So in any event, I mean, power is something that I was very aware of, but I didn't think of it in terms of power. And I was aware of it from the time that I was very, very young. I grew up in Los Angeles.
My parents had very colourful friends that were movers and shakers in the entertainment industry and in politics and in business here in Los Angeles. And I had this sense, even as a very young child, that there was something really exceptional about these people that were at our dinner table. It wasn't just the way they looked.
It was the way they spoke. It was the kinds of stories they told. It was the vibe in the room, if I can use that expression, which is a real thing.
Vibes.
[Andy Goram] (6:11 - 6:12)
Okay.
[Jennifer Gardner] (6:12 - 7:44)
We'll get into that. All right. And I was just acutely aware.
I knew they were special because they were celebrities and a lot of them were celebrities, not all of them. Or they were closely affiliated with celebrities like major producers, directors, talent agents, and then the actual talent of different kinds, writers and actors and people who were running major political campaigns, et cetera. So I had this sense as an observer that I was marinating in a very unusual soup.
And then it turned out I was right. Many times I get these instincts, but there's nobody out there to validate or confirm them or I keep them to myself and then time passes and I realize, oh yeah, you really got it. So I was aware very, very young that some people were really super exceptional at communicating.
And as I became a lawyer and entered the legal profession, I had a really difficult time because I graduated and passed the bar. I passed the bar in 1987. And when you think about it, there weren't a lot of women practicing as litigators, but I thought if I'm going to be a lawyer, I had no desire to draft contracts.
I wanted to litigate. I wanted to be a trial lawyer. There was something about the performative aspect of trial that really intrigued me.
But it wasn't until like 10 years later where we had a very high profile case in the city of Los Angeles, the Menendez brothers.
[Andy Goram] (7:45 - 7:46)
Oh, of course. Yeah. Famous trial.
Discovering Influence Through Storytelling
[Jennifer Gardner] (7:47 - 10:46)
Right. And Leslie Abramson was representing, I don't remember which one, one of the brothers. And I was so impressed with what she was doing.
And that was my first experience of having a female role model in a very powerful role doing the kind of work I wanted to do. I had a difficult time. I was told, I mean, long story short, I was told I wasn't a legal genius, but yet, and I was, you know, had bad experience in the law firm world.
Let's just say I came out of the firm environment, started my own practice and quickly got all the crappy cases that nobody wanted, right? All the crazy clients, mostly in entertainment litigation realm. And they all wanted a trial.
And I'm all excited because this is what I fantasized about doing my entire life. This is what led me here to this place in time. And yet I realized very quickly that I had no idea how to try a case.
So not knowing how to try a case because I didn't have the training, didn't have the training, right? They call it practice for a reason. You don't just graduate from law school and have these incredible skills, right?
They take time to acquire. Yet I noticed that the skills that you really, really need aren't taught in law school. So in any event, I thought at that time it was just rules of civil procedure and rules of evidence.
And then of course you have to be prepared. You have to understand the facts of your case. And I started winning case after case after case, even though everyone was betting against me.
No one really thought that I could do it. I had been told I was not a legal genius. And yet here I was succeeding beyond my wildest imagination.
And I realized again, in hindsight, you got something right. Because how I won those cases was I did the only thing that I knew how to do. Get up, be warm, be engaging, tell a compelling story, and just really bring this energy into what it was I was doing in the courtroom.
And it turns out, fast forward 30 years, it turns out that the neuroscience and functional imaging study ability, like functional MRI and the ways that the neuroscientists are measuring brainwaves are confirming vibes are real, right? There's such a thing as right brain to right brain communication. Storytelling is how we access the right brain and the right brain is where decisions are made.
That's powerful stuff. When you can do those things, you're influential and you have quote unquote power because power is defined in our dictionary over here on this side of the pond as having influence. So this is sort of my, in a nutshell, how I got to where I am now.
[Andy Goram] (10:48 - 11:07)
And when you were up walking the boards, telling your stories, looking the jury in the eye, all that kind of great stuff, was there one particular day when you really snapped into consciously knowing what you were doing and that this was making a real difference?
[Jennifer Gardner] (11:08 - 11:42)
Yes. I mean, there were several times. The first time was I got a unanimous jury verdict for fraud in a very unusual case involving some entertainment litigation.
My client, okay, where do I start? This is an old memory, so forgive me for stumbling and fumbling here, but my client was almost blind and he had invented a, well, do you remember Walkmans?
[Andy Goram] (11:43 - 11:43)
Yeah, of course.
[Jennifer Gardner] (11:44 - 11:47)
Okay. He had invented a Swimman.
[Andy Goram] (11:48 - 11:48)
Oh, okay.
[Jennifer Gardner] (11:49 - 13:27)
And this is like early, early, early times. In any event, that's what this fight was over, former business partners. And he kept, when he was telling me about the case, he was so in his head, well, we had this agreement and then they did this and then they did that.
I knew that wasn't going to carry the day. So I spent hours and hours and hours with them getting into, who are these people? How did you meet them?
What's the history of the relationship? Who said what? How did you feel?
What did they say about how they felt? I really dug deep into the emotional dynamics of the case. And then we had the trial and we got unanimous jury verdicts for fraud.
So in California, it's very difficult to get a fraud verdict. The standard of proof is very high. And we were able to do that plus punitive damages, which is like really, really high.
And then to convince all of those people on the jury was really incredible. So they give their verdict. The court sets a date for the next status conference on the post-trial work that needs to be done.
And before I could stand up and gather my things to leave the courtroom, one of the defendants came over to me and said, you are one hell of a lawyer. And he had just lost a unanimous fraud case. That was one time.
That was one time that was like the light bulb went off, like, okay, I'm doing something right.
The Gender Power Divide
[Andy Goram] (13:27 - 14:10)
That's a pretty cool moment though, right? When you just feel everything's kind of working and for someone to kind of validate what you've done. And I think what's interesting, listen to your story.
You're picking out all the details, all the background information to be able to tell your story. That is so similar to being inside a corporate business and putting a big plan together or a big deal. The people in that deal spend so much time working on this stuff.
When it actually comes time to communicate what's going on to the rest of the business, they push all that stuff aside because, well, we've been through all that. We don't need to know that. These little rich details are all the things that will help people understand the story that you're telling and why there's impact here, right?
[Jennifer Gardner] (14:11 - 14:36)
Yes. And it really does come down to very deep time with the client. Very, very substantial time where you're really tapping into the emotional content of the case through the client's perspective and you come to understand the players and the parties and you're able to tap into their perspective.
You must be able to reverse roles with them. I mean, it's really an empathy skill.
[Andy Goram] (14:37 - 15:34)
Yeah, because I think we lock away memories on the back of emotions, right? I think that's how we can recall those things, how we feel when we dig into those things. Okay.
I mean, I could talk about all that sort of stuff for hours, Jennifer. We don't have hours, unfortunately. I would like to, if you're okay, to get into this stuff about power because I think you have a really interesting perspective on the whole thing.
I mentioned in the intro that I think we're probably split in a couple of camps. There are some people very comfortable with the notion of power and the rest of the population, not so much. They feel like it's a bit of a tough thing, it's for somebody else, it's a bit of a dirty thing or it's a bit of a land grab kind of thing.
Why do you think so many people, particularly if we focus on some of the audience for the podcast who are leaders, why do you think so many people, leaders in particular, struggle with the notion of power, Jennifer?
[Jennifer Gardner] (15:36 - 15:48)
I think there are a lot of reasons and I think we could spend three or four podcasts discussing them all just at a superficial level. I'm going to give you the broad overview of why I think people struggle.
[Andy Goram] (15:49 - 15:49)
Brilliant.
[Jennifer Gardner] (15:49 - 16:12)
First of all, yes. There is in no particular order of importance because I think it really does depend on the individual and who they are, but these are some major ideas that will explain it. We love to build up our politicians and our celebrities.
We love to celebrate them and we love to tear them down, don't we?
[Andy Goram] (16:12 - 16:12)
Yeah.
Societal Conditioning Around Power
[Jennifer Gardner] (16:13 - 20:02)
Right? In both of our systems and cultures and so much of television and film and literature, drama is comprised of stories about people who are tyrants and who take advantage of power and who are harmful to other people. There's that and that's a huge that.
It's really entertaining stuff. Henry VIII, I am fascinated with Henry VIII. How did he become such a tyrant?
How did he become so incredibly crazy? The deeper I go into the history, the more and more fascinating I think he is. There's that, which is a very big that.
Another problem or factor is the way that we're socialized. My mother used to say, children are a lot of work. You have to civilize them.
Literally, she would say. You literally have to civilize them, meaning you have to teach them manners. We really do need to be socialized and we are socialized.
Some of us, depending on the situation that we're born into and our parents and what they teach us and the people around us, what they teach us and they show us, we are taught, raise your hand before speaking, wait your turn, say please and thank you. We're taught to be extremely submissive. For example, in Australia, they have this thing called tall poppy syndrome.
Don't outshine your colleagues or your peers because then you're less likable. There's that. Where do these ideas come from?
They come from back in the day when we couldn't survive without being part of a tribe. We were living together communally in caves and in tribes. If we were expelled from the tribe, if we misbehaved, it meant certain death.
This has conditioned us through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to really care about what other people think and to have a natural apprehension around saying the wrong thing, alienating people. Some of us just lack confidence for a number of reasons. The confidence was never modelled for us by people around us.
It's a huge, huge problem. For example, me, I was very fortunate because like I described at the beginning, I was surrounded by people who were highly successful in a very competitive industry where you have to have these qualities in order to achieve that kind of success. You can maybe get away with not having them so much in other fields, but in that field, this is the essence of being successful and being able to succeed in that field, especially back then.
These are the main ingredients. The lack of role models is really a problem. It's a huge problem, lack of role models.
For me, for example, when I saw Leslie Abramson in that case, I was like, oh, there's a woman doing this. How exciting. I hate to talk about politics, but I always come to politics because it's impossible to have a conversation about power and influence these days without politics.
Politics are a great illustration of some of these ideas. When I saw Hillary Clinton speak for the first time, I was like, oh, wow, she's smart and she's strong. Now, I can understand why that would cut both ways on the audience, but I was fascinated by her for that reason.
Margaret Thatcher, right?
[Andy Goram] (20:03 - 20:05)
Another divisive figure in this country.
[Jennifer Gardner] (20:05 - 20:09)
Right? I know. Still, right?
[Andy Goram] (20:11 - 21:57)
Your view of politics, or shall I say our view of your politics, is fascinating. I mean, almost come back to that entertainment show that you talked about. I mean, it is, to us, maybe in the UK, overblown almost, over the top from a personality perspective.
But there are some deep truths, I think, or behavioral norms kind of seemingly play through in what has just literally happened in the last election. There are still many people, I think, in this country watching that whole thing play out and the result that ensued and are mouth open wide and like, what? What has just happened?
And we briefly mentioned in the introduction this gender power gap. Now, I'm not an aficionado on American politics, but it seems to me that there was a a sensible, credible female candidate saying altogether reasonable things, and then there was Donald Trump. And I don't know, what was the country thinking, Jennifer, as they went through?
That's not meant as a loaded question, because I've heard reports that, well, you know, you can't trust Kamala because, you know, the power will go to her head or just crazy things being said. Was America ready for a female leader? And if not, what's the problem?
What's behind that?
Leadership Biases and Political Parallels
[Jennifer Gardner] (21:57 - 22:15)
Jennifer What's the problem? It's such a good question. I ask myself that all the time.
Well, first of all, let me just say, without getting into the details of policy, that there was not a single conversation about the details of the proposed policies of each side, okay? It wasn't about that at all.
[Andy Goram] (22:15 - 22:16)
Headlines only, Jennifer, right?
[Jennifer Gardner] (22:17 - 25:12)
Headlines only. And, it's so funny because I have European family and I travel there at least twice a year, and everybody always wants to know, what the hell is going on in your country? Like, they're genuinely intrigued and curious, and they just don't understand what's going on. I'll tell you what I think it is.
I think that, first of all, Harris did not have enough time. A hundred days is not enough time to resonate with the voters and to nail the message, okay? She just didn't have enough time.
Trump has dominated the media and the conversation and the zeitgeist for so long, so he had automatically an advantage, and he was talking and continues to talk to absolutely everyone. And I think that people are not ready to see a woman leader quite yet, and I think it has something to do with feeling, essentially, very afraid. I think that the voters here don't think that a woman could be commander-in-chief of our military and protect us and keep us safe, and Harris didn't have an opportunity to really say how she was going to do what she wanted to do or distance herself from President Biden enough.
I mean, she really had an uphill battle because, I mean, before she became the candidate, there was so much written about why she's so invisible in this administration. So she went from being invisible to being at the center stage of this election, and I just don't think a hundred days is enough time to pull it together because you have to, I think, and I'm not a political strategist, but just my own instincts, again, say that you need to be able to tap into how your message is landing and adjust your sails. There was no time, no time at all.
But I think that people are very afraid in this country. I think that Trump taps into a genuine fear and loss of control. When you look at the map, you have the coastal elites that are blue, and then you have this huge red center where you don't have as many huge population centers.
You have a different psychology of voter, and I don't really think that those people were spoke to with the blue ticket, clearly enough. Obviously, look at the results. It was a landslide for the right, for the right.
I mean, the country went red.
[Andy Goram] (25:13 - 25:49)
I just think it's a very interesting look into this topic of power, whether it's all about power, I suspect it probably isn't, and I think you very eloquently talked about the time piece. But to me, it seemed at least, not knowing all the ins and outs, a very stark view of who holds power, who we're comfortable holding power, and who we trust to hold power, which may be a very simplistic view, but I just thought in the context of today's conversation, it's an interesting tableau.
[Jennifer Gardner] (25:50 - 26:58)
Oh, completely. Let me just add another anecdote to that. My husband is German, and he says, in my country, there is no way that a convicted felon would even be allowed to run for president.
I happened to be in Pennsylvania, which was a major swing state, the last week in October, which is a very interesting time to be there. I was there for a conference, and I was talking to absolutely everybody I came in touch with about what they thought, because I'd never been in such a highly charged political climate before, never. Because in California, it's like a given, we're going to go blue, right?
Pretty much. So I'm in Pennsylvania, and I was speaking to this one woman who was driving a Lyft, and I asked her what she thought about Harris, and she was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if I trust her to lead the military.
I said, well, what about the fact that Trump is a convicted felon? She pulled the car over, Andy, and she turned around, and she looked at me, and she said, you want to know something? I know a lot of convicted felons, and they're not all bad.
[Andy Goram] (27:01 - 27:01)
Wow.
[Jennifer Gardner] (27:01 - 27:03)
Yeah. So there you go.
[Andy Goram] (27:04 - 28:03)
Wow. Well, I guess that's what we're dealing with. That's what we're dealing with.
Wow. Let's maybe try and get back onto the conversation around power, and maybe let's just continue with this, let's call it overcoming bias piece, right? So you've highlighted, I think, some nice, as you said, very high-level concepts around power, and why some of us are okay with it, and some of us, perhaps, it's not our thing.
We've talked about a very recent event, and how that may have even showed up. In all of the work that you've done, personally, and you continue to do in the world of communication and what have you, how do we go about really trying to, I don't know, counteract some of these biases that go on, whether they're conscious or unconscious? How do you think we can start to get more comfortable with power across different people?
Overcoming Bias and Embracing Influence
[Jennifer Gardner] (28:04 - 30:37)
You ask the best questions, and that is, you do. I'm laughing because what you're saying is a question that has consumed me for a long time now. What do we do about this?
How do we get over this, right? Like, okay, we know it's there, now what, right? And I do a lot of research.
I listen to a lot of experts. I obtain certifications in topics that cover some of these ideas. And no one has an absolute answer for what to do about it, except call it out.
Call it out. Have more role models for people who are in the less represented segments of our society so that they ascend. I was recently at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania for a week-long conference on women in leadership and business strategies.
It was fantastic. And one of the things that we talked about right off the bat was, if you're a female and you want to be powerful, you're going to lean in, you're trained to lean in, but how do you lean in without falling over? Seriously.
It's a huge problem. And in this course, they were talking about how at one point in time, in the very recent past, there were more CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, I believe it's 500 companies, with the name John, than there were women in the C-suite. Then it expanded to John and Robert.
So there are social scientists out there who are actually tracking these things, which I find really very interesting. Women have a really hard time still. They really, really do.
I have cases, which will go nameless, where I walk into the courtroom and it doesn't matter how I approach this judge. He's irritated with me no matter what I say. Yes.
If I bring him data, he gets emotional. If I bring him emotion, he wants to go back to the data. He is critical and I feel biased against me no matter what.
This is partly the nature of our humanity. Our unconscious minds have so much to do with how we relate to and intuit another person and then respond.
[Andy Goram] (30:38 - 30:54)
Jennifer, I find that fascinating in the sphere that you work in. Is that a power game in itself that that judge is playing? That they need to be the one totally in control and directing the shots?
That's what's going on. It's what it sounds like to me.
[Jennifer Gardner] (30:55 - 31:03)
Oh, yeah. Believe me, when the case is over, the supervising judge will get a letter from me. But I'm stuck.
I have to deal with this for now.
[Andy Goram] (31:03 - 31:12)
I was going to say, when you feel that happening, and it's so easy for, I'm going to say middle-aged. I'm putting myself in that bracket. I'm being generous.
[Jennifer Gardner] (31:13 - 31:15)
Well, I'm right there with you.
[Andy Goram] (31:16 - 31:39)
Great grey-haired white guy saying, “Oh, this sounds outrageous.” How do you deal with that?
Genuinely, when you're facing into that and you're in the middle of something, you know you can win because you've done the diligence, you've done the prep, you've got your story. But you're faced in a situation where almost you're being hampered by the person who should be directing proceedings. What does that feel like?
[Jennifer Gardner] (31:40 - 32:23)
Incredibly frustrating. However, the only thing that saves me is I'm educated and I understand exactly what's going on. But what really frustrates me is that I see it and I know there's not very much that I can do about it.
To be the victim of bias and prejudice like I believe this judge has towards me and to struggle to surmount it like I am, it hurts. I'm thinking about bringing in a man at the next really important hearing. You got to do what you got to do.
[Andy Goram] (32:23 - 33:18)
I totally get that. I was with a client just the other week talking about stuff and they were sent on a women in leadership program which landed really badly because almost like the sentiment of that program was, this is a course for getting you to deal with these guys so you can adapt your behaviour to deal with these guys better. And they're like, well hang on, that's not what we're here to do.
And they found the most powerful part of that whole program wasn't the fact that they'd been sent on it and the construct was all about men. It was the dynamic of these women being in a room together talking about the issues and problem solving themselves. That was the power that was in the room.
And I don't know, I feel gutted that you're as successful as you are. And even you were saying, yeah, well I'll get a guy in next time and that'll help me. I mean, we have such a long way to go, don't we?
[Jennifer Gardner] (33:18 - 33:41)
Mm-hmm. We really do. We really do.
And the only thing is that I'm confident about is I know it's not my work, it's not the quality of my work, which is really what's so frustrating about it because how can you get justice when there are these unconscious forces that are working against you and there's absolutely nothing I can do to shift it. Nothing I can do to shift it.
[Andy Goram] (33:43 - 34:33)
Yeah. I certainly don't want this podcast to end up being the sad show, right? I don't want that because you've done amazing work.
You continue to do amazing work. You talk very eloquently on this topic of influence and power. So what I would like to do in the time that we've got left together is park my own frustration with your experiences that you've kind of shared to this point.
And let's try and help everybody else out there for the last bit, Jennifer, in that if you think about people who are looking to either improve or increase their influence based on all the experience you've got and the things that you have done, what do you think the key strategy is in someone getting comfortable with that, leaning into it and making the most of it are?
Mastering Emotional Intelligence
[Jennifer Gardner] (34:34 - 36:16)
Absolutely. Great question. I would say that they need to cultivate their emotional intelligence because the studies that are being done show that the best leaders, the people who are the highest performers, have a very high, well-developed sense of emotional intelligence.
And emotional intelligence is something that we can all learn. It's a skill that we can flex and practice. And it's sort of like, you're going to be doing it your entire life once you're aware of it.
So here are the two most important factors of emotional intelligence that I personally focus on every day and that I teach my student that they really need to focus on. Empathy, being able to really feel the struggles, the fears, the desires and aspirations, what's motivating the person that's the target of their influence. And I love to use the word target, right?
And self-regulation, the ability to not react and to regulate yourself in moments where there's a lot of conflict, where you're under pressure, the stakes are high, you're being judged, you're wanting to please, you want to get the result that you want really intensely, which is what led you to this place in time, right? You've got to be able to regulate your emotions. Easier said than done.
But once you have the awareness, it becomes a lot easier. And then, of course, it takes practice.
[Andy Goram] (36:16 - 36:28)
Sure. Are you talking about pausing, breathing, changing the environment, stepping out? Are those some of the techniques you're talking about in that self-regulation thing?
Are there others that you would add into that?
[Jennifer Gardner] (36:29 - 37:10)
Well, yes. First of all, everything you just mentioned, gesture, cadence, body language, leaders use hands. That's why you seem to be using a lot of hands.
Hands bring energy. And hands also show a certain amount of confidence. So you definitely want to use your hands when you speak.
You want to be expressive. So everything you just said, eye contact, cadence, pausing, silence is extremely powerful. These are all things that go into it.
But mostly, I would say, not overreacting in a moment. Having control of your emotions when you're mad as hell, like for example, me in that courtroom with that judge.
[Andy Goram] (37:10 - 37:15)
Yeah. And that does take practice. I'm convinced of that.
My goodness me.
[Jennifer Gardner] (37:16 - 38:53)
Well, he yells at me. I don't yell back. He yells at me.
It feels like I'm his wife. Honestly, I swear. I feel like there is this kind of weird countertransference.
You'll see political debates. And sometimes you'll see the candidates in that you see more of their personal emotional selves coming through. Right?
Honestly, in this courtroom, that's exactly what I feel is happening from him to me. I'm not taking any responsibility for projecting anything weird onto him. But I definitely feel like I'm triggering this guy big time.
So here's the point. He's a leader. He's getting triggered by me for whatever weird reason in his messed up head.
He's a human being, right? We all are. We all are like we idealize leaders, but they're humans.
So this is really important to keep in mind. Don't react and don't overreact because then you fall into that trap. And you sink to that lower level.
You've got to be able to maintain your composure. So hard to do. I know everyone.
It's so hard to do when you're angry and you feel like someone's being incredibly unfair towards you or you really, really, really want or need to make your point, to get buy-in, to get the vote, get the promotion, to get the job, to get the client, to get the decision, whatever it is you want. It's all on the other side of yes. You've got to keep control, right?
You just got to stay cool. Gotta stay cool. Gotta stay warm.
Gotta stay confident. Gotta show your competence and you got to keep your wits about you. Is it easy?
No. Does it take practice? Yes.
But once you know what it is, you got the keys to the kingdom.
[Andy Goram] (38:54 - 39:31)
I love that. Nice. And often it is these simple things that are made into habit, right?
Through practice that can make the breakthroughs. Before we have to wrap up, I do want to just jump back to one thing you said about calling it out. If you were making a plea to male allies everywhere to try and help break down some of these biases, you know, share the power.
I don't know what the phrase is. I don't have the vocabulary this afternoon to work that out. But what would you ask of them, Jennifer?
[Jennifer Gardner] (39:31 - 40:35)
You know what usually works for me? I would ask for them because with men and women and men behaving badly towards women in business, it's all about power. So what I like to do when I am communicating with a man in a position of authority or seniority over me, and I need him to make some kind of a decision in my favor, or I want to get through to that person, I'm really projecting this human side of myself and of him in his life because he's still a human being.
He's got most likely a wife or a significant other perhaps, and I don't care about gender. It doesn't really matter. There's a tender spot in everyone, a child, a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, that he feels tenderness towards.
I'm sure, unless he's a total psychopath, right? But let's like exclude those people.
[Andy Goram] (40:35 - 40:37)
They exist, but yeah, we'll park them.
[Jennifer Gardner] (40:37 - 42:18)
They exist. Yeah. And speak to them with that frame of reference in mind.
It's not easy, but if you slow down and you think and you pause and you come at them from that point of view, it really, really helps to humanize them, and they will feel it. We didn't have much of a chance to talk about the neuroscience that proves that there are such things as bad vibes, but the right brain and right brain communication in my experience has worked really, really well for me. Look, we're here.
We're humans, as a lawyer anyway, solving problems for other humans, conflicts, problems, hopefully in a civilized way with the ultimate goal we all share of getting justice, delivering justice if you're the judge and getting justice if you're the advocates. Let's find some common ground. Let's figure this out.
Let's ensure fairness if we can't agree. Let's be civilized in our approach, and above all, let's be human to each other and throughout this process. That to me is the best advice that I could give anybody who feels like they don't have any political or social or financial capital.
Come back to your human side. Tap into the essence of you as a human and your emotion and your purpose for why you're here in the first place. Really lead with that.
Marinate in that sauce and communicate from there.
Sticky Notes: Three Keys to Power and Influence
[Andy Goram] (42:19 - 43:25)
That's why I wanted you on this show, because that is a bang-on message for this podcast, just about being a decent human. We have done a flyby on this whole topic, so we'll have to run this back again, I'm sure, at some point. I think there's a whole episode within Vibe.
I think that would be fascinating to sit down and chat about. You and I need to mark that on our calendars. Before I do let you go, and maybe you've picked up a couple of those things now, I have this part in the show, Jennifer, I call Sticky Notes, which is where we try and pull out three big truths or pieces of advice that we could fit on Sticky Notes.
Dead, dead, dead simple. For you, in everything that you've got in your head, all the things we've talked about, maybe some of the things we haven't even got to today, if you were going to offer three pieces of advice that you could fit on three little Sticky Notes for people who wanted to improve or even master their influence and presence, what would a trial lawyer advise them?
[Jennifer Gardner] (43:26 - 44:08)
Okay. One, we just talked about them. Work on your empathy skills.
Slow down so that you can get quiet and still, because you need to tap into yourself and your own emotional reality and landscape in order to feel that of another human. If we slow down, we can feel these things. We're so distracted, and our culture isn't conducive to doing this.
You really have to take the time to slow down, pause, and tap into your own emotional landscape so that you can then empathize more effectively with other people. That would be one.
[Andy Goram] (44:09 - 44:09)
Brilliant.
[Jennifer Gardner] (44:09 - 45:45)
Number two, watch your vibes. We will do another conversation about this. This is a new thing.
Vibes are real. Bad vibes are the real thing. Science is now proven.
Watch your vibes for reasons you and I will get into better in the future. What you project, people feel. You have to get control of your mind and just say, okay, I'm going to project that I'm friendly, that I'm warm, that I'm approachable, and see what happens.
Then the third one is that notice that being powerful and getting what you want isn't bad unless you have some evil purpose, of course. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the situation where a person is a good-natured person wanting to do something good.
There's nothing bad about wanting more for yourself or whatever your goals are. You were socialized to not be kicked out of the tribe, and that's okay, but power is not a dirty word. We need to learn where we're blocked, where we have limiting beliefs, where we have upper limits issues, which is something I have to look at all the time.
How successful can I be? How far can I go? We have so much programming that we're not even aware.
We don't know we don't know we have. Power is not a dirty word. I would start there.
Then look at the ways that you're holding yourself back from being more powerful and having more for yourself, for your business, for your team, for your clients, for whoever it is.
[Andy Goram] (45:46 - 46:08)
Wow. Three fantastic sticky notes with so much depth to them, and again, queuing up the next conversation. Jennifer, I have absolutely loved meeting you, getting to know you a little bit, and having our first chat.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. If people would like to find out a bit more about you and what you do, where should they go?
[Jennifer Gardner] (46:08 - 46:15)
Jennifer B. Gardner .com and Jennifer B. Gardner on LinkedIn. All roads lead to Rome.
[Andy Goram] (46:16 - 46:23)
We're going to stick all that stuff in the show notes. Jennifer, thanks so much for coming on, my friend. I look forward to our next conversation.
[Jennifer Gardner] (46:24 - 46:33)
I certainly do too. Thank you so much for having me, Andy.
It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. You're so much fun, and you ask incredible questions. Thank you for the opportunity.
[Andy Goram] (46:33 - 47:15)
Well, bless you. You take care. I'll speak to you again soon.
Okay, everyone. That was Jennifer Gardner, and if you'd like to find out a little bit more about her or any of the things we've talked about in today's show, please check out the show notes. So, that concludes today's episode.
I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe. It really helps.
I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.
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