Tina Dietz (00:01):

What can you learn about someone just from the sound of their own voice? What does vocal performance and your internal state of emotions have to do with each other? How do they interact? And for that matter, what the heck is vocal leadership anyway? Today we're exploring the art and science of vocal leadership as it pertains to podcasting, here on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:37):

Welcome back, everyone, to the Podcast Inc, Podcast. I'm Tina Dietz, your host, the CEO of Twin Flames Studios. Today on the show we are wrapping up this limited series, as we gear up to the Podcasting Inc Conference this fall in Washington DC or online. You can find out more at PodcastInc.co. Thank you so much to our collaborators here, Blubrry, Heartcast Media, and of course the Pioneering Collective. Everything truly is better with teamwork. I had the pleasure today of actually being our featured guest. Jennifer Crawford is back, the organizer of the Podcast Inc Conference, and she is going to be turning the tables to interview me about one of my specialties, which is vocal leadership. Without further ado, here we go.

Jennifer Crawford (01:26):

Well, Tina, it is my pleasure to turn the tables on this interview today, because I think it's only right that as the host of the Podcast Inc. Podcast, that we get to know you a little bit better. For those who don't know, I am happy to tell them that you are an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, influencer, and vocal leadership expert, who has been featured on media outlets, including ABC, inc.com, the Huffington Post, and Forbes. Your podcast, The Start Something Show, was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs. Your company, Twin Flame Studios, amplifies the influence of leaders, experts, and companies around the globe.

Tina Dietz (02:22):

[crosstalk 00:02:22] pretty good.

Jennifer Crawford (02:24):

Yeah. You are impressive. Not only are you a great choice as the host of this podcast, but you're also an incredible choice to be one of our speakers at the Podcast Inc Conference. That is because of your expertise in the vocal leadership space. Now, we've talked on this series a lot about why internal podcasting has become so important for companies, but I think what needs to be talked about is how companies can use the leaders within their organization to come onto these podcasts and express that leadership in a way that resonates to that internal audience. You have some really great tips on how they can maximize their leadership. With that in mind, I wanted to dig into it a little bit deeper.

Tina Dietz (03:21):

Of course.

Jennifer Crawford (03:23):

Is that cool?

Tina Dietz (03:24):

Yeah.

Jennifer Crawford (03:24):

All right. In your opinion, what are the important qualities of an effective leader's voice?

Tina Dietz (03:30):

Well, we can take a look at some of the research around that. Leadership is a really ... it's a dual conversation. Creating a little context about vocal leadership, it's not just about the qualities of your voice, like pitch, or tempo, flow, sonority, which is the pleasantness of the sound of your voice, or articulation, how clearly you speak. All of those things are important. All of those have research behind them about why they're important. We can go as deep on that as you want to go. But it also has to do with the internal conversation of leadership.

Tina Dietz (04:11):

In vocal leadership, we have two types of voice. We have our little V voice, which is actually your physical voice. It is the voice that you hear me speaking with right now, but that's the small V. The big V voice is the voice that lives inside of you. It is your internal message. That is connected to your ways of being, how you move in the world, the message that you have for people, what you stand for, your values, and how you are consciously choosing to be a leader. It is dance between the big V voice and the small V voice that really encompasses what I call vocal leadership overall. That is where we have to start in thinking about what makes an effective leader's voice, because it's not just about being inspiring. It's about being credible. It's about being trustworthy. It's about being who you say you are as you move through the world. Podcasting as a medium has given us an unprecedented way to be the voice of leadership. Companies, people around the world are just crying out for more real leaders, and that's why it's so important.

Jennifer Crawford (05:27):

I love that. I love the talk about the dance between the big V and the little V, but when you dance, sometimes you step on toes. What do you think or what do you see are the biggest blunders in capturing your big V voice and having it interpreted in a way that you want it interpreted as, as something that does earn that trust from your audience?

Tina Dietz (05:56):

Yeah. This really comes from the inside out. I have had so many times in my life ... One of the reasons I'm in this world is because I had a consistent issue when I was growing up, a young adults moving through my career, with being misunderstood. It wasn't the sound of my voice that was the issue, although sometimes it was. I got misinterpreted many times, because I am a pretty intense and pretty passionate person. I would get misinterpreted as angry when I was excited, or I would get misinterpreted as aggressive when I was just really super into something and not really thinking about how that was landing with other people. That had to do with my naivete or kind of a lack of a really robust emotional intelligence about, quote unquote, reading the room at the time. Even though I've always been highly intuitive, I didn't always get the connection between the two.

Tina Dietz (06:59):

Sometimes that requires additional training. So many people run into this. So many aspiring leaders who have big personalities, or even those who are highly internalized, have a tendency to be misunderstood in the message of their leadership. That's why it's so important to align that internal conversation with the external skills of a delivery as we go along. There's a lot of examples in my own life that I could give of being misunderstood, but that might end up with me feeling like I have pie on my face for the next half hour.

Jennifer Crawford (07:36):

Well, I am curious. What steps did you take to modify your voice and to change the misperception of people?

Tina Dietz (07:48):

A lot of it has to do with developing myself as a leader. I've spent my early career ... I grew up as an entrepreneur but actually didn't want to stay an entrepreneur, because my parents spent so many hours in their business and their company growing it, and I was an only child, so I always felt like I was in competition. But when I got out into the world, I became a therapist. I found that because I had such an entrepreneurial mindset, I'd been steeped like a teabag in the world of entrepreneurship growing up, I didn't do well functioning in bureaucracies. I was heavily in the world of education. I did work in corporate just briefly and found a real interesting foothold in corporate, actually in the banking industry, where I found that my way of thinking and all of that, my talents, were actually much more embraced than they were in the world of education, which tends to be very slow to embrace change and innovation, but I felt compelled to stick with education. I really wanted to make a difference with young people, and I did over the course of many years.

Tina Dietz (08:56):

But what I didn't understand at the time was that I was a little bit of fish out of water. There actually is a lot of place for innovation in corporate that is difficult to find in the world of education, but the journey that I went on ultimately led me to develop a different way of communicating that was really all about the listener and the listening that I was bringing to the conversation. Finding those places in myself, using many techniques, many different types of training. I've had been blessed to have many mentors over the years that allowed me to be able to, in a moment and in the moment, stay very present, to have a presence in front of other people, and then also to train my voice, just like somebody would train for anything else.

Tina Dietz (09:56):

If you're training for a marathon, you don't start with running 20 miles. You start with going for a walk. You start with different kinds of things. If you want to learn karate, you don't start with a flying kick. You start with learning how to stand. There is a humility that goes along with any kind of new skill, that being willing to work with the fundamentals and work with the basics. We always come back to that. We always come back to breathing. We always come back to self-awareness. We always come back to some very fundamental points that allow us then to kind of reconnect with the core of who we are and who we're talking with so that our communication can continually become clearer and more effective.

Jennifer Crawford (10:42):

It's so important. And I come from a strong entrepreneurial background as well, so I can completely relate to all of that. We've all seen the situation where we have a leader who does really well with decision making and, growing a team, and that sort of thing, but when they get on stage, or when they get behind a mic, or even in front of their staff, their employees, their workforce, they freeze up, and those leadership skills get muted, because their voice is not strong. It's not resonating. They don't have the confidence to project their leadership vocally. So, for people like that, they get a little stage fright, aren't great public speakers, what are those baby steps? You mentioned that we don't jump kick, so what is the baby ...? Is it the breathing? Obviously it starts with the breathing, opening the diaphragm, but what else? How else do you help leaders expand their leadership skills through their voice?

Tina Dietz (11:43):

Well, one of the places that I do like to start is with the whole idea that we learn so many things in our lives. I mentioned karate. I mentioned a marathon. But let's take something more common, learning how to read, learning how to throw a ball, learning how to create a PowerPoint. Right? Those are things that most people have some idea, and at least I'm assuming this audience, has an idea of how to do those things, but we're not ever taught when we're growing up that you can consciously choose your way of being, that you can consciously choose, like trying on a coat, the emotional state that you are going to choose in a moment.

Tina Dietz (12:24):

There's an incredible amount of power in that as a skill, as a honed ability. We'll start with something as simple as an embodiment exercise, where I'll be working with an executive or a CEO and have them think of a time where they had a peak experience and have them capture how that felt in their body. The best version of themselves is usually what I say. Tell me about a time where you felt like the best version of yourself. Identify, what are the ways of being? Is it confidence? I'll hear calm excitement is actually something that comes up a lot. They often have physical sensations, like they don't feel like they're moving forward, ready to move forward, almost being pulled forward, or they feel very grounded down into the earth. Sometimes you'll feel very open in your chest or open in your palms, things like that.

Tina Dietz (13:22):

If you can identify those ways of being that you are when you are the best version of yourself, you can consciously start to practice those ways of being before, say, going onto a podcast as a guest, going into a meeting, going into a speaking engagement. We can create either visualizations and meditations around those things. This is what in the world of personal development, or psychology, or even ontology, that we would call a sematic practice. It has to do both the body and with the mind. That integration allows us to move forward much more quickly than having it just be a cerebral exercise. It's a very simple practice, but it is incredibly powerful.

Jennifer Crawford (14:11):

Yeah. I can see that. That's incredible. That's great advice. All right. In terms of quick fixes, are there any vocal qualities that are immediate trust and credibility killers?

Tina Dietz (14:26):

Yes. There's two that are ones that we run into all the time. Before I tell you these two though, I do want to say that if you have these two, it's okay. You have to work with the voice that you have and probably no one's ever hung up the phone with you because of the quality of your voice. You're okay. You're okay.

Jennifer Crawford (14:45):

Thanks, Tina.

Tina Dietz (14:46):

Yeah. But two things that do tend to kill credibility are uptalk and vocal fry. Uptalk is when the ends of your sentences all sound like a question. It calls into question your certainty of things, and then it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. This is a super common vocal quality. It shows up in situations where in the back of your mind, subconsciously, you're looking for a response from somebody and you're not quite sure what the response is going to be. It also shows a lot if you're a coach or you have a coaching style as a leader and you're looking for feedback from somebody. It shows up a lot, because you're used to kind of being like, "Do you understand? Does that land for you? Do we get that? How does that sound to you?" Those kinds of questions are frequently asked by leaders and coaches, so that kind of style can seep into our regular vocal patterns, and it can throw off the amount of credibility that people perceive you as, because you don't sound certain. So, that's one.

Tina Dietz (15:54):

Vocal fry is the other. The best way to think of vocal fry is either Ira Glass from This American Life on NPR, it's a national public radio show, uses a lot of vocal fry in his speaking, or Kim Kardashians is another icon culturally who uses this a lot. Now, I have a hard time doing vocal fry, but it's basically when the ends of your sentences drop into a growly state. It's kind of like, "Oh my God," and, "Uh," and there's that kind of sound. Now, why this isn't a problem with people like Ira Glass, who is a highly touted, he's an amazing storyteller, amazing narrator, or someone like Kim Kardashians, who is followed by hundreds of thousands of people, is because we're not looking to them to be leaders. We're looking for them to be entertainers. It's a different animal. So, vocal fry doesn't matter when you're in entertainment. It's another tool. It's another way of doing things.

Tina Dietz (16:57):

But in the example, say, of a job interview, across the board, regardless of age, gender, race, or other demographic factors, they find in research that if somebody speaks in an interview with vocal fry when they're answering interview questions, people who are giving the interview, again across the board age, race, gender, doesn't matter, will consistently rate those people and those answers as less trustworthy, less credible, and less hireable. That comes across as a bit of a credibility killer in situations where leadership is required, trustworthiness is required, credibility is required.

Jennifer Crawford (17:36):

Wow. Yeah. I tend to get a little vocal fry when I've had a lot of speaking in one day. My voice gets a little tired and I realize it's sort of creeping in naturally. What I'm wondering about, what about the leaders that are out there putting themselves on stage, they have speaking gigs, they're confident, but maybe their vocal leadership is not as effective as it could be? How do you know or how can you gauge if your vocal leadership needs to be polished or improved in some way? Is there some sort of feedback mechanism, something that you see that's a commonality in speakers or leaders who aren't as effective as they could be?

Tina Dietz (18:21):

Well, usually what we find in speakers or leaders who are big on stage or are big in their company and they have reached a level that they are managing not just dozens, but hundreds of people, or they have a responsibility, is sometimes we end up with a bit of a distance between who they are in terms of their big persona and their humanity. This is where how do you create intimacy with 10,000 people from the stage? How do you create intimacy when you have to create a distance? You know, there's a professional distance, or there is, for better or for worse, some kind of hierarchy between the CEO and an entry level employee, so there's a distance there, but then how do you create that connection and that respect, that inspiration that we crave in our leaders?

Tina Dietz (19:21):

Those are the things that become a much more refined process. It becomes a much more internal process at that level of leadership for seeing how in our communication, in attention, our presence, the give and take on almost an energetic level, that who we are as leaders. What are we broadcasting, whether that is through audio, or it is in person, whether we're with one person or with 10,000 people? That kind of consistency in our presence as leaders becomes far more important.

Jennifer Crawford (19:58):

Yeah. I was trying to think of examples when you mentioned how can you speak to 10,000 people, but also have an intimate experience or conversation with them? This is not in an effort to have any sort of political conversation, but I do think of Obama is who came to mind. In his leadership role, he had this way of speaking to the people in a way that I think came across as genuine and intimate, yet he maintained that leadership role, as the leader of our country. I thought of him as an example. You may have some better ones.

Tina Dietz (20:38):

Yeah. There's an interesting ones that I like to think about. Actually, Mahatma Gandhi was very, very good at this, because if you think about the way he spoke. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr are often held up as kind of equal icons of change in the world, but they had very, very different vocal patterns and how they inspired people. Gandhi was much ... he was passionate, but he was very internalized. He always felt like he was speaking to one person, whereas Martin Luther King Jr was very much almost a preaching type and incredibly inspiring, but you never felt like he was sitting across the table from you, right? You always felt his talks were more from the stage, so to speak.

Tina Dietz (21:27):

FDR, if we go further back, if we go back in history, his fireside chats were an example of a leader bringing intimacy into the conversation. It was different having him behind a podium than it was sitting beside the fire. That made a big difference for our country that was going through a really difficult time, to have more vulnerable access to the leader of their nation. Someone else who's actually a somebody that I really respect and talk about a feminine voice would be Brené Brown.

Jennifer Crawford (22:00):

I was just thinking of her.

Tina Dietz (22:02):

Yeah. Brené Brown is one of my favorite examples of somebody who is absolutely masterful at creating incredible intimacy in a large room full of people. I recently also had the pleasure of seeing Simon Sinek speak at New York City Town Hall, prior to COVID. He was also incredibly good at bringing a lot of intimacy to the room. It has a lot to do not just with their ... It has very little to do with the content actually. It has everything to do with that emotional state and how they're being and how they're giving themselves to the audience without that sense of veneer or needing to kind of hide something behind a professional visage. They're fully there. They're fully present, and they are fully human.

Jennifer Crawford (22:54):

I think this is a great segue to talk about how those same qualities can be transferred to the podcast medium, which is by nature intimate, because you're in people's ears, directly into their ears. It's known as an intimate medium, and you could be speaking to just as many people. For companies who are making the decision to produce a corporate podcast, whether it be internal or external, if you were giving them advice, Tina, what are the things they should look for in somebody that they place behind the mic, whether that's somebody in the C level of their organization, or somebody that's a department head, or a manager? What do those people need to bring to make their podcast the most effective?

Tina Dietz (23:46):

I think that whoever helms a podcast for a corporate situation, we find this with our corporate clients, is if you remember how the nightly news used to be structured, where there was an anchor or a couple of anchors, and then there are multiple contributors. Having a strong anchor who is kind of the center of the voice of the podcast is really important. It doesn't need to be the CEO. No, it does not. Can it be? Absolutely. But the quality of that person is they need to be highly relational. Podcasts are never, should never be in my opinion, presentational. They are always relational. They are always in conversation, whether you're telling stories or you're giving the sales numbers from the second quarter. You know? It's still a story. It's still a human conversation. That is the primary quality that needs to be looked for in that person.

Tina Dietz (24:44):

Are they willing and able to allow themselves to be truly interested in that listener and what they're delivering? Can they be excited and passionate about it? Can they be interested in feedback? Can they kind of hold a space for whatever feedback might kind of come into play? I mean, there may be multiple players, multiple people, on let's say a marketing team or whatever involved, but nonetheless, the podcast becomes about the personalities involved. Then you can have multiple contributors, highlight different stories, different people. Very inclusive podcasting is as a format.

Tina Dietz (25:29):

I encourage companies to think about who may be the best person on their team that can embody those kinds of qualities. If you run multiple series over time, then you may be able to rotate hosts. Let's say you have several really good people. There's different ways to combine the talents of the people that you have on your teams to be that anchor or to be a contributor onto those particular podcasts. But it's the ability to create relationship.

Jennifer Crawford (26:04):

I could not agree more. I couldn't let you go today, Tina, without telling the audience how all of the skills that you shared with us and your expertise, how Twin Flames Studios applies that expertise with your corporate podcasting clients and the services that you provide. I would love to hear more about that.

Tina Dietz (26:27):

Well, it's our pleasure and our privilege to work with companies that are these trusted brands that have very much relationship-based businesses. A lot of the financial advisory that we work with, we have a number of shows in the financial space, they have longterm deep relationships with their clients, and they want another medium to be able to express that. They also have super strong relationships with other people in the industries that they're in. Podcasting allows them to bring those relationships to the table, to educate their clients or even educate their teams more effectively. They don't have to do it all on their own. They have many, many resources that you can bring and have conversations with.

Tina Dietz (27:18):

We work from concept all the way through episode production and the development of shows, whether those are short series or they're an ongoing podcast over time for these companies that are out there now making a difference with people in one way or another. I've also worked with a number of shows that were led by doctors, physicians, and things like that and different topics. If you have a trusted brand that is ready to grow and influence and really likes to deliver content in a way that is not best served in one to two minutes, that would be very well suited for video. We often have video partners that we can combine video and audio and all of that. But the average podcast listener will listen to 40 minutes of content before kind of shutting it off, whereas the average video listener will only listen to about or watch about two minutes. This is where podcasting really shines is in developing relationships and having conversations, particularly for those industries that have fantastic stories and have a lot of partners that have tremendous experience to share.

Jennifer Crawford (28:38):

Yeah. Absolutely. An internal podcast is really ... can the act as the connecting tissue, if you will, of communication, particularly now, when our teams are separated by distance. We have a growing work from home workforce that I don't think is completely going to go away even after coronavirus.

Tina Dietz (29:03):

No. Not at all.

Jennifer Crawford (29:04):

How can we connect with them? How can we connect with them in a way that translates our culture, gets the information out there in an intimate and efficient way? I mean, it really is a game-changer. Doing that effectively is just going to solidify that culture and keep your best talent in place, because they're going to feel a part of something through that [crosstalk 00:29:28].

Tina Dietz (29:28):

Oh, yeah. Particularly with any kind of mobile workforce. We were finding research on this prior to Coronavirus, that the disconnect between folks who are out in the field or working remotely and folks who were kind of at HQ, and there was a sense of disconnect, or isolation, or even kind of cliquishness that would happen between the folks who are not working in their cubicles or offices and those who are. Podcasting has been shown to be kind of an equalizing factor or a helpful factor between the two.

Jennifer Crawford (30:05):

Wow. I love how you phrased that. Thank you so much, Tina, for not only hosting this podcast, but being so generous with your expertise on this episode. Any company would be lucky to work with you and your team.

Tina Dietz (30:19):

Well, any company would be lucky to work with you, Jennifer. What you've created here with the conference and getting the information out, it's just an exciting time to be in this field. It's been an absolute pleasure collaborating with you on it.

Jennifer Crawford (30:33):

All right. Thanks, Tina.

Tina Dietz (30:35):

Thank you, Jennifer. And that wraps up our Podcast Inc. Podcast series here. Again, I have to thank Jennifer Crawford for all of her leadership, putting the conference together. Make sure you go to PodcastInc.co to make sure you can get all of the information that we have for you there. Sign up for updates, and make sure you come to the conference this fall, whether it is in Washington DC live or online. Either way, it is going to be an absolutely fantastic event. Thank you, again, to all of our contributors, Heartcast Media, Blubrry, the Pioneering Collective, everyone who made this podcast possible. We are here for the duration. Make sure you contact us for more information, and we'll talk to you soon.