I teach my coaching clients a concept called Graceful Assertiveness. It requires extending an ocean of grace back to ourselves as we do the courageous work of undoing generations of conditioning. Conditioning that taught women to feel like, and accept being treated like, and paid like second-class citizens.

In dozens, if not hundreds, of conversations I've had over the years with directors, VPs, and department heads in engineering, finance, construction, and tech, many of them wrestle with the same quiet, corrosive experience: being technically excellent and still somehow invisible in the leadership suite where they're the only woman. Here’s a framework to help you deal with that issue.

She reached out for coaching because, in her words, she didn't want to make the mistake of being "too blunt, too forward, too much" in her negotiation-- a critique she's heard more often than she'd care to count over her decades-long career. So here are four things we worked on in coaching.