Denise Thomas, president of The Effective Communication Coach, started off day two of Itron Inspire 2021 with a powerful Women in Utilities session. She provided insights to help transform emerging and existing professionals into extraordinary leaders by mastering the art of effective communication. Her high energy and enthusiasm to lift females up in organizations was a truly inspiring addition to the conference.

With 19 years of experience within Fortune 100 companies, Denise has honed the ability to deliver and receive messages across language, cultural and communication-style barriers. She has been recognized for excellence in leadership from companies including Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana, PepsiCo, General Electric and MillerCoors. Denise continues her focus on empowering people by traveling and teaching effective communication to professionals worldwide.

Denise began with the importance of leading with your best self and authentic mind. Something that often gets in the way of this is imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is a feeling of doubting your abilities and not being worthy of success. Many leaders, especially women, face feelings of imposter syndrome every day, noted Denise. This way of thinking negatively impacts both psychological and physical wellbeing. To combat feelings of imposter syndrome, Denise reminded the audience that you own your reality and “thriving starts with knowing your worth, knowing that you are enough, knowing that you bring value to your work and you are needed every single day.” She provided a helpful tip to start the day on a positive note. Begin each morning by taking an inventory of the great things you accomplished yesterday and what you want to gain from the day ahead.

Exuding your authentic self was a sentiment reiterated throughout Denise’s presentation as she emphasized that embracing differences in others starts with embracing ourselves. Understanding what matters to you and communicating that with others is key to demonstrating effective leadership.

Denise then shared a five-step process to activating an effective leader with questions to ask yourself at each stage.

1. Remove the barriers. Whom or what do I need to include to succeed?
2. Plan the action. What do I want to gain from this?
3. Discover the possibilities. What is the best thing that could happen?
4. Establish focus. What has become clear and what should I focus on?
5. Review & recap. What am I going to do and when based on the desired outcomes?

This plan provided the audience with a tangible takeaway; we can all start at step one and ask ourselves thoughtful questions to become a more effective leader. She also shared valuable techniques for demonstrating your worth.

Denise left us with a line that aptly recaps her engaging session, “you are worth every bit of success that you aspire.” We sincerely thank Denise for her expertise and dedication to uplift women and support their personal and professional growth.

Missed an #ItronInspire21 session? All content will be available to watch on-demand through Nov. 5.