The Lie Women Were Sold About Leadership

This is the kind of leadership that leaves very little to chance. But that rigid protocol doesn't feel like me. Not because I can’t do it, but because I know I would have to override something instinctive in order to sustain it.

He lost me at cold plunges daily. To be fair, there’s real science behind cold exposure. It can support mood, inflammation, and resilience. But it’s also a stressor, and women’s physiology doesn’t respond to stress in a one-size-fits-all way. Studies show that hormonal shifts across the menstrual cycle influence cortisol response, particularly in the luteal phase. If the body is already in a quiet boxing match with itself, it doesn't need a cold plunge to step into the ring for added volatility. This may be great advice for guys. But does this actually apply to women?

Every Day I’m Hustlin’

If you came of age professionally like I did in the early aughts, you were shaped by hustle culture. Andy from The Devil Wears Prada taught us that competence meant emotional restraint, endurance, and proving you could keep up without breaking. Lean In, by former Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg, taught us to claim a seat at the table but didn’t fully question the structure of the table itself.

The cultural zeitgeist of the time was consistent. Be efficient and unemotional (keep your tears in the bathroom, ladies!), be composed at all times, and be excellent, but never messy. Dedication was demonstrated by working late and wearing it like a badge of honor. Millennials were so committed to this that business casual clubwear became a genre. We didn’t learn how to lead. We learned how to perform leadership in a way that mirrored masculinity.

We learned how to perform leadership in a way that mirrored masculinity.

Around the same time, Anne-Marie Slaughter’s "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All" surfaced a harder truth: women could have it all, just not at the same time. I was redder than the bottom of a Louboutin after reading it. My whole life I had been fed the first part of it “women can have it all,” but no one had warned me about the latter. We could have children, we could have careers, and we could lead, but the structure wasn’t designed to support all of these things at once. “Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work,” she writes. But really, in what industry does that path to leadership allow for that kind of control?

She contends, “The best hope for improving the lot of all women… is to close the leadership gap… to ensure that women are equally represented in the ranks of corporate executives and judicial leaders. Only when women wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society that genuinely works for all women.” Yet, it’s hard to achieve those lofty goals when we're competing in a structure we can’t change.

Leaning Out

As time progresses, the appetite around hustle culture seems to be shifting. The conversation has started to move from leaning in to leaning out. In 2025, that shift became more explicit, as the Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In showed women reporting lower interest in promotions than men for the first time in a decade. An emerging ambition gap is “sharpest at the extremes,” where only 69% of entry-level women want a promotion vs. 80% of entry-level men, and 84% of senior-level women vs. 92% of senior-level men. To add insult to injury, Sandberg’s Lean In nonprofit shed a quarter of its staff in the last year. The zeitgeist is shifting.

And now we're seeing a rejection of the traditional corporate ladder and the version of leadership it requires. An Evie article recently captured the shift: “We leaned in until our backs broke, and now a growing number of women are standing up straight, looking around, and saying, 'Actually, I’d rather lean into my family.'”

Have we misappropriated feminine leadership as “soft skills,” as if they're optional?

Working in finance, I go to events all the time and meet women who mean well, but feel rigid. When I hear a finance bro delivering elite acronyms, with that air of confidence and circumstance, I expect it. But when my female counterparts match that energy, it feels cringe.

I’m willing to be 1% wrong about my observation. However, I can’t help but wonder who these women are when they’re not at work. Many of them are mothers, partners, full people with depth and range, so where does that go? Do they feel it too, that quiet constraint, that rigidity of expectation?

Performing masculinity works. It builds credibility and gets results. But when we operate within the structure provided without taking the time to check in with ourselves to ask, "Is this how I want to show up, or how I think I need to show up?" we start to disconnect from our core. Over time, that disconnection creates a cold distance within ourselves, like we’re cutting off parts of who we are. No wonder some women in the workplace get labeled “hard to work with.” These women are likely just trying to operate within the guidelines they believe they have to.

In my early 20s, I was called a bull in a china shop. A lot. I was a little forceful and moved fast, but I also got results. I wanted people to be brief, be bright, and be out of my way. Indeed, those were actual results from a professional aptitude test I took. The headline in every review was that I was “difficult to work with,” “too direct,” and needed to be “nicer.” Yet, I felt that I was just doing my job (and doing it well).

I remember asking myself, if I were a guy, would someone tell me I was too direct? I’m not sitting here crying gender bias. But I did start to wonder, was there something about not leaning into my feminine nature that was actually hurting my trajectory? I had always thought leadership meant you had to be a certain kind of way.

At some point, the question shifts from "Can I succeed like this?" to "Do I even want to?"

A few years ago, I earned a Women’s Leadership Certification through the Yale School of Management. The program set out to challenge traditional power structures and expand how leadership is understood, placing emphasis on empathy, nervous system regulation, communication, and sustainable performance. It reframed leadership not as constant output, but as something that requires awareness, presence, and the ability to work with (not against) your own physiology.

It raised a sharper question: have we misappropriated feminine leadership as “soft skills,” as if they're optional? We’ve treated these leadership skills as secondary, nice to have, but not essential. In reality, maybe that’s what we should be leaning into.

Feminine Leadership

Feminine leadership traits like emotional intelligence, intuition, collaboration, and guidance without force don’t sit beneath the hierarchy of masculine leadership traits like mission, authority, or execution. They shape how those tools are applied. In practice, feminine leadership can be working in a rhythm and flow that feels aligned with our internal state, not in constant opposition to it. For example, she can walk into a meeting with a clear point of view while still leaving space for what emerges in the room, for better ideas, for shifts, or for opportunities she didn’t plan for.

For years, women have been told explicitly or implicitly that to be taken seriously, they need to operate within a masculine framework, and many have done that exceptionally well. But at some point, the question shifts from "Can I succeed like this?" to "Do I even want to?" Because I don’t just want to lead. I want to lead like a woman. Not a softened version of leadership, not a rebranded set of soft skills, but something fuller, something that integrates intuition and logic, structure and creativity, discipline and depth. We already know women can succeed by performing masculinity.

The better question is: what becomes possible when we stop performing and start leading as ourselves?