The Benefits of Female Leadership

Why Women Should Be Creating a New Model

Let’s name the elephant in the boardroom.

The traditional model of leadership—the one most corporations still reward—was built by men, for men. It was designed in war rooms and carried into boardrooms, glorifying hierarchy, control, and competition. And for decades, women were told: if you want to lead, learn to play their game.

And oh Brave Soul, didn’t we try.

We deepened our voices. We straightened our backs. We led with logic and buried our intuition. We dialed down our empathy so we wouldn’t be seen as too emotional. We learned to interrupt louder voices in meetings, to quantify our worth, to over-prepare so we couldn’t be questioned.

And still—we were questioned.

We didn’t just have to prove ourselves. We had to outperform everyone in the room just to be considered.

But here’s the quiet revolution: More and more women are waking up to the soul-deep truth that conforming to someone else’s model of leadership doesn’t just cost us our energy. It costs us ourselves.

The Real Cost of Wearing the Mask

Let me tell you a story.

One of my brilliant clients, a VP at a global tech company, came to me unraveling at the seams. On paper, she was crushing it. Promotion after promotion. She had done everything right.

But behind the polished exterior was a woman who hadn’t cried in three years because she feared it would unhinge everything she’d built. She was exhausted, emotionally numb, and quietly resenting her success.

"I don’t even know what my leadership style is anymore," she said. "I just know how to lead like them."

This is the cost of a model that doesn’t make space for our full humanity. A model that rewards masculine traits—assertiveness, dominance, detachment—and punishes the very qualities that make us powerful: empathy, relational wisdom, intuition, collaboration.

The kicker? The data proves that those exact traits are what modern organizations need most.

The Research Is In: Women Leaders Outperform

Let’s talk numbers. According to a 2020 study by McKinsey & Company, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability (source).

A Harvard Business Review analysis found that women outscored men on 84% of leadership competencies, including initiative, resilience, integrity, and results-driven behavior (source).

Let that sink in, Brave One.

And still, we’re expected to "lead like a man" to get ahead.

But it gets better.

Creativity and innovation? A study published by Nature in 2024 showed that companies with more women in leadership produced significantly higher innovation scores across industries (source).

Team cohesion and retention? Organizations led by women experience lower turnover, higher employee engagement, and more psychologically safe environments.

In short: When women lead as themselves, everybody wins.

Why the Old Model Feels So Off

Let’s call it what it is: the traditional leadership mold was built on the battlefield, not the village. It was designed for conquest, not collaboration.

That mold rewards:

• Talking over listening

• Decision-making in isolation

• Hierarchy over humanity

• Hustle over health

Now, if you're a woman in finance or tech, you know the tension. You've had to be the most prepared, the most polished, the most strategic voice in the room just to be heard.

You’ve probably sat in meetings where you made a point that was ignored—until a man repeated it ten minutes later.

You’ve been told you need to be more confident. Then told you come on too strong.

You’ve been expected to lead like a man—but still smile more, soften your tone, and stay likeable.

This isn’t leadership. It’s performance.

And Brave Soul, it’s exhausting.

What Women’s Leadership Really Looks Like

When we strip away the pressure to conform, when we lead from alignment instead of armor, this is what feminine-forward leadership can look like:

• Building trust instead of enforcing compliance

• Asking deeper questions instead of rushing to answers

• Listening to intuition as well as data

• Holding space for complexity instead of demanding certainty

• Leading from presence, not performance

This isn’t about gender roles or binaries. It’s about honoring the traits long dismissed in traditional leadership as “too soft”—and realizing they’re actually power moves.

If this is resonating, Brave Soul, I go even deeper into this in Aligned Leadership Unlocked—a powerful breakdown of how leadership from alignment elevates both your presence and your impact.

The Psychological Truth: Suppressing Your Style Hurts You

Psychologists call it "emotional labor" when you constantly monitor, edit, and suppress who you are to match what’s expected.

Women in leadership do this every day.

And it comes at a cost.

Studies show that chronic emotional suppression—a common form of self-suppression among women in leadership—is directly linked to increased psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, and burnout (source; source).

So when we talk about leading like you, we’re not just talking about authenticity for the sake of feel-good vibes. We’re talking about your well-being. Your wholeness. Your capacity to lead long-term without breaking down.

The Way Forward: Aligned Leadership

Aligned leadership isn’t about swinging the pendulum from masculine to feminine. It’s about integrating what’s true, wise, and effective from both—and filtering it through your values, energy, and inner compass.

It’s not about abandoning ambition. It’s about redefining what success feels like, not just what it looks like on LinkedIn.

Ready to explore what this could look like for you in real life?

Click the image above to access my free on-demand Aligned Leadership Masterclass—a bold, no-BS invitation into what happens when we lead from alignment.

You Don’t Have to Perform to Lead

You don’t need another certification. You don’t need to hustle harder. You don’t need to prove your worth one more damn time.

You already are enough. You already have everything you need to lead—deeply, brilliantly, sustainably.

All that’s missing? Is permission.

And here’s the beautiful twist: No one else can give it to you. But you? You can claim it.

Today.

I’d Love to Hear From You What part of the old leadership model have you been trying to fit into? And what would it look like if you finally gave yourself permission to lead like you, Brave One?

Drop your reflections in the comments—because your story might be the exact catalyst another woman needs to rewrite her own.