Leadership Didn’t Ask You to Be Less So Why Are You Shrinking?

Let’s talk about the paradox so many women in leadership face:
Be strong but not too strong.
Be soft but not too soft.
Be competent but don’t intimidate anyone.
And if you’re actually successful? Now you’re either “too much”… or somehow still “not enough.”

Sound familiar?

Yeah. That part.

But here’s the truth: leadership was never meant to squeeze you into someone else’s version of who you should be. It’s not about fitting in it’s about coming home to yourself.

Leadership Isn’t a Role. It’s a Reclamation

So many women work their way to the top only to wake up one day asking, Where did I go?

You second-guess your gut. You water down your voice. You shape-shift just to be taken seriously. And in the process, the fire that once fueled you starts to flicker.

I know that tension intimately. I built the career, earned the credentials, played all the right roles therapist, partner, parent, achiever and somewhere along the way, I lost touch with me. Until my body called a timeout. Vertigo knocked me flat and handed me a truth I couldn’t unsee:

The version of success I was chasing was costing me myself.

That’s not just burnout. That’s self-abandonment disguised as ambition.

The Myth of Balance Is a Setup

Let’s call it like it is: the way we talk about “balance” is just another impossible standard. A polished version of “do it all, smile while doing it, and don’t let anyone see you sweat.”

When it doesn’t work, we don’t question the system we question ourselves.

But real leadership isn’t about balance. It’s about boundaries.

It’s learning to say no without guilt.
To choose rest over performance.
To trust that honoring your wellbeing isn’t indulgent it’s essential.

Because when a woman is truly well grounded, nourished, in her body she becomes unstoppable. She leads with clarity. With presence. With power that doesn’t require her to prove anything.

Real Leadership Looks a Lot Like You When You’re Not Shrinking

The best leaders don’t lead by force.
They lead through presence.
Through discernment.
Through the courage to slow down, listen, and respond from truth not urgency.

You know what’s radical? A woman in power who’s not running on fumes.
You know what’s revolutionary? A woman who leads without losing herself in the process.

That’s the shift I stand for.
Not hustling harder.
Not contorting yourself to fit broken systems.
But reclaiming a leadership paradigm rooted in wholeness.

Where your intuition is an asset not a liability.
Where your softness is part of your strength.
Where your “no” is clear, kind, and sacred.
And where your presence not your perfection is what changes the room.

Ask Yourself This:

What if you didn’t need to do more to be a great leader?
What if you just needed to stop hiding the parts of you that already are?

Because leadership never asked you to shrink.
It asked you to rise.
Fully. Boldly. Unapologetically.

And if you’re ready to reclaim that woman the one who leads from her wholeness, not her wounds I’d love to walk with you. Let's begin together. Get started here.