by Sally Anderson
Having been in the leadership trenches for 3 decades I thought I would highlight my take on 25 areas ‘mindset related’ that I believe will assist women in leadership to elevate to the next level.
I also wish to start out on a positive note: So, to those executive women who hold leadership positions who have ‘done the work’, I salute you! I get what it takes. I celebrate those with fabulous marriages, terrific kids who are awesome, those who balance without complaint their values around family and their ambition in the workforce/chosen careers, correct the crowns of their fellow leadership sistas, and powerfully make their mark in the world, you are bloody legends in my opinion.
I will keep this as succinct as possible – Top 25 recommendations to those women in leadership positions (I trust you find this of benefit).
1) STABILITY IN YOUR PRIMARY RELATIONSHIP
5 dysfunctional camps exist as a generalization:
(1) Single: Unable to secure a stable primary relationship, married to their job/position.
(2) De facto relationship: Unwilling/resistant to commit to marriage.
(3) Inconsistent relationships: Constantly attracting men who are emotionally unavailable & in a paradigm of making whatever
dysfunction mean something about them.
(4) Narcissistic relationship: In a cycle of mental, physical, emotional abuse and unable to break the cycle.
(5) Married: But not supported by their husband – Jealousy/competition exists and not satisfied.
The quality of your primary relationship has a massive impact on your effectiveness as a leader.
Recommendation – DO THE WORK, get the healing with the right practitioner to STOP sabotaging love.
2) NO GLASS CEILING
I do not buy into there being a glass ceiling, if I am completely honest, I believe women specifically use this as a convenient relinquishment bucket to not take responsibility for showing up in all their glory.
Recommendation: STOP buying into this media fueled paradigm that has NO reality but the reality to which you are giving it.
3) NO TALL POPPY
Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) is a term commonly used in Australia, referring to the expectation that poppies should grow together, and if one grows too tall, it is cut down to size. In the workplace, the study explored whether women were, like poppies, cut down due to their success and achievements.
I am not undermining the numerous surveys and case studies that validate the existence of Tall Poppy being a reality, but no external situation can impact your state unless YOU allow it.
Recommendation: Play your own game, find your lane, celebrate your uniqueness, get the right coach/mentor to embrace your genius.
4) MEN ARE YOUR ALLIES NOT YOUR ENEMY
I find a lot of women in leadership have issues with men. I am amazed at the countless stories of sexual harassment, hostile work environments, narcissistic behavior, subtle biases, racism, bullying, the list is endless. I am not undermining the circumstances that lead to injustice towards women in leadership HOWEVER, this does not need to define you. Your past cannot be in your future unless you allow it. If you find that these circumstances, follow you then you need to OWN the part you play in attracting these dynamics.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – get the healing to resolve whatever issues you have with men in your past and address why you tolerate not excelling to the degree you desire.
5) MOMMY/DADDY ISSUES
This is not unique to just female executives, it seems to be rife with male executives also BUT in the context of today’s article, your mother and your father were your primary female and male role models. Any issues you have in the workplace with either gender, male and/or female can always be linked back to the unhealed issues you have with your primary role models – ALWAYS!
Recommendation: If you have any issues with either parent, alive or passed on – DO THE WORK – get the healing to resolve whatever issues you have with either parent.
(6) CRAZY HORMONES
I will not be popular here for this is a common excuse women use. I am not the best coach to talk to when women table their hormonal state as an issue for whatever is playing out. Don’t get me wrong, hormone imbalance is a REAL issue for women but make it easy for yourself, seek the right counsel and get into alignment. The impact of being hormonally out of alignment is blatant self-sabotage.
Recommendation – Take responsibility for your health and wellbeing. Find the right practitioner and get a hormone test. This needs to be a critical action women in leadership need to take. Get your bloods done bi-annually!
7) FIND YOUR VOICE
This one is a personal bug bear of mine. If you have not found your voice yet in your leadership role then this is a direct function of whatever is unhealed from your past. You were fully self-expressed as a child believe you me! If you also have issues with not knowing how to navigate strong personality types as you are finding your voice get some coaching on how to become masterful in your communication.
Recommendation: How dare you sell out to your magnificence! DO THE WORK, get the healing to reclaim your God given right to be seen, heard, and understood!
8) CONFIDENCE WAS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT
The number of women who have confidence issues is infuriating. It is not unique to women specifically but boy oh boy a Lincoln toy; it’s definitely milked by women to relinquish responsibility for their power. There is no confidence gene. Confidence is a choice.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK, get the healing to reclaim your mana, mojo, moxie.
9) NO COMPETITION
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COMPETE with anyone, especially men – if you celebrated your male counterparts, you would see that there is nothing to compete with. AND as far are your female counterparts, they are part of your sista community, honor them also. How others are around you, yes including men, is a function of how you are showing up?
To those that are competing with you or see you as a threat, kill them with kindness, the leader who stands true to their values will always win.
Recommendation: If your listening is default oriented (disempowering) then you will find enough evidence to sink a ship to validate your dysfunctional listening – DO THE WORK – get the healing to resolve any insecurities you have going on…this can at times be directly related to sibling rivalry in childhood.
10) INTUITION POWER SOURCE – STOP SECOND GUESSING
It’s proven that women have a strong intuitive sense and yet I witness executive women constantly second guessing what they receive intuitively and live in CONFUSION.
Recommendation: Watch the STOP IT!
11) GUILT DRIVEN MAMA’S
I have coached many executive women who harbor a lot of guilt around balancing work and their commitments to their children. The stress that comes with this territory is extreme. Guilt does not forward anyone’s game.
The above video applies here also. Get present to the costs of feeding such a destructive self-defeating paradigm.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – get the support you need to honor being a fabulous mother/leader. Follow the role models who are leaving work on the dot at 3pm/5pm to honor their commitment as a mother.
12) FAT /SKINNY/UGLY VICIOUS CYCLE
Body dysmorphia and or self-loathing seems to be an epidemic for women specifically – its all-consuming. If you do not think this impacts your effectiveness as a leader, think again – your obsession with your body and what’s wrong with you is border-line psychotic. Weight is just about protection, nothing more, nothing less.
AND the number of women in leadership retreats that I have led who are drop dead gorgeous, perfect bodies that run that they are fat and ugly, BEJESUS!!!!!!!! If they were fat and ugly, different story but when this is not the case, take responsibility and have some gratitude for the gifts that God gave you.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – coming home to loving yourself unconditionally is a priceless journey, one you deserve to take. END the vicious cycle and apply reverse psychology. Thank the universe for the weight, for protecting you. Thank the universe for keeping you safe. When you view weight in this way and get the healing, one can then realize that life will be safe and then the weight can go…
(13) RAGING INNER CRITIC
This seems to be even more prevalent the higher up the corporate ladder women go. If you would not verbally abuse a 5 year old child standing beside you right now, what on earth have you done to warrant such self-abuse on a day-to-day basis. Some women have used their inner critic for positive purposes to achieve the heights of what they have achieved BUT there are other ways to achieve success without it being so destructive.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – reaching the realm of equanimity cannot be described in words. You deserve peace and raving cheer leaders in your life, not an unhealed mechanism that no longer serves you – get the healing on honoring your little girl.
14) COMPARISON ADDICTION
Preoccupation with what others are doing, how they look, what they drive, what they earn, how they administer themselves coupled with perfectionism is a cocktail of explosive proportions.
Recommendation: Focus on YOUR game! DO THE WORK – get the healing on why you feel the need to compare yourself to others.
15) SPLIT PERSONALITY
I feel for men, sorry I do, for women can be erratic and inconsistent with how they express themselves and/or how they show up in the world. Women as a generalization if insecure try so hard to fit in and try to mold themselves into how they perceive XYZ want them to be – exhausting to witness. Absolutely NO freedom here on any level.
Recommendation: Give yourself permission to be YOU! The freedom you will experience will be life defining – DO THE WORK –To those women who believe people can’t handle you at full throttle, believe me they can, let’s find evidence that this is the case.
16) BABIES V CAREER
The amount of executive women who for years have said, ‘I do not wish to get married and I do not want to have kids’, and it’s been like a negative affirmation they have fed for years THEN they meet the one and they want to have kids and then wonder why they struggle with falling pregnant – just sad.
Recommendation: Language creates the reality of your world, watch what you repetitively tell yourself. I have partnered many women to fall pregnant who have been told that they cannot have children – know the power of the mind is almighty and with the right practitioner miracles are possible AND even if it’s medically proven you cannot have children, then there are many babies in the world that need mothers…you have many role models in the world that have achieved both, a fulfilling career and a family, if you want it, stand for it.
17) AMBITION AT ALL COSTS
The number of women who obsess with their careers at all costs never find fulfilment or satisfaction – they will step over anybody in their path and the day will always come where karma will play out.
Recommendation: Get present to the costs of living completely out of alignment with any semblance of value set. I live by the philosophy of ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’ – try it on – DO THE WORK – get the healing to end the addiction to external validation.
18) CALM THE FARM – DRAMA QUEEN ADDICTION
Women can be embarrassing at a level given the degree to which they provide enough evidence for men to listen to them as “drama queens”. If you constantly attract drama, check out where you are operating.
Recommendation: Drama is a direct result of unhealed issues from your childhood, you have to keep attracting devastating experiences to validate your experience of the world – DO THE WORK – get the healing to resolve whatever is incomplete from your past, otherwise you will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you are not already.
19) VICTIM MENTALITY
The distinction ‘victim’ is ‘powerless to change the situation’. Countless executive women abdicate responsibility and wonder why they repetitively experience the situations they do not realize that they are part of the dynamic. So, if you are ready to end the vicious cycle of feeling like a victim then come on down!
Recommendation: Dare I repeat myself, yes you guessed it, DO THE WORK – get the healing for a life with no drama is beyond freeing.
20) THE UNIVERSE EXISTS
Women when they are in their power are awe-inspiring. Women who are connected to their faith, whatever that is for them are formidable. Those that achieve the unachievable know how to leverage their co-creative ability. They act as a direct conduit for their calling. Who you are in your human form is limited, yet who you are in your co-creative form is limitless.
Recommendation: If you are wanting to reach the heights of your leadership potential, I believe the #1 action is to become unconsciously competent in your ability to co-create your new reality by your connection to your faith.
21) MASCULINE V FEMININE
When operating in male dominated industries it is easy for a woman to operate more from the masculine than from the feminine. Just wearing a dress for example does not make you feminine. Learning to honor your X-factor of feminine power takes practice. Embracing your feminine is not weakness, it is your power source.
Recommendation: Have fun exploring what it means to be feminine for you, work with the right practitioner to unearth why you sold out to the one priceless asset that comes with being a woman.
22) COMPASSION FOR THE BULLIES
Bullying in the workplace is very real. Sad but true. One finger pointing out, there are always 3 fingers pointing back. If you are the target of being bullied, then learn to have compassion for what it must be like in the bullies shoes in their quiet moments as to why you are the target of their default behavior. The more vehement their address, the more it says about them than it does about you!
Recommendation: BOUNDARIES, what becomes acceptable, becomes inevitable. You educate people on what’s acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Get the support to end this unacceptable paradigm!
23) OWN YOUR WORTH
Inequity around what you earn is a reality in some workplaces. If you are a woman who does not feel she is being paid her worth, stop tolerating this. Either champion what you believe you deserve to be paid for in your existing work environment or find it in another. Tolerating this is direct sabotage.
Recommendation: Work with a coach/mentor to find the right workplace that will honor your worth and pay in accordance.
24) MARTYRDOM
Being all things to all people, your husband/partner, kids, work demands, extended family, friends, working all hours that God sends, feeling depleted, running on empty, day after day, week after week, month after month is pure martyrdom! No petrol in the car, ain’t
going to go anywhere – operating over the top of what you tolerate will result in manifesting a ‘mac truck’ experience.
Recommendation: BOUNDARIES, boundaries, boundaries. You are the creator and designer of your life. You are no good to anyone if you fall over! Put the oxygen mask on yourself FIRST! Learn to say ‘no’ with respect. Identify what you tolerate, what you persistently complain about and stop tolerating the degree of self-sabotage you administer.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – get the healing on your self-worth – why is everyone else worth it and you are not!
25) RUNNING SOME ‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH/DUMB’ PARADIGM
I cannot tell you the number of women I have coached who have every known academic achievement up the ying yang, highly, highly, highly accomplished women who regardless of the amount of degree’s they have still run a belief that they are ‘dumb’ or ‘not good enough’. A high percentage of women in this category are women who have been adopted.
Recommendation: DO THE WORK – Get the healing on your childhood beliefs and rewire that negative programming. It’s time to celebrate and acknowledge your achievements – REMEMBER, all of human suffering is a function of what you make things mean. If you wish to no longer suffer, stop making things mean something.
In closing,
There are a lot of little boys and little girls running businesses, economies, countries due to the degree to which they are unhealed. Pre COVID the leadership landscape was very linear, masculine, traditional, hard skills focused. Post COVID the entire leadership landscape has changed. More openness to new leadership modalities, ones that embrace non-linear, non-traditional teachings, soft skills focused. Leaders are used to being in control and currently they are challenged with how to navigate uncertainty for a high percentage have not done the deep work!
As you will see the main recommendation is HEALING, HEALING, HEALING, such an underrated practice that is so needed for recalibration of any human being, ESPECIALLY those in leadership. I am standing for healing being a mandatory practice in every executive environment on the planet. Maybe it is time to champion your inner diva and take your power back! All is possible when you surrender to your magnificence!
Sally Anderson
