The Strength You Were Told to Hide Is the One the Research Says You Need Most

I want to ask you about a specific kind of exhaustion. Not the exhaustion of overwork — though that is real and should be taken seriously. This is something subtler, and in my experience more corrosive.

It is the exhaustion of self-editing. Of moderating your warmth to appear more authoritative. Of turning down your collaborative instinct to appear more decisive. Of managing how much you care — about the people you work with, about the purpose behind what you are building — because caring too visibly has a cost.

If you recognise that, I want to tell you what the research says — and what I believe it means for how you lead.

Leadership Has Always Been Gendered. The Research Is Clear.

In my published academic work, I examine how the culture, discourse, imagery, and practice of leadership have been constructed as a predominantly masculine enterprise. The traits that have been coded as 'leadership qualities' — rationality, assertiveness, instrumentality, control, dominance, individual achievement — are not neutral descriptions of effectiveness. They are social constructions: choices made over centuries about which human qualities would be valued in those with authority, and which would not (Acker, 2006; Cals & Smircich, 1993).

The dismissal of feminine qualities was not accidental. It was structurally necessary. Researcher Virginia Schein conducted extensive studies on the relationship between sex-role stereotypes and management characteristics and found something striking: women promoted to senior management positions often aspired to managing styles widely perceived as masculine rather than feminine. Female senior managers, in some cases, were more 'like men than men themselves' (Schein, 2001). Not because those women lacked self-knowledge, but because the system rewarded a particular performance — and they were paying attention.

"You did not internalise the masculine model because you are weak. You internalised it because it was the only model on offer. That is a systemic problem, not a personal failing."

What the Research Actually Shows About Relational Leadership

Here is what makes this so important now. The traits associated with relational leadership — the leadership model that the knowledge economy actually requires — are feminine. Not exclusively possessed by women. Not fixed by biology. But socially ascribed to women in our culture, and therefore mostly underdeveloped in the leaders who were trained to aspire to the masculine ideal (Fletcher, 2004; Fondas, 1997; Calvert & Ramsey, 1992).

Those traits include: empathy and interpersonal sensitivity. Care and attentiveness to others' needs. A preference for egalitarian, cooperative relationships over hierarchical ones. Orientation toward collective interest and group cohesion. The knowledge of how to grow people — not just manage them.

The shift in what leadership requires is not a soft, cultural trend. It is a structural consequence of operating in a knowledge economy where value is created through human relationships and collective intelligence rather than through the efficient execution of standardised tasks. In that environment, the skills of growing people and enabling genuine collaboration are not nice-to-have supplements to 'real' business capability. They are the core.

The Power Question

There is one more dimension to this that I think is essential to name, because it is often left out of leadership conversations: the question of power.

Traditional masculine leadership enacts what scholar Joyce Fletcher (2004) calls 'power over' — authority derived from position, exercised downward. Female leadership qualities, by contrast, enact 'power within': the capacity to generate energy, confidence, and creative contribution in others — not by controlling them, but by genuinely seeing them. In a system of unequal power, 'power over' distorts the equal exchange required for real collaboration. 'Power within' enables it.

Behind-the-scenes work — building a team, preventing crises, creating the conditions in which others can do their best thinking — has historically been overlooked and unrewarded in organisations, because it is not visible in the way that individual heroic achievement is visible. Research confirms this is disproportionately women's work. And research also confirms it is disproportionately essential to the high-performing organisations of the future.

The qualities you were told to hide are the ones the evidence says matter most. The leadership approach you were told to soften is the one the era demands. You are not behind the curve. You are, in the most precise sense, ahead of it.

The invitation now is to lead from that — openly, strategically, and without apology. Not as a personal statement, but as a deliberate business choice. Because it is the choice most aligned with both the research and the reality of the world you are operating in.

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Research Foundation: This essay draws on my published chapter "From 'I' to 'We' Through 'Female' Leadership," engaging with Fletcher (2004) on gendered power dynamics, Schein (1975/2001) on sex-role stereotypes in management, Fondas (1997) on the feminisation of management discourse, and Acker (2006) on gender and organisations.

If you are ready to build your venture around your actual strengths — with the research to back you up and the strategic clarity to move forward — this is the work of NavigatingTransformation. I work with women founders who are done apologising and ready to build. NavigatingTransformation@amfortas.eu                                                                                                    — Dr. Eleftheria Egel, NavigatingTransformation