Women in Leadership: The ‘Good Female Leader’

I’ve let so many socialised roles I’ve preformed go.

The Good Girl. The Good Student. The Good Girlfriend. The Good Carer. The Good Mother.

I am a practitioner. And I also want to be an intentional leader. A tenacious advocate in the women’s, perinatal and maternal health space. As I claimed these wants, I dug into what I knew about women in leadership, and what do ya know. I found another internalised social role inside myself ripe for letting go.

I have let the

Good Girl / Good Partner / Good Mother

that lived inside me go.

That is, of course,

a tidy sentence to tell a messy truth -

I sacrificed almost everything

wrestling to try and maintain those things.

Like many, I’ve expended a lot

chasing ideals that don’t exist.

Getting close enough each time

to believe it was possible.

The good girl with 90% on every test.

The good partner that holds it all with ease.

The good mother that denies the limits of what it is to be human.

Who completes every task on a whisper of sleep.

Like many, I have walked so many ‘Good’

but in reality - gruelling paths.

And found freedom in letting them fall away.

In claiming what is Real over what is Good.

Recently I've unearthed another 'Good' inside me

to let go of -

The Good Female Leader.

Inside my body

my Good Girl and Good Leader

have combined -

contorting themselves into such a shape.

Here is the story that has lived

in my bones about

being

a Good Female Leader.

When A Good Girl Becomes A Good Leader :

Be smart, but be quiet.

Know the answer, but don’t open your mouth.

Be successful, but not powerful.

Be intelligent, but don’t desire to change

anything real.

All potential, no kinetic.

Sit in everything that you know, quietly.

And today

that story dies.

Today my voice expands

because being Quiet in order to be recognised as ‘Good’

is not something

I am willing to participate in

anymore.

Today I choose to dismantle The Good Leader

I was trying to be

and embody The Real Leader I know I can become.

Because this is power in the right place.

And this is how change is made.

Let me advocate for you and support you in the clinic.

And let this reflection influence what you too have internalised as your role as a woman in leadership.