Leadership for women is not just meaningful in the realm of professional development; we have the potential to lead in every aspect of our lives. An often unacknowledged hurdle is that leadership requires first our entitlement to lead, not just the skills or capacity to lead.
Successful leadership must include some tolerance for other people’s disapproval of our decision-making and leadership. It is naive to assume that all decisions are made with harmonious consensus - or even need to be. Women are acutely sensitive to visual interpersonal and emotional cues as compared to men. Perceived disapproval can be subtle (e.g. catching a judgmental side-eye glance between two other mothers in the playground) to overt (a subordinate at work challenging your authority or decision). The ability to tolerate negative reactions from others - without assuming that your authority or leadership has now somehow become illegitimate - is central to maintaining a healthy entitlement to lead, and to leadership itself.
Do we always feel 100% confident when we lead? Of course not. But let’s do away with the fantasy that good leadership always feels harmonious and that full consensus is something that is immediately built or required. And paying attention to the opinions of what I refer to as “non-crucial others” is a drain on leadership and focus. The term “non-crucial others” should not be confused with defining anyone as somehow unimportant to you. Rather, a non-crucial other is anyone who is not authorized and not responsible to make that decision in real time. When we think that through, “non-crucial others” are most other people, most of the time! Even the people closest to us might be non-crucial others in this regard if they are not the ones actually responsible for and authorized to make our leadership decisions. So do yourself a favor: when you own the responsibility, entitle yourself to lead!