Why High-Potential Women Are Ambivalent about Leadership
Originally published by Mira Brancu for Psychology Today
When I moved from being a clinical psychologist in a leadership role to being an organization developmental psychologist supporting other women in leadership roles, my aim initially was to help them navigate the complex external labyrinth of their organizational politics while also the internal labyrinth of unlearning the unhealthy, systemic gendered messages about how they “should” show up as leaders.
What I started noticing over time as I started working with women at various stages of their leadership journey—but especially those around mid-career—is that many of them were ambitious, driven, and high-achieving, but reluctant or ambivalent about taking on leadership roles. On the surface, one would label this as a lack of confidence.
In fact, when I initially conducted a literature review of leadership development programs aimed at women, many of them were consistently focused on addressing “imposter syndrome” and “confidence” of women leaders. My gut, based on direct work with these women and on having experienced this ambivalence myself, was that there was more to this issue than imposter syndrome and confidence—and that in fact labeling it as such felt insulting, invalidating, and inaccurate.