The Real Reason Why Women Leaders Are Unhappy
What is Cultural Curation
We live in a culture obsessed with curation. It’s right in front of us. Instagram. “X.” TikTok. LinkedIn. Substack. Even how we answer when someone asks us, “How are you?” We learnt very early and often that appearances matter. How we present ourselves. How we message ourselves. How we fit the mold. This is curation.
We have all curated our professional backgrounds. Fundamentally this is what a resume is. I'm more concerned about something else, especially for women ...
I'm concerned about how we've curated our in-person professionally identity. Throughout our whole careers we are constantly learning the "acceptable " way to curate ourselves in terms of style, behaviors, actions, opinions and voices. It all existed long before social media. Curation was associated with the right schools. The right neighborhoods. The right friend groups. The remarkable and equally expected thing is that we learnt early on that curation yields a benefit….significant benefits.
“Good girl” got us approval for complying “appropriately.” For some women it equated to love. As humans we want more of both. All all the time. In our brains, being a part of the pack is attached to safety. Safety equals survival. Survival is everything.
Because we’re not stupid, we learnt that if we did what was expected of us to achieve, we’d be successful in our careers. For the many of you reading this, it has worked. Your years of cultural curation has yielded intangible and tangible benefits including financial. Until, one day the benefits don’t feel the same. They don’t elicit the same spark and fire they once did. This is the problem with that personal level of cultural curation...
It's based on a system that does not seek to truly understand nor will it modify to the needs, desires, nuances, and characteristics of women. Heaven forbid you be intersectional. You'll feel as if you're floating in space untethered.
The Cultural Curation Trap
When women like you meet the professional pinnacle of leading an organization, company, educational institution, or your own business, women are so personally professionally curated we habitually over self-edit. We never sit in our true identity, authority or creativity because that level of authenticity is taught to us to be dangerous. It's feared as potentially career, job or business ending. Then many women look around and think: "
“Why isn't being here as great as I imagined it would be?"
"Why am I showing up this way?” How did this happen?
“This time in my life feels awful, when it should feel great."
I certainly thought all of these things when I lead my organization.
Then we think it must be this job or this amount of money I’m earning. So we go in search of something different. “Better.” It is possible it could be the job or money. But often when I talk with women leaders they’ve found out through experience it’s not. So what is it?
The Cultural Curation Cure
It’s you. Better put, it’s this version of you. You are not yourself and you haven’t been for a long time. That little girl, and teenager with the self identify crisis who wanted to be one way, but opted for another way of being in order to fit in, are attempting to claw themselves out of the grave you and culture buried them it. This may seem dramatic. But it IS dramatic. Rarely do we talk about how this identify crisis can be part and parcel for women once they begin leading an organization. But it is. When this comes up, you really only have two choices. One, to ignore this massive discomfort or confusion. Two, to do the hard work of digging out who you truly are and laying aside who you’re supposed to be.
Here are some ways to do that.
Self-Image Coaching. Not task oriented coaching but self-image coaching. Because how you see yourself is a reflection of every behavior, internal and external conversation and choice you make. Of course I’m going to tell you, my coaching can help you get back to who you really are without adding more “to-do” on your plate and the measurement of productivity.
Therapy. Sometimes our abdication of our true selves are based on very complex emotional traumas, or scars. Those need a mental health professional. Therefore, don’t stop until you find the one that is a good fit for you. The only thing wrong with seeking out this form of help, is not seeking it out at all.
Journaling. Not just any journaling. Seek out specific journals or prompts that get to the core of self image work. If you subscribe to my newsletter (at the bottom of the page link) you can get reflective prompts sent to your email regularly.
If coming back to yourself was an easy process, everyone would be doing it. That is why I suggest assistance. Because what most do, is go through the crisis, eventually give up the fighting, and go back to the devil they and everyone else knows. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can be you, in the title and with the money you’re getting. It’s just a matter of importance, and core need.