Yes, I do this reminder every year. Why? Because I personally need this every year, and I've heard from many of you that you do too. So here goes...

It's only November and the madness has begun. What day is available for everyone? Whose house might we gather at? What new food allergies or interpersonal conflicts must be navigated? The mental load of the holidays is a big deal.

We know that globally, women continue to do 2/3 more unpaid domestic and carework labour than our male counterparts. And no, that figure does not account for the mental load that goes along with that work.

There was a time not so long ago when the word menopause would not be mentioned at all, definitely not at work. Today, everyone is talking about it. Recent research and reviews of past research have debunked some old fears about treating menopause and have opened up a lot more options for women to manage symptoms and restore a higher quality of life. All of that is good news. Great news really. Women “of a certain age” are no longer being completely ignored, and more women are seeking and demanding appropriate care for the many and varied symptoms and experiences of menopause.

I thought I was going to write this piece about functional burnout, because honestly that’s what I’m hearing about from a lot of women, and what I’ve been experiencing for a while myself. I think of functional burnout as that state where you feel exhausted, a bit flat and unsure how you’re going to keep going – but then you do keep going. Every day, you get up and do all the things that need doing. But when I thought about why I’m in that place, I realized at the core of it is what I say yes to and what I say no to. As someone who identifies as a “say yes” person, I’ve loved how many adventures and opportunities saying yes has opened up for me. But in my mid-50’s I’m finally exploring the art of saying no and all the doors that can actually open.

I love summer. The long days, the sunshine, jumping into a cold lake, getting out in my kayak or on my paddle board, flowers, farmers markets, eating outdoors, campfires…clearly, I could go on.

But maybe the best thing about summer is shifting into a lower gear. The volume of emails in my inbox goes down as so many people rotate through vacation weeks, people seem less stressed and less rushed, decisions get delayed until fall, the pace seems to naturally slow down. All of this gives us a bit more breathing room. Even when we’re not on vacation ourselves, we can downshift a bit, and that’s a necessary change for us all.

Okay, so I had my world rocked a while back and need to address it. As you know, I wrote this book about how women in leadership at parity could essentially save the world. I still believe that, by the way, but what I wasn’t as bold about in my writing before is that what we really need in leadership are feminists, be they of any gender.

A few weeks ago on a community call in a breakout room someone just said it clear as day – it’s not just that we need women to lead, we need feminists to lead.

As leaders, developing people becomes a huge part of the job.

The key skill set is the ability to find the potential in people (and processes) and to develop that potential. One thing we’ve learned the hard way over the years is that if we don’t invest in developing the potential of our people, there are some predictable consequences. One is that your workload never decreases. If getting things done well depends on you, your talent, your constant instruction, then you’ll be forever busy and unable to level up your own thinking and activities. Another is that in the absence of meaningful development your top talent will likely look elsewhere.

So, when it comes to development, we look at three related but distinct leadership capabilities: coaching, mentoring and sponsoring.

The question of the day is, if I’m not going to be in my own corner, who is? This question came to me as I was skiing along on a quiet trail through the woods. My first ski of the season and one of the places I do my best thinking, like a moving meditation where my mind can just do its thing.

I was reflecting on an experience I’d had that morning. A year ago, I published and launched a book, “Women, Leadership & Saving the World: Why Everything Gets Better When Women Lead” and at the beginning, I was putting myself out there a lot. The launch party, guesting on a lot of podcasts and doing all the things you’re supposed to do when you write a book. But somewhere in there I got a vulnerability hangover and pulled back. You know those vulnerability hangovers? When you put yourself out there – tell someone you love them, say what you really think, have the difficult conversation, go after what you really want, publish a book – and it’s exciting and scary, and it feels right but also like too much. But you screw up your courage and do it. And then feel the need to crawl into bed, pull up the covers and regroup.

You know that old joke? The one where the guy is praying and says, “Please, please, let me win the lottery.” And then the higher power replies back, “Please, please, buy a ticket.”

I’ve been reflecting and writing a lot lately about the ways I don’t “buy a ticket”. The ways in which I limit myself and the core beliefs that underly those limitations. The times where I don’t even let myself fully want what I want, but instead placate myself with something more reasonable, more attainable, more mainstream.

At times in my life when I feel most connected, I have a sense that there is something bigger at work in this world than just me, toiling away in my little office. Sometimes things happen which are inexplicable in concrete terms – the person I’ve been thinking about reaches out to me, I’ll write something in my journal in the morning and by the next day something has happened relative to what I wrote, I reflect on goals at the beginning of the year without fully knowing how to manifest them, and yet, many of them I do manage to bring to life.

If there is a flow or a universal energy or a way to tap into something greater than each of us doing our best, then how do I engage with that in a meaningful way?

Resilience is not about the challenges we face; it’s how we process those challenges.

In our culture, we’re often told that it’s the challenges we face in life that make us stronger, more resilient. It’s a bit of a tough love mentality; what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that. We see that as only part of the resilience equation. Yes, having experienced challenges can make us more resourceful and resilient, but that is most true when we are able to process those experiences, work through them successfully and recover from the stress or demands of challenging situations.

What happens when we don’t recover? Or when the demands and challenges are either too big or too fast for us to process them successfully, for us to manage? What happens for most of us is we try our hardest, we give it everything we’ve got, and then eventually we run out of time, energy, motivation, capacity or caring. Essentially, we burn out.

I was doing a keynote back in September and during the Q&A we were talking about how equality begins at home. Claudia Goldin who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on gender equality and the pay gap, at the age of 77 to boot (insert cheering here 😊) concluded that the degree of equality in our homes is a major indicator of our ability to achieve equality in our workplaces. We couldn’t agree more.

As we discussed equality at home during that keynote, one woman stood up and said she was already stressed out and overwhelmed in preparing for the holiday season. In September! This is a problem folks. A big one.

So, what better time to reset the balance of domestic and care giving labour in our households than for the holiday season? Save yourself a lot of stress this year by setting the stage for “Equality for the Holidays”. Let’s do this.

UPDATE: I originally wrote the below article in August when I was spurred into action reading Sarah Kaplan's brief but impactful LinkedIn post stating "To whom it may concern: Don't try to bully me into working for free when I've said I like to be paid for my time and expertise." 

 To which I thought, "for goodness sake, if Sarah Kaplan of the Institute for Gender and the Economy is still being asked to do gender equity work for free, what hope is there for the rest of us?"

In September, a subsequent series of conversations with women about gender equity work at their organizations kind of sealed the deal... 

In a world that's constantly evolving, leading change is not just an option—it's a necessity. In this article, I dive deep into the importance of using our leadership roles to initiate meaningful change. You'll discover why maintaining the status quo isn't true leadership and why adapting to the ever-changing world is crucial, uncover strategies to overcome resistance, communicate effectively, and persistently drive transformation and step into your role as a change leader to leave a lasting impact.

A lot of leaders I talk with tell me about development planning time with a heavy sigh. It’s an additional piece of work in a world already too full, where the to-do list never seems to be done. And I get it. Without the time to reflect and focus that any planning process takes; development planning can feel like yet another hoop to jump through or checkbox to tick.

Back in the days before COVID, before the great awakening, I had an awakening of my own. I had been doing leadership development work as a consultant for over 20 years, and although I never stopped loving the work, I recognized the limitations of supporting leaders in the current limited, often broken systems and models of the modern business world.

It’s the holiday season. Some people call it the magical season, but who makes the magic happen? It’s not Santa or the elves who get the job done, it’s women who do the majority of holiday labour at home and at work. It’s primarily women who plan the parties, think through the gift giving, plan, shop and prep for meals, decorate, wrap, manage the calendar of events, and clean the house.

We hear a lot about values-based leadership, and leading with values is a core piece of the curriculum at the Women’s Leadership Intensive (WLI). But what does it actually look and feel like to make decisions based on our values? Making decisions based on values sounds great, but sometimes it’s not an easy decision, it’s not always black and white and there are potential risks and consequences.

Here’s the thing. Women are just over 50% of the world’s population. If we want something, anything, the numbers are on our side. We are a huge group when we come together, and this is a time for women to come together.

It’s a dark time for anyone who believes in equal rights for all genders. Regardless of whether you have a uterus, live in the US, have ever needed reproductive health care or not, when the human rights of any group are under attack, we should all be afraid and outraged. When a group of people are treated as less human, it opens the door for more of the same.