Issue 2842— March 24, 2025

Anxiety is in the air. You can feel it everywhere — layoffs, political uncertainty, the gnawing fear that the earth is shifting beneath our feet.

In times like these, leadership can feel impossible. How can you lead when you don’t even know what the next week will bring?

The truth is courage to lead isn’t knowing all the answers. It’s stepping forward even when you don’t.

Nor is leadership about waiting for the perfect moment — it’s about creating the moment. And it isn’t reserved for CEOs or political figures — it’s for all of us, wherever we are.

This past week, I had three powerful experiences that reminded me what it takes to break through from small, incremental change to big impact.

1. See What Others Don’t — And Share It

I was honored to be on a panel at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Women’s Leadership Collective event. The focus was on creating a leadership program for women in engineering — a field where women hold just 17% of top leadership positions, despite having a wide and deep bench of brilliant, capable, and accomplished women.

They set about creating a plan. It was an exhilarating exercise.

Still, in my research for my book No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, I found there were thousands of women’s leadership programs and they weren’t moving the dial fast enough to see parity in leadership if I could live two lifetimes.

As I dug further, I concluded something counterintuitive: that only a new paradigm of power would break through the thick glass ceiling, the broken rungs, and the sticky floor that had been postulated as the barriers holding women back. These barriers exist. But it’s also true that women are less likely to self-advocate and tend to attribute 20% less value to their work than to others.

It’s not, as prevailing research said, that women have less ambition; it’s culturally learned ambivalence about claiming power.

For good reason. Most of us have been conditioned to see power as oppressive over us. Women have borne the brunt of so much of that kind of power. But power isn’t zero-sum. My metaphor is a silver hammer I wear: like the hammer, power is what you make of it. You can build with it or destroy with it.

So the key to being able to embrace our power fully is shifting our thinking from power over to power TO — the generative power to create, innovate, and elevate others and own our intentions for success.

One of the other panelists, Stephanie LeBlanc-Godfrey, modeled this when asked the persistent question of how we balanced children and work, based in the prevailing “you can’t have it all” narrative. She described how she brings her children into her work so they understand what she is doing and why it benefits them.

There was a big aha, as this was a solution many had not previously seen.

I didn’t have time to share the 9 Leadership Power Tools, actionable techniques that help women thrive in the workplace as it is, while changing it into what they want it to be. Even so, the reaction to rethinking power was electric.

👉 Lesson: You often that you can only be what you can see. But the courage to lead requires going beyond what has been seen before and then helping others see it too.

2. Big Change Starts with Small, Brave Steps

Dr. Nancy O’Reilly is a board member and sponsor of both the NWHM gala and Take The Lead’s Power Up Concert and Conference.

Later that evening, I attended the National Women’s History Museum’s gala. My dear friend and staunch leader for lifting women up as founder of the Women Connect 4 Good Foundation, Dr. Nancy O’Reilly, had kindly included me at her table. Among the honorees was one of my entrepreneurial sheroes, Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, who declared “Women are overachieving but underfunded.”

Meeting Spanx founder Sara Blakely was a highlight of the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM) Gala. I imagine every woman there had on some Spanx item.

One of the most moving stories of the night belonged to Dr. Opal Lee, the “grandmother of Juneteenth.”

Dr. Lee believed that the history of Juneteenth — when the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas, six months after it was issued — deserved to be nationally recognized. So, at age 90 (!), she started walking miles in major cities from Texas to Washington, D.C. She also launched an online petition that gathered 1.5 million signatures. Because of her determination, Juneteenth is now a federal holiday.

Dr. Lee didn’t wait for permission or a title. She took action from exactly where she was, with what she had.

“Keep walking and keep talking,” she said in accepting the award.

👉 Lesson: The courage to lead doesn’t need a big platform or particular title to create big change. Start from where you are — but start.

3. Ask, Listen, and Adapt to the Moment

The next day, I hosted lunch with eight incredible women who have supported Take The Lead’s annual Power Up Concert and Conference, held on Women’s Equality Day, August 26. We started brainstorming ideas for this year’s event.

Ideas were flowing: who to invite, how to structure the day, who would they want keynote speakers.

But something deeper surfaced. Several women expressed the same emotional need: in this time of fear and uncertainty, they wanted the event to be more than just informative or entertaining.

They didn’t just want to see celebrities — they wanted to hear the stories from what they called “extraordinary ordinary” women, people who had faced challenges and found their way through. They wanted to connect, to build shared strength through relationships, to find opportunities and resources.

I realized that the event needs to touch the heart as profoundly as the mind. It should provide practical skills to pivot professionally when needed or desired. As my friend Debbie Esparza, CEO of the YWCA of Metropolitan Phoenix recently said to me, “Leadership is an iterative process.”

As you may know, I have been iterating my intention to honor Alicia Keys on our concert stage, because her work with She Is The Music is such a powerful example of courageous leadership in action for women in the music industry. Will this be the year?

👉 Lesson: Courage to lead starts with listening to what people need in that moment and adapting accordingly.

The Courage to Lead

The path to leadership isn’t smooth or linear. It can be messy, uncertain, and uncomfortable. But leadership is not about waiting for the fear to go away — it’s about taking action in spite of the fear.

1. See what others don’t — and show them.

2. Start from where you are.

3. Ask, listen, and adapt. Repeat.

You don’t need a title. You don’t need permission. You just need the courage to start. And the path will reveal itself.

You don’t want to miss this. Mark your calendar now! And click here to get your name on the list to be first to know about ticket sales and speakers.

Call to Action:
If you’re ready to lead but aren’t sure where to start, what’s holding you back? What bold step will you take today? Drop a comment or send me a message — I’d love to hear your story.

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.