We Weren’t Trained to Lead. We Were Trained to Serve Power.

There’s no shortage of discourse on leadership right now. Everyone’s trying to navigate how to lead in a time when institutions are breaking down, when burnout is normalized, and when people are quietly—or not so quietly—questioning their willingness to keep performing roles they no longer believe in.

But what most of those conversations fail to acknowledge is that not all of us were trained for leadership in the first place. At least, not in the way we’re being asked to perform it now. Many of us weren’t shaped to hold power. We were shaped to support it, serve it, and protect it—often at the expense of ourselves.

We weren’t encouraged to take up space. We were taught to be agreeable. We learned that success came from staying reliable, capable, flexible—but never disruptive.  We were encouraged to read the room. We weren’t asked to make decisions; we were asked to keep things running. We were shaped for support roles, not leadership roles—and then, when we finally stepped into power, we were expected to lead with confidence and clarity inside a system that had only ever rewarded our invisibility.

We internalized early and often that our worth came from making ourselves useful, agreeable, unshakable. And in many ways, those instincts worked. We became flexible, responsive, deeply attuned to what others needed. We built careers around being the person who could hold it all together—not the person who was allowed to fall apart. Not the person who got to be messy or directive or imperfect in public.

And for a while, it worked. We succeeded by becoming exceptional at operating inside systems that were never designed for us. 

But eventually, the mismatch catches up with you. Because the very habits that helped you survive—over-functioning, shape-shifting, avoiding conflict, anticipating everyone else’s needs—also made you skilled at managing complexity, maintaining harmony, and seeing what others missed. They’re real strengths. But when they go unchecked, they can make it harder to actually lead.

Those qualities made us excellent operators, but they did not prepare us for the complexities of leading with authority. In fact, they often make leadership feel emotionally dissonant. Because the second we start acting like the people who’ve always held power, we get pushback. We become “too much.” We’re asked to explain ourselves. To soften. To prove we’re not trying to control anyone—just to lead.

We are not imagining this. The numbers back it up.

According to Gallup, 35% of Americans still say they would prefer to work for a man than a woman—a number that has barely shifted in decades. In a 2022 LeanIn report, women were 21% less likely than men to say they were encouraged to lead as children. And Black, brown, queer, and neurodivergent leaders are still not only being passed over for leadership roles—they’re being promoted without the structural or emotional support required to succeed.

So it’s no wonder that diverse leaders—especially women and those from historically excluded backgrounds—often feel like leadership isn’t working for them. We’ve internalized a story about what good leadership looks and sounds like. And in most of those stories, the protagonist is not us. Leadership is still framed as confident, commanding, direct, and emotionally neutral. Which means those of us prone to lead with care, context, and caution are left questioning ourselves the moment we enter the room with any real authority.

What I want to say is: that dissonance is not failure. It’s data. 

For those of us who were raised to be careful, conscientious, and accommodating, leadership can feel like a trap. The moment we try to exercise power in a way that’s aligned with our values, we’re met with resistance. We’re told we’re “too intense” or “too sensitive.” We’re seen as unsteady when we admit uncertainty, and as aggressive when we set a boundary.

We loop on simple decisions because we don’t want to be seen as reactive. We soften feedback not because we lack conviction—but because we’ve learned how to stay in relationship, even during rupture. We crowdsource every choice because we know how to build consensus, how to listen for signals others miss. These instincts are relational superpowers. But when driven by fear instead of integrity, they dilute our leadership voice. And when it all feels off, we assume we’re the problem.

But we’re not. It’s a sign that you’re trying to lead with integrity inside a system that rewards the opposite, because the problem is structural.  In fact, the system is working exactly as it was designed to.

Dr. Harriet Fraad has said that capitalism doesn’t just tolerate sociopathy—it breeds it. It elevates leaders who can detach from emotional consequences, who make decisions based purely on efficiency, who mistake dominance for direction and call it strength. The model rewards emotional disconnection, encourages burnout as a badge of honor, and labels anything human—like hesitation, grief, tenderness—as a weakness to be trained out.

So when we step into leadership with self-awareness, empathy, or a desire to build something more human, we often find ourselves treated like the problem. Not because we’re doing it wrong—but because we’re no longer serving the system’s definition of success. We’re not playing by the rules that were written to protect the system itself.

We don’t need to shame ourselves for how we’ve survived. There’s wisdom in every instinct. Our nervous systems made choices that kept us safe—and in many cases, made us exceptional. But survival mode can’t be the only mode. The work now is learning when those responses serve us—and when it’s time to choose something else.

Here’s what I know: diverse leadership is a force for good. The data supports it. When women lead, profits go up. Employee satisfaction increases. Companies often outperform the market. But still, many diverse leaders remain afraid to grow their teams, afraid to assert themselves, or afraid that if they really take up space—they’ll be seen as difficult, demanding, or unqualified.

These fears are not irrational. They’re the result of generations of socialization designed to protect the status quo. And if we don’t interrogate them, we will continue to shape-shift in response to systems that were never built to hold us.

This is what I mean when I say we were trained to serve power. 

We were taught to self-abandon through people-pleasing. We were taught to keep the peace, even when our silence was costing us our clarity. We were taught that saying the hard thing, holding the boundary, or standing in a decision would get us labeled a “bad boss.” Or worse: Miranda Priestly. (The reference may be aging, but The Devil Wears Prada still defines workplace trauma for an entire generation.)

But Miranda isn’t a bad leader because she’s a woman. She’s a bad leader because she’s a punishing communicator—and she has become one with the system. Something men are expected to do, and women are punished for. It’s a trap. And too many of us are still avoiding the clarity we need to lead because we’re afraid of being seen as her.

So what do we do instead of becoming one with the system?

We stop performing leadership. And we start practicing it. We start building a new system—now. 

You are not a less effective leader because you feel things deeply. You are not behind because you reflect before you respond. You are not failing because the current model doesn’t fit you. You are trying to lead in a way that interrupts the performance of leadership in favor of something real.

It’s also why so many of us feel caught in the tension between what we believe and how we’re expected to lead. We sense that the model doesn’t match the mission, but we keep trying to retrofit ourselves into it anyway. We think if we just find the right framework, the right coach, the right system—we can make it fit. But deep down, we know the truth: you cannot build liberatory leadership on a foundation that was designed to extract, exploit, and uphold dominance as the norm.

And that is not a weakness. That’s the work.

We stop mimicking the models we inherited and start building ones that reflect who we actually are.
We stop equating kindness with weakness and start developing a leadership voice rooted in clarity, care, and self-trust.
We learn how to notice when we’re leading from fear—and how to return to alignment when we’ve left ourselves behind.
We practice communicating the truth before the tension explodes. We normalize repair. We choose presence over performance.
And we get honest about how much harder it is to lead inside systems that were never designed for liberation.

That’s what I talked about with Rae McDaniel in Episode 1 of COO-fessions. Rae is a licensed therapist, certified sex therapist, leadership coach, and the author of Gender Magic—who leads with radical embodiment. We talked about what it means to lead imperfectly, how to rebuild trust when you’re the one who’s breached it, and why repair is more powerful than perfection in building aligned cultures.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to earn your seat by being impeccable, or if you’ve found yourself wondering why leadership doesn’t feel like leadership—it might not be you. It might be the model.

This episode will remind you that you’re not alone. You’re just trying to lead inside a system that rewards sociopathy and punishes integrity.

🎧 Episode 1 → The Magic of Messy, Imperfect Leadership

You don’t need to lead like them to lead well.
You just need to stop abandoning yourself in order to be seen as safe.
You don’t need to become a different kind of leader.
You need to become more of yourself.

And if the model no longer serves who you are—or the future you’re trying to build—it’s okay to stop performing it.

It’s okay to build something better.

xo,
Brittany