For the past 20 years, I have worked closely with women developing as leaders. Women stepping into senior roles, leading organizations and teams, navigating change, and learning to trust themselves in positions of increasing responsibility.
I consistently see what happens when a woman stops spending her energy trying to fit into an inherited model of leadership and begins leading from her own clarity, intelligence, judgment, and humanity.
One of the most persistent obstacles I see is not a lack of ability, but a lack of trust in that ability. Women who are thoughtful, experienced, and highly capable can still find themselves second-guessing what they see, looking outside themselves for certainty, or assuming that confident leaders must somehow know more or feel more sure than they do.
A deeper understanding of how the mind works can fundamentally change that relationship with uncertainty. You become less preoccupied with proving yourself, more willing to trust your own judgment, and more available to the people and circumstances in front of you.
The results are not simply personal. They affect teams, organizations, communities, and the decisions that get made. And increasingly, research suggests that what I have witnessed in individual women is part of a much larger pattern.
Why Women’s Leadership Matters
Women have made extraordinary strides in leadership, and yet globally they remain significantly underrepresented in the places where consequential decisions are made.
As of January 2026, only 28 countries worldwide were led by a woman Head of State or Head of Government. Women held just 22.4% of cabinet positions globally, and 101 countries had never had a woman leader.
The same imbalance can be seen across many businesses, institutions, and organizations. And increasingly, research suggests that this matters for more than representation.
McKinsey’s global research found that companies in the highest quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 39% more likely to financially outperform companies in the lowest quartile. The research also found associations between diverse leadership and broader measures of organizational health, social impact, and workforce satisfaction.
The point is not that women are necessarily better leaders than men, or that women all bring the same qualities to leadership.
They don’t.
The point is that women belong fully in the places where consequential decisions are made and the evidence increasingly suggests that organizations and societies can benefit when they are.
When half the population remains underrepresented at those tables, an enormous range of experience, perspective, and potential remains underrepresented with them.
A Different Kind of Strength
Women entering leadership have often inherited models built around certainty, authority, toughness, control, relentless performance, and knowing the answer.
There is nothing inherently male about those qualities, nor inherently female about empathy, collaboration, or intuition. Human beings contain all of them. But women can feel tremendous pressure to demonstrate that they are strong enough, certain enough, knowledgeable enough, decisive enough to prove that they deserve to be in the room.
Ironically, that pressure can obscure some of the very qualities that make someone an exceptional leader.
When you become preoccupied with how you are being perceived, your attention turns inward. You second-guess. You overprepare. You compensate. We become less available to the people and circumstances in front of you.
Understanding the nature of Thought changes that.
When you begin to see that insecurity and self-doubt are experiences being created within your own mind, rather than reliable assessments of your capability, there is less to defend against and less to prove.
You become freer to listen.
Freer to speak.
Freer to change your mind.
Freer to say, “I don’t know.”
Freer to follow what you see.
Freer to make a difficult decision.
Freer to lead as yourself.
What We Can See Around the World
There is no single model of “female leadership,” and that may be part of the point.
There is also an intriguing pattern among countries known for high levels of wellbeing.
The 2026 World Happiness Report ranked Finland first, Iceland second, and Denmark third in average life evaluation. Iceland and Denmark are currently led by women Prime Ministers, Kristrún Frostadóttir and Mette Frederiksen, while Finland was led by Sanna Marin from 2019 to 2023.
It's important to notice that national wellbeing is shaped by many interconnected factors. But it is notable that several societies that consistently perform exceptionally well on measures of wellbeing have also made substantial room for women at the highest levels of leadership.
And when we look beyond rankings to individual leaders, another point becomes clear: women who have led on the world stage have demonstrated remarkably different personalities, philosophies, strengths, and approaches.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf | Liberia
After years of civil war, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state. Her presidency helped consolidate peace and democratic governance in Liberia, and her work advancing peace and women's participation earned her the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
Angela Merkel | Germany
Angela Merkel served four terms as Chancellor of Germany, beginning in 2005, leading one of the world's largest economies through years of economic, political, and international change. Her longevity itself challenged conventional assumptions about what powerful leadership has to look like.
Jacinda Ardern | New Zealand
As Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern became internationally associated with a style of leadership that made room for compassion alongside decisive action. Following the Christchurch terrorist attacks, she paired an unusually human public response with concrete government action and later helped launch an international effort addressing terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Mia Mottley | Barbados
Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the first woman to hold that office in Barbados, has used the platform of a small island nation to become a significant international voice on climate change, debt, and reform of the global financial system.
These women do not lead alike. That is precisely what makes their examples so interesting.
Leadership expands when we stop asking women to fit into an established mold and make room for the full range of qualities, perspectives, intelligence, and humanity they bring.
Diversity Changes the Conversation
Women’s leadership is also part of a larger truth about diversity.
When people with different histories, perspectives, life experiences, cultures, genders, and ways of seeing the world participate meaningfully in decision-making, different questions get asked.
Different risks are noticed.
Different possibilities become visible.
Assumptions that once went unquestioned are challenged.
Research across business and other fields increasingly points in this direction. Gender-diverse leadership has been associated with stronger financial performance, broader social and environmental impact, and more inclusive decision-making.
We see something similar in peace-building. Research reviewed by UN Women has found that women's participation can broaden the issues considered in negotiations, increase community engagement, and change the dynamics of the process itself.
Diversity isn't valuable simply because it looks more representative.
It changes what can be seen.
Wellbeing Is Not a Soft Outcome
There is another part of this conversation that matters deeply to me: the relationship between human wellbeing and organizational success.
We sometimes talk about wellbeing at work as though it is an added benefit. Something an organization can pay attention to once the serious business of performance, productivity, and results has been handled.
Research increasingly suggests otherwise.
Across large studies of workplaces and organizations, higher employee wellbeing has been associated with stronger productivity, profitability, customer satisfaction, and retention. Creating an environment in which people function well is not separate from creating an organization that functions well.
To me, this makes intuitive sense.
A leader does not simply make decisions. She influences the environment in which other people think, communicate, take risks, solve problems, recover from mistakes, and contribute what they see.
A clearer, more grounded leader has an impact far beyond herself.
Wellbeing is not simply something good organizations provide for their people. It is part of the environment in which good work becomes possible.
Confident Decision-Making
In my work with women leaders, I am less interested in giving someone another set of leadership tools than I am in helping her understand what gets in the way of the intelligence she already has.
I have worked with many highly capable and successful women, and I have frequently noticed that when they describe some of their best decisions, they often say some version of:
I just knew.
They may call it instinct. Intuition. Common sense. A gut feeling. Whatever language they use, they are describing those moments when something simply looks clear.
The difficulty is that without understanding where that clarity comes from, it can be surprisingly easy not to trust it.
A busy mind makes leadership harder. When we are caught in insecurity, urgency, comparison, or self-consciousness, everything looks more complicated. Other people's reactions seem more threatening. Decisions feel heavier. Conflict becomes more personal. We second-guess what we see and look outside ourselves for reassurance that we are making the right choice.
For women in leadership, this can create a particularly painful kind of insecurity.
A woman may already possess excellent judgment and natural leadership ability, yet still believe that a confident leader should feel more certain than she does. She may overprepare, defer unnecessarily, hesitate to speak, or discount her own insight in favor of someone who appears more confident.
That can limit not only how effectively she leads, but how willing she is to step into greater responsibility.
One of my greatest joys is being able to empower women leaders, and women rising into leadership, to be confident in their leadership and decision-making capabilities.
The Benefits Leaders Get from a Quieter Mind
A busy mind makes leadership harder overall. Busy mindedness makes you stressed, which can lead to feelings of insecurity, urgency, comparison, or self-consciousness. For women in leadership, this can create a particularly painful kind of insecurity.
A woman may already possess excellent judgment and natural leadership abilities yet still believe that a confident leader should feel more certain than she does. She may overprepare, defer unnecessarily, hesitate to speak, or discount her own insight in favor of someone who appears more confident.
Unconditional Confidence
Unconditional confidence becomes available to women when you learn that there is a science behind gut feelings. You have an innate GPS system, called your feelings, which show you where you are in Thought in every moment - when you are accessing levels of Thought that will prove to be trustworthy, (such as insights, or out-of-the-box thinking), and when you’re not. I have found that when the women leaders I coach learn about this innate system for recognizing trustworthy thinking, they develop unconditional confidence in their decision-making abilities.
I was new and in a leadership role for an ambitious nonprofit organization two years ago, feeling miserable and overwhelmed and driven by anxiety. Annika’s thoughtful and spot-on teachings of the Single Paradigm quickly changed my life. I learned how to take myself from a state of overwhelm to mental clarity, and I quickly found I had a new attitude of “I can do this”. I now approach difficult situations with ease and insight. My working relationships have improved, and I have access to higher-level problem solving from a clear and calm mental state. I credit Annika with helping me keep my job and not only that, I now enjoy it!
Kathleen Gilbert
Marketing Director, Outward Bound
For Women, Leaders & Organizations
I work with women who are stepping into greater responsibility, navigating change, questioning their confidence, carrying the weight of leadership, or simply sensing that there may be an easier and more natural way to lead.
I also work with organizations interested in supporting women leaders and creating cultures where a broader range of people can contribute at their highest level.
This work can support:
Emerging and established women leaders
Executives and senior leadership teams
Women navigating a significant transition or new role
Organizations developing women leaders
Women wanting to trust their own judgment more deeply
Teams seeking healthier, more thoughtful leadership cultures
Women who are accomplished on the outside but still experience self-doubt on the inside
The circumstances vary. The underlying opportunity is remarkably consistent:
To see what becomes possible when we understand our minds more deeply and begin leading from the intelligence that was there all along.