Leading with Resilience: Stories and Strategies for Women Leaders

For women leaders, resilience is more than enduring challenges—it’s about thriving through them by leveraging unique strengths and fostering growth. Today’s dynamic workplaces demand adaptability, creativity, and confidence, making emotional resilience indispensable for navigating transitions and achieving success.

Women leaders often face unique hurdles, from navigating systemic biases to balancing career ambitions with personal responsibilities. Resilience equips them to meet these challenges with composure and clarity, while leveraging strengths amplifies their leadership impact. Together, these traits enhance decision-making, inspire teams, and drive innovation by encouraging creative problem-solving and forward thinking.

The Power of Strengths and Resilience

To leverage strengths effectively, women leaders can focus on self-awareness to understand how their abilities shape their leadership style, use empathy to connect authentically with teams, and translate values into actionable goals. Collaboration further strengthens leadership by building partnerships that foster collective resilience and innovation. Aligning these strengths with professional objectives enables women leaders to lead with authenticity and purpose.

Resilience doesn’t just help leaders weather storms; it empowers them to see transitions as opportunities for growth. For example, when Priya transitioned into a senior leadership role, she relied on her communication skills and collaborative mindset to build trust and establish a strong vision. Similarly, Sarah, a nonprofit director, turned organizational restructuring into an opportunity to innovate by leveraging her team’s collective strengths and fostering transparent communication.

Key Strategies for Resilience and Strengths

Building resilience while leveraging strengths requires intentional effort. Reflecting on strengths helps align them with current challenges and goals, while reframing obstacles as opportunities encourages growth. Here are actionable strategies:

• Reflect regularly to assess how strengths align with your current challenges.

• Reframe challenges as opportunities to grow and expand your skill set.

• Prioritize self-care to sustain energy and focus.

• Seek mentorship for guidance and perspective during transitions.

• Communicate boldly to articulate your vision and inspire action.

The Ripple Effect of Resilient Leadership

Resilient women leaders create a ripple effect that empowers their teams and organizations. By modeling adaptability and optimism, they:

• Build empowered teams by encouraging individuals to use their strengths.

• Foster inclusive cultures that value diverse perspectives.

• Provide clarity and stability during uncertainty.

When resilience becomes a shared value, organizations are better equipped to navigate complexity and seize opportunities effectively.

Your Path to Thriving Leadership

Resilience and strengths form the foundation for thriving leadership. Reflect on your journey:

• What are my core strengths, and how can I use them to navigate change?

• How can I embrace resilience to overcome current challenges?

• What steps can I take to empower others through my leadership?

By focusing on these qualities, women leaders can turn challenges into opportunities for growth, inspire their teams, and create meaningful impact. Leadership isn’t just about enduring change—it’s about transforming it into progress.

A Guide to Personal Innovation for Women Leaders

In today’s fast-paced world, innovation isn’t just for organizations; it’s a necessity for individuals too. Personal innovation is about reimagining your life and career to align with evolving goals and values. For women leaders, this means embracing creativity and adaptability to navigate transitions and redefine success on their own terms. It’s about designing a future that reflects who you are and the impact you want to make.

Personal innovation applies creative problem-solving and strategic thinking to your life and career, mirroring the Designing Your Life framework. This approach encourages experimenting with possibilities and aligning actions with core values to create a fulfilling and meaningful future. Adapting principles like experimentation, resilience, and adaptability to your personal context allows you to craft a future that resonates deeply with your goals and values. This mindset empowers you to adapt to change, unlock creativity, and take risks with confidence. Each step, even missteps, contributes to growth and discovery.

Developing Your Personal Innovation Strategy

Creating a personal innovation strategy involves intentionality and reflection, akin to the Designing Your Life approach of prototyping and refining your path through iterative growth. Begin by clarifying your values and long-term vision. Reflect on what truly matters to you and use this as a foundation for decision-making. View challenges as opportunities and experiment with small, deliberate changes to identify what truly aligns with your aspirations. Identify your unique strengths and find ways to apply them meaningfully. Surround yourself with a supportive network that encourages growth and offers diverse perspectives.

Stories of Personal Innovation

For instance, Heather, one of my coaching clients, transitioned from a part-time office assistant to becoming a human resource and office manager for a medical start-up and went on to become a certified HR business partner. Heather’s journey exemplifies the Designing Your Life principle of testing multiple paths to uncover the most fulfilling and rewarding opportunities. Similarly, Ashley used her background as a nurse in quality improvement to design a career as a clinical operations director at a medical center. Ashley’s approach of reframing her strengths and experiences illustrates how challenges can become catalysts for meaningful growth. Another client, Hope, leveraged her experience as a professional violinist to create a successful music education studio, enabling her to lead authentically while pursuing her passions for teaching. Hope’s success underscores the power of aligning passions with purpose, a central tenet of both personal innovation and the Designing Your Life framework. Through trial and exploration, she discovered her niche and built a career that harmonized with her values and goals.

Personal innovation extends beyond career shifts; it centers on designing a life that integrates your unique strengths, aspirations, and values into a cohesive whole. For women leaders, this approach reinforces resilience during transitions, fosters authenticity in leadership, and connects personal innovation to broader organizational and societal impact.

Reflecting on Your Journey

As you think about your journey, consider these questions:

• What small step can I take today to innovate my future?

• Is there a challenge I can reframe as an opportunity for growth?

• How can I align my actions more closely with my values and aspirations? Embracing personal innovation enables you to transform challenges into opportunities, lead with authenticity, and create a legacy of meaningful impact.

From Success to Significance: A Manifesto for Women Leaders

Over the course of my career, I’ve experienced the exhilarating rush of leadership: climbing ladders, achieving goals, and thriving in roles that stretched me to grow. Yet, within this momentum, I’ve also learned to listen to the quieter callings of change—the whispers of something more fulfilling, the curiosity to redefine success, and the courage to leap into the unknown.

This manifesto is deeply personal. It’s the reflection of my journey: my sabbaticals, career breaks, and, most recently, my voluntary decision to join the Great Resignation to craft a profoundly intentional second half of life. These experiences have shaped my understanding of leadership—not just in the professional realm, but in the way we lead ourselves.

This is more than a manifesto. It’s an invitation for you to step into your full potential by embracing three essential pillars of growth: personal leadership, emotional intelligence, and resilience. These aren’t just skills—they’re the foundation of meaningful leadership and transformation.

For ambitious women leaders, embracing change isn’t a detour; it’s an act of power. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Change Is the Catalyst for Growth

In leadership, we’re taught to plan, execute, and measure outcomes. But life has a way of challenging even the best-laid plans. Over time, I’ve realized that transitions—whether chosen or imposed—are not disruptions but opportunities to grow beyond the boundaries of who we thought we were.

Taking a sabbatical once felt indulgent, but it became one of the most transformational seasons of my life. It gave me the space to reconnect with my strengths and realign with my vision. Stepping away didn’t mean stepping back; it was a leap forward into a future filled with greater clarity and purpose. Every step away from the familiar was an invitation to grow.

Resilience Is Built in the In-Between Spaces

Resilience isn’t forged in moments of triumph—it grows in the in-between spaces. Breaks and career transitions are rarely linear. They are messy, introspective, and uncertain moments that make you question your choices, your decisions, and sometimes even your direction.

Years later, I took a career break and found myself wrestling with doubts: Am I wasting time? Will this gap derail my career? What’s next? These questions, uncomfortable as they were, became my greatest teachers. They pushed me to honor the process of growth, trust my intuition, and lean into the discomfort of the unknown.

Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back—it’s about growing through what you’ve experienced. It’s about using those hard seasons to fuel your next chapter. In the end, those in-between spaces taught me that growth isn’t linear, but it is always worth it

Redefining Success Is an Act of Courage

For too long, success was defined for me—titles, paychecks, and accolades. But over time, I’ve learned that true success isn’t external. It’s deeply personal. It’s about alignment—designing a life that reflects your values, priorities, and sense of purpose.

Twice now, I’ve chosen to leave executive roles to honor my vision of success. Each time, it meant walking away from financial security, prestige, and a clear path forward. But it also meant saying yes to authenticity, creativity, and freedom. For any woman in leadership, redefining success is not a betrayal of ambition; it’s about embracing the kind of ambition that serves your highest self.

What does success look like for you when no one else is watching? That’s the question that changed everything for me.

Transitions Are a Leadership Practice

Leading through change isn’t just a professional skill—it’s a lesson in balancing disruption and stability. My transitions taught me to approach life with the same intentionality and strategy I brought to leading teams and organizations. I discovered that navigating change requires a clear process, one that anchors you while guiding you forward.

Here’s what that practice looks like:

• Reimagine: What’s no longer serving you, and where is change calling you forward?

• Illuminate: What are the best parts of who you are that you can leverage?

• Strategize: What’s the boldest, most aligned version of your future?

• Elevate: What small, intentional steps will you take today to create momentum and make it real?

Transitions are not detours; they’re opportunities to apply leadership to your own life. By using the RISE method, I’ve learned to navigate the unknown with clarity, courage, and confidence. It’s a practice that ensures each step forward is rooted in intention and aligned with what matters most.

New Beginnings Are the Ultimate Act of Creation

Starting over isn’t starting from scratch; it’s starting from experience. Every success, every failure, every choice, and every chapter has prepared me for this moment. I see the second half of my life not as a conclusion, but as a masterpiece in progress—a chance to live more boldly and authentically than ever before.

New beginnings are about self-awareness: What do I truly desire? They’re about intentionality: What am I ready to embrace? And they’re about legacy: How do I want to be remembered?

As women leaders, we often feel the weight of expectations—to achieve, to endure, to excel. But what if the most profound success lies in giving yourself permission to begin again?

A Call to Action

To every woman in leadership contemplating change, here’s my message:

Embrace change as your ally. Growth rarely comes from comfort zones. Celebrate transitions as part of your story. They’re the moments that shape who you are. Honor new beginnings as acts of creation. They’re your opportunity to design the life and legacy you truly want.

This manifesto is just the beginning. To support your journey, explore the tools I’ve developed: the RISE Roadmap, inclusive bonus tools, and the Life Redesign Map. These resources provide actionable steps to help you transition from success to significance with clarity, courage, and intention.

Let’s rise boldly, together. Here’s to leading fully, living authentically, and embracing every step of your journey with purpose and grace.

Find Clarity, Courage, and Connection in Career Change

Career transitions are often some of the most significant turning points in life. They challenge us to pause, reflect, and recalibrate, offering opportunities to align our work with evolving values, aspirations, and purpose. For women leaders, these changes require not just clarity but also the courage to embrace uncertainty and the connection to build new paths forward. Transformative career changes are not about what you leave behind—they are about reimagining your future and creating meaningful impact.

Navigating Career Transitions with Clarity

Clarity is the foundation of any successful career transformation. It begins with understanding what truly matters to you—your core values, passions, and long-term vision. This self-awareness provides the compass for intentional decisions and helps avoid roles that no longer align with your purpose. To gain clarity: To find clarity:

• Reflect on your non-negotiables in work and life. What are the elements you can’t compromise on?

• Identify what brings you energy and fulfillment. Which activities make you feel truly alive?

• Redefine success for yourself. How has your vision of achievement evolved?

One client, Evan, struggled to align her leadership skills with meaningful impact after leaving her corporate role as Chief Transformation Officer. Through reflection and prioritizing her core values of service and collaboration, she transitioned into an independent education consultant, crafting a career that was not only successful but deeply fulfilling. By prioritizing her core values of service and collaboration, she crafted a career that was not only successful but deeply fulfilling.

Embracing Courage During Transitions

Courage is the fuel that propels transformation. Career changes often come with uncertainty, self-doubt, and fear of failure. For women leaders, stepping into unfamiliar territory requires belief in their abilities and resilience to navigate setbacks. Build courage by:

• Reframing Fear: Treat fear as a natural part of growth and a signal you’re stepping outside your comfort zone.

• Celebrating Wins: Acknowledge small successes to build confidence and momentum.

• Seeking Support: Engage mentors, coaches, and peers who reinforce your strengths and encourage bold steps.

Consider Kathleen, who transitioned from a nonprofit role to a product designer in tech. Initially hesitant about stepping into a highly technical, male-dominated field, Kathleen reframed her transferable skills as assets and sought guidance from a trusted mentor. This blend of courage and strategy enabled her to build a fulfilling and impactful career. Her courage to embrace the unknown opened doors to a fulfilling and impactful career.

The Power of Connection

Career changes don’t happen in isolation. Building strong networks creates opportunities, broadens perspectives, and offers essential emotional support during transitions. For women leaders, fostering authentic relationships is especially critical in navigating environments where representation may be limited. Here’s how to strengthen your connections: For women leaders, fostering authentic relationships is especially important in environments where representation might be limited. To build meaningful connections:

• Expand Your Network: Attend industry events, join professional associations, and engage in relevant online communities.

• Leverage Existing Relationships: Reach out to colleagues and friends who can offer guidance or make introductions.

• Pay It Forward: Support others in their transitions, creating a cycle of reciprocity and mutual growth.

Sofia, a former legal professional, leveraged her legal expertise and strategic networking to transition into corporate social responsibility. By volunteering for nonprofit boards and attending CSR-focused conferences, she cultivated relationships that helped her land her first role in the field, where she combined her passion for sustainability with her professional skills.

Reflecting on Your Career Journey

Transformative career changes require a blend of clarity, courage, and connection. As you navigate your next transition, ask yourself:

• What values and passions are guiding my decisions?

• What bold step can I take to move closer to my goals?

• Who in my network can help me navigate this path?

By embracing these principles, you can turn career transitions into opportunities for authenticity, growth, and meaningful impact. Change is not just a challenge; it’s a chance to shape your future with intention and purpose, creating a career built on values, vision, and resilience.

How to Decide if a Career Break Is the Right Choice for You

After deciding to take a one-year career break to focus on my daughter during her senior year in high school, I received countless inquiries from other women leaders. They sought advice on making similar decisions, sharing emotional challenges like balancing family priorities with career ambitions while managing leadership pressures. These women wanted to make a difference without sacrificing their well-being.

Whether to make a big life or career change is no easy decision, and I’ve coached and consulted with many women leaders around this dilemma. You may be considering bold — even radical — changes, such as stepping away from a career temporarily, shifting to a new field, or redefining how you balance work and personal priorities. These decisions often stem from a desire to reclaim time and well-being while maintaining purpose and fulfillment.

While such transitions can feel daunting, they also present opportunities for growth, clarity, and alignment. Through careful reflection and alignment with your values, a career break can become a deliberate, values-driven choice rather than a reaction to immediate pressures. At the heart of this journey is the courage to reflect, reimagine, and realign your life with your values and aspirations. Women leaders often face unique challenges, including societal expectations to "have it all" and workplace structures that limit flexibility.

These activities are the tools I completed before deciding to take my career break to balance family and career, and have used successfully with clients to uncover clarity on similar changes. They outline practical steps to evaluate your choices, align actions with your values, and embrace transformative growth with confidence.

1. Reflect on Your Life and Work Perspectives

Take uninterrupted time to reflect on your values and experiences and how they influence your approach to work and life. Journaling can be transformative for uncovering clarity and growth, helping you connect your reflections to deliberate decisions about a career break. Start by creating a "lifeview" versus "workview" comparison—a concept from the book, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. Write two reflections: one exploring your personal values and experiences, and another assessing your professional beliefs and aspirations. This exercise might help you uncover patterns or priorities that feel misaligned, guiding you to determine if a career break could restore balance and bring clarity to your next steps.

To visualize your journey, try creating a "life map," inspired by My Life Map by David Marshall and Kate Marshall. Chart significant moments that have shaped your personal and professional paths. Remember, journaling doesn’t need to be perfect—focus on identifying patterns and gaining insight, one thought at a time.

2. Use Tools and Insights to Explore Your Strengths

Assessment tools like Gallup's CliftonStrengths and the Four Tendencies Quiz can unlock deeper self-awareness and resilience strategies for personal growth. Which of these tools have you used before? How have they helped you gain clarity or take action? Share your experience in the comments! These tools provide actionable insights by helping you uncover your strengths and understanding how you respond to expectations. For example, CliftonStrengths focuses on identifying your innate talents and how you can leverage them to create alignment in your career and life—a challenge many women leaders face when balancing workplace demands with personal goals. Meanwhile, the Four Tendencies Quiz reveals how you handle internal and external expectations, a key factor in navigating transitions and managing the expectations of others.

To get started, visit the CliftonStrengths website or download resources like the Four Tendencies framework , both of which offer personalized insights that can be implemented immediately.

3. Understand and Navigate Your Emotions

Understanding your emotions is key to navigating career decisions. By identifying the emotions that energize or deplete you, you can pinpoint aspects of your work that align with or detract from your well-being. Reflect on these questions: What emotions energize me? What changes could amplify those feelings? What changes could bring those emotions into my life? What emotions are currently guiding your career decisions? Join the discussion in the comments!

Your emotions are often the best indicators of what’s working and what isn’t. Use these insights to make adjustments that align your career with your values.

4. Visualize Your Ideal Future

Imagine your ideal life and career, free from external pressures. Oftentimes, we move at warp speed toward what’s expected or popular: more money, status, or advancement. But perhaps you’re really seeking more of what Martin Seligman describes in his book Authentic Happiness as “positive emotions, engagement, authentic connections, meaning and purpose, or a sense of accomplishment.”

Visualization is a powerful exercise to bring clarity to your aspirations. Imagine your ideal workspace, the types of projects that energize you, and the emotions you’d like to experience daily. Then ask yourself: What kind of work energizes me? Am I seeking deeper connections, meaningful engagement, or a sense of accomplishment?

To start, set aside time for a quiet, guided visualization. Picture your ideal day from start to finish—your environment, the people you interact with, and the sense of fulfillment you feel. This can serve as a north star for identifying concrete steps forward.

5. Build Resilience and Take Strategic Action

Resilience is essential for navigating transitions successfully. Start by cultivating small, consistent habits like gratitude journaling—simply write down three things you’re thankful for each day. Pair this with mindfulness practices to stay grounded and focused. Reflecting on your needs through journaling helps clarify whether a career break aligns with your long-term goals.

Take actionable steps today: begin your gratitude journal or schedule a coffee chat with a mentor to explore next moves. Building resilience also means embracing personal disruption, like learning a new skill or exploring an untapped passion. Whitney Johnson's book Disrupt Yourself illustrates how stepping out of your comfort zone fosters growth. These small yet impactful actions ensure that your decision to take a career break is deliberate, reflective, and aligned with your aspirations.

Your Guide to Making a Career Break Decision

This table provides a structured framework to evaluate your readiness for a career break. It focuses on helping you reflect on your values, emotions, and aspirations while guiding actionable next steps. Revisit these questions regularly to ensure your decisions align with your evolving goals and values.

ActivityKey QuestionSuggested ActionReflect on Life and WorkAre my life and work values aligned?Journaling, life mappingAssess StrengthsWhat are my unique talents and tendencies?CliftonStrengths, Four Tendencies QuizUnderstand EmotionsWhat emotions energize or deplete me?Emotion tracking, mindfulnessVisualize the FutureWhat does my ideal life look like?Guided visualization, vision boardsBuild ResilienceHow can I grow through challenges?Gratitude journaling, skill development

Moving Forward

Navigating a major life or career change takes courage and intention. A career break, when approached deliberately, can provide the clarity and resilience needed to realign your life with your deepest values. By reflecting on your values, visualizing your ideal future, and taking strategic action, you can create a life and career that align with your deepest aspirations. Know someone considering a career break? Share this guide with them to spark new possibilities! By sharing, you can foster community support among women leaders, building connections and encouragement for transformative growth. What challenges or questions come to mind as you think about taking a career break? Share your thoughts in the comments!

This checklist ensures each step you take is purposeful, helping you assess whether a career break aligns with your long-term vision. It emphasizes actionable next steps to implement insights gained through reflection:

• Reflection: Use journaling or life mapping to align personal and professional values.

• Strengths Exploration: Apply tools like CliftonStrengths or the Four Tendencies Quiz to identify talents.

• Emotional Awareness: Track emotions to recognize what energizes or drains you.

• Visualization: Define your ideal day and establish steps to achieve it.

• Resilience Building: Strengthen adaptability through gratitude journaling or mindfulness practices.

To wrap up, remember that taking a career break can be a deliberate and transformative choice when approached with intention. By aligning your values and goals, you can set the stage for meaningful growth and fulfillment.

To guide your journey further, schedule a "Power Hour" Clarity Session. This personalized session will help you uncover what matters most, refine your goals, and develop a clear, actionable roadmap to achieve meaningful transformation. Book your session now and take the first step toward your next chapter.