The Wobble: Rethinking Security in Women's Leadership

Not confidence. Not self-esteem. Not self-efficacy. Security. 

Women in senior leadership roles rarely arrive there by accident. They have usually achieved remarkable things. More often than not, they are talented, effective and capable. They have worked hard, navigated complexity and earned their place through years of commitment and contribution. 

A recent conversation with my dad has stayed with me and got me thinking.  

His observation was simple, but it struck me deeply. From my humble perspective, many of the women who reach senior leadership positions are exceptional. They are respected by others and effective in what they do. Yet, in my experience, only some seem to have developed a genuine sense of security. 

Not confidence. Not self-esteem. Not self-efficacy. Security. 

The more I have sat with that observation, the more I have wondered if this was something we need to talk more about in women's leadership circles. 

Confidence is not security 

We often talk about confidence. Leadership development programs, coaching conversations and workplace initiatives frequently focus on helping women become more confident, build self-esteem or increase self-efficacy. 

These are important conversations. But security feels different. 

Confidence is often linked to our belief in our abilities. Self-efficacy is the belief that we can influence outcomes and take effective action. Self-esteem relates to how we value ourselves. 

Security seems to sit somewhere else. Security feels more anchored. It feels connected to safety. To identity. To a deeper sense of knowing who we are regardless of the circumstances around us. 

The distinction matters because many of the women I work with are already confident and highly capable. They know they are good at what they do. Their achievements demonstrate this clearly. 

Yet many still describe a deep sense of insecurity. This suggests that capability and security are not necessarily the same thing. 

The Interplay Between Internal and External Security 

What I find myself increasingly curious about is the interplay between internal and external security. 

Many female clients come to me because, externally, they are thriving. They are effective, driven and respected. They have influence. They are leading teams, shaping strategy and making important decisions. From the outside, they appear successful. Yet internally, they do not always feel secure. They struggle to feel anchored in their identity, their alignment and/or their sense of self. 

Then there are other women. Women who have done significant inner work. Women who know themselves deeply and have invested years in understanding who they are. And still, they experience insecurity, differently. Sometimes it is influenced by ageing. Sometimes by comparison. Sometimes by workplace dynamics, visibility, power or the experience of being one of only a few women in a particular space.  

The more I speak to women in leadership the more something curious becomes apparent: Internal security and external security do not seem to move together. In fact, at times they appear to pull against one another.  

For many women, internal security develops as they move through life. They become wiser. They accumulate experience. They develop perspective. They come to trust themselves more deeply. This internal power becomes an empowered stance. Yet often, as internal power grows, external power grows with it. Greater visibility. Greater influence. More responsibility. More scrutiny. And this is where things become interesting… 

Because it seems that the more external power a woman holds, the more the surrounding environment sometimes starts to shift. Systems become uncomfortable. Resistance emerges. Relationships change. Expectations increase. Criticism becomes more visible. And suddenly the internal foundation that felt steady begins to wobble. 

Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I'm not as capable as I thought. Maybe I don't belong here. 

The interplay between internal and external security feels both real and important. 

Recognising the Wobble 

I wonder what would happen if we spoke about this more openly? 

What if the experience many women have is not a lack of confidence but a natural wobble that emerges when they are navigating complex systems while trying to remain connected to themselves? What if we reframed insecurity as uncertainty and therefore not always evidence that something is wrong? 

Many women seem to live with a form of incongruence. Externally they are succeeding while internally they are negotiating uncertainty, challenge and self-questioning. Perhaps that is not dysfunction. Perhaps it is disorientation. 

If we recognised the wobble for what it is, we might be more compassionate with ourselves and with each other. We might stop interpreting every moment of uncertainty as a personal failing and start understanding it as part of the human experience of leadership. Because the practice of leadership can be profoundly disorienting. And perhaps one of the reasons women struggle is because they are holding too much of that experience alone. 

Heifetz and Linsky wrote, "Don't practice leadership alone." The more I reflect on the experiences of women around me, the more I think there is wisdom in that statement. Women already hold so much. Why would adaptive leadership be any different? 

Why This Matters Now 

I have found myself thinking about this conversation in the context of adaptive leadership. Organisations need people who can practise adaptive leadership more than ever. They need people with the capacity, political acumen and emotional intelligence to mobilise others towards a preferred future. Sometimes that future is bold and audacious. Sometimes it consists of small, incremental shifts that gradually transform a system. 

Adaptive leadership is not simply about disruption. It is not just about challenging or provoking. It is about strategically, politically and compassionately helping a system move. 

This is hard work. And increasingly, what I hear from clients, colleagues and friends is that women are doing this work. They are helping organisations shift, evolve and adapt. 

Yet many are paying a significant personal cost. Some are exhausted. Some are isolated. Some are questioning themselves. Many are leaving. 

I find myself wondering whether organisations have a responsibility to recognise the internal and external security required for women to continue doing this work successfully. Not because women are incapable. Quite the opposite. Because they are already carrying so much of the adaptive leadership work that organisations desperately need. They need partners, allies and confidantes.  

A Different Question 

The more I reflect on security, the more I think we may be asking the wrong question. Perhaps the question is not how we make women more confident. Perhaps the question is how we create the conditions, both internally and externally, for women (and indeed people) to feel secure enough to practise leadership?  

How do we support women to build inner security without placing the entire burden on them? How do organisations create environments where women are not left holding adaptive leadership work alone? How do we better understand the wobble rather than pathologise it? 

These are the conversations we are increasingly interested in at Ebb & Haven. 

Not because women need fixing. But because exceptional women deserve support. And because leadership was never meant to be carried alone. 

The Mud on the Statue 

At Ebb & Haven, we aim to support women in leadership. Importantly, our work is not based on the assumption that women need to be fixed, improved or made better. 

That shifts the conversation entirely. In all my years of coaching and leadership development, I have never worked with a woman leader who was not exceptional. Not one. 

This is why I often think of the fable of the statue covered in mud. The challenge is not that the gold is missing. The gold is already there. The challenge is that something has become attached to it. Perhaps the mud is self-protection. Perhaps it is the tendency to dim our own light. Perhaps it is comparison or self-doubt. Perhaps it is criticism that has been thrown at us by others. Perhaps it is the accumulation of workplace experiences, cultural expectations and societal messages that women absorb over a lifetime. Perhaps it is all of these things. Either way, the work is not about creating the gold. The work is about seeing it clearly again.