Balance & Beyond Podcast

Feeling stretched too thin in your leadership journey?

You're not alone. The pace of change in 2025 demands a new approach to success—one that doesn't sacrifice your wellbeing on the altar of achievement.

My deep dive into the three critical leadership skills that ambitious women need right now reveals surprising truths about what's actually holding you back. First, authenticity has become your greatest competitive advantage in an AI-dominated landscape. When everything else can be perfected with technology, your humanity—complete with quirks and vulnerabilities—is what makes you irreplaceable. Yet many workplaces have become coldly transactional, with meaningful connections replaced by robotic interactions. Learning to be strategically vulnerable, especially in those small moments before meetings or during brief exchanges, creates the foundation for genuine leadership influence.

Equally important is visibility—a skill many talented women avoid due to discomfort with self-promotion. Like it or not, your excellent work doesn't speak for itself anymore. While you're heads-down producing exceptional results, others (often men) are actively claiming the spotlight and getting promoted. The truth? Your nervous system needs conditioning to feel safe while being seen, whether you're presenting to senior executives or sharing content online. The most successful leaders aren't necessarily the most capable—they're the ones who've mastered both capability and visibility.

Finally, adaptability separates those who will thrive from those who'll burn out. When you're already running on empty, even small disruptions can cause complete system failure. True adaptability isn't about fragmenting yourself further—it's about creating enough capacity to bend without breaking. This means prioritizing self-care, letting go of perfectionism, and developing the confidence to pivot quickly when circumstances change.

Ready to transform your leadership approach and create sustainable success? These skills aren't just nice-to-haves—they're the foundation of a leadership style that allows you to advance your career while maintaining balance in every area of life. What leadership skill will you focus on developing first?

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

Today we're talking about leadership, and I am seeing so many women stuck in these three traps again and again and again. It's happening at the junior levels, and more concerningly, it's happening as women progress. So let's dive into what is going on here and how, by escaping these traps, you can find yourself moving into more elevated areas and levels of leadership where you're really able to reach your full potential.

The first trap that I see women fall into is a deeply embedded identity that, for many of us, comes from childhood. It comes from our parents, and it is exhausting and a key driver of burnout. We call this the workhorse trap, also known as the get-shit-done trap. This is where we have this belief that if I do everything, if I do all the work, if I do all the things and I never stop, then that's going to buy me influence, that's going to get me recognition, that's going to get me progressed. If I just have a hard work ethic, like I've been taught by my parents, then I'll be successful.

And yet, woman after woman who is doing all the things—who is working really hard, crazy hours, churning out a huge volume of work and output bigger than most people, usually holding multiple roles—is passed over for promotion for somebody else who's working half as much, is not given the big project or the next opportunity because she's suddenly become indispensable and can't be taken off this thing that is draining and that she isn't enjoying because she's stuck in this workhorse mentality.

We've been led down this garden path thanks to our parents' well-meaning, I guess you would say, advice and what they were told—you know, put your head down, work hard, get a good job. Eventually, you'll earn enough money, you can contribute to the family, and you'll have a great life.

And that may have been the case when we were all making widgets, and we were all in a factory, and it was about how many widgets you could produce every hour. That was initially where we were trading that time for dollars, and it was all about how many widgets per hour we could produce. And obviously, the harder we worked, the more widgets every hour.

This model is very much based on the old Industrial Revolution model, where it is a complete time-for-dollars exchange. And it can feel that way very early on in your career. You put your hand up, you say yes to opportunities, you work harder than somebody else, and you do get rewarded for that. You do get given accolades, you're patted on the shoulder, and you are given other opportunities. However, what we don't realize is this transition that we need to make, where we need to, at a certain point in our careers, stop being the workhorse.

But what stops us from doing this are these deeply ingrained beliefs that make it impossible to stop. If you believe that being busy makes you important—which most women do—and if you believe that if you put your head down and work hard, eventually somebody's going to notice and they're going to reward you, then you are never going to stop working, because then you don't believe that you're important.

If you think that you have to work really hard, usually this comes with a lot of hustle mentality—it should be hard, you have to push, you have to strive—because, again, we've been taught this. And yet, all that happens is that by being so buried in the work, by being so stuck in the weeds and spending all our time putting out fires, we're never in the strategic work.

We don't have time to be in that one meeting where we could have said the thing because we've done the strategic work and we've had the space to think and improve something that then makes everybody else realize that we're management material or that we're CEO material or whatever it is that we know we're material for.

And the biggest mistake so many women make is thinking, If I just work harder, I'll get through this. When I've got through all the work, then I will have time for strategic thinking. When I get through this busy period, then I'll take a step back, and I'll reflect, and I'll be able to go and improve that process, or I'll be able to go and do that thing that's actually causing a lot of my fires right now.

But it never comes. It never, ever, ever arrives—usually because of the next trap that we'll get to in a minute. However, if you want to step up, if you are feeling stuck from a leadership perspective and you resonate at all with being the workhorse, then until you change this identity—until you realize that being a workhorse has you trapped and burning out—you will never progress.

And I know that's a big statement, but I have enough evidence now, having been in close proximity to hundreds of high achievers, to know that until they make this shift, they will stay stuck.

What is really exciting is that when you make the shift, you can actually accelerate really, really fast. I have seen people who then take this push-and-hard-work mentality into Oh, I'm going to be promoted and all these things. No, you don't actually have to. It gets easier. Sometimes things can happen without you pushing—when you know how to do that, when you know the right buttons and levers to push.

So, the first trap I want you to escape is the workhorse trap. Part of what keeps you trapped in the workhorse trap—that's a lot of traps—is what we like to call the perfectionism paradox. Yes, our dear friend perfectionism is back because it infiltrates so much of what you do.

You stay trapped as the workhorse because you feel like everything has to be perfect. You feel like everything has to be flawless, and along with doing really hard work, you believe that you have to do a lot of work—a huge amount of volume—just put your head down, and it has to be done to an impeccable standard. It has to be done to a really, really, really high standard.

What this does, when you add these two together, is create this crazy loop where you have a ton of work, but you believe that you have to get everything done to an exceptionally high standard. And we're talking about, you know, you can't send a spreadsheet around unless it's all color-coded, and the cells are all aligned, and, you know, the lines are proper. And this is a draft that's about to be hacked, but you spend 45 minutes formatting the spreadsheet because you want it to look pretty—because you have a mistaken belief that if a document is messy, that reflects poorly on you.

When in reality, that's 45 minutes that you could have been spending on something that actually mattered. So, perfectionism does not get you promoted. In actual fact, it usually inhibits you because some of the traits of a perfectionist really, really hold you back.

Some of these traits that we see—and, I guess, the implications for you as a leader or someone who wants to step up even further into leadership—are your high standards that you think are your benchmark. And I can speak from a lot of personal experience here because I used to be a perfectionist, a pretty hardcore one, and I was adamant that it was my high standards, that it was my high quality of work, that were all behind my reputation.

And that is true, and it also was hindering my reputation, particularly as a leader who could step up. Now, I'm not suggesting—before you go, But I can't be sloppy! Joe, and yeah, that's going to damage... Yes, I hear you. But there is a difference as to when high standards really matter. But there is a difference as to when high standards really matter because too often, the high standards I had meant that I was finessing, fiddling, and fart-assing around with things that didn't actually matter.

What that did was make me slow. It made me slow to get out a report because I was spending so long getting it up to my standard. You know—PowerPoint, version 22—because the triangles didn't quite look as good as the octagons, and then the octagons should have been blue and not orange. In that time, I could have circulated it for feedback and realized that that page was going to be killed anyway. So I've just spent 45 minutes fiddling around with something that doesn't actually matter.

All of this lack of speed and overthinking not only damages your reputation—because these days, it's all about speed—but also causes a huge energy drain. It's really hard being a perfectionist—spotting all those mistakes, tidying everything up, mopping up after everyone all the time. And until you're able to put this down, things won't change.

Another trait that I see, particularly as it relates to a leadership perspective, is defensiveness. This is usually because feedback that is given or criticism that is made of a project, a result, or an outcome that didn’t meet expectations is taken incredibly personally. You feel so responsible for what has happened.

This overdeveloped sense of responsibility usually leads to you taking things very, very personally. This further fuels the perfectionist in you because you tell yourself, Well, had I, you know, checked that report that seven other eyes saw, and had I known that this thing I’ve never done before was about to happen—even though seven other eyes took it—I should have known. I should have known. I should have checked that.

Yes, this is an exact conversation that I had with someone very senior yesterday. She believed that if she had caught something, even though she had never done it before, she was to blame because the client didn’t quite get what they wanted. And yet, seven other eyes saw it—there was no worry about them, and yet it was this.

I haven't done a good enough job. I should have saved it. I shouldn't have let this happen. So this fuels the cycle of Well, I better take it all. I can't give it to anybody else because at least if I've done it all, then I can actually beat myself up more instead of having to delegate and worry about other people.

Because the truth is, as you step up into leadership, you have to be more comfortable failing. You have to be more comfortable taking estimated guesses and punts, analyzing your risk, and saying, You know what? Right now, I'm making the best decision I can at the time. I recognize that there are some risks, but the rewards outweigh them, so we're going to go.

And if next week we get new data that says We shouldn't have done that, okay—not my fault. Now I know better. Awesome. Let's pivot. What can we do? But this perfectionism, the defensiveness, the high standards will really, really hold you back and keep you stuck in this cycle, and everything you've been taught to get out of it actually just further fuels the cycle. Work harder, do more.

Of course, we know that procrastination always comes with perfectionism. So this is another trait of the workhorse who’s so overwhelmed, who doesn’t know which next piece of work to do because there’s so much on your list. You’re paralyzed by picking which one to do, so you don’t do anything, and you find yourself looking at the 25 best Oscar dresses of all time down a God-knows-what social rabbit hole, and suddenly 25 minutes is gone because you’ve blinked.

This happens all the time. It's a huge energy leak, and all you're doing is avoiding feelings. You're avoiding the shame, or the fear, or the guilt, and these feelings continue to chase you throughout the day, and then usually bump into you around three o'clock in the morning when you can't sleep. So, if you've ever been told you're not strategic enough, if you are spending too much time in the weeds, if you are buried in the details, these are all signs that these traps are applying to you.

I hate it when people throw around the You're not strategic enough comment because they don't give women enough context as to what that means. And it's usually conditioning and these traps that have us stuck. It's not that we're not capable of strategic work, it's not that we don't have strategic brains, it's that we don't know how to let go of these identities and these compensatory behaviors that are keeping us trapped in places that we know are beneath us.

And then the last trap is one of the ways that we need to break out, but it also keeps us going around and around in this loop of workhorse and perfectionism. And this is the permission loop. By this, I mean we are usually, typically—until we break this—heavily reliant on external validation from others. We look outside of ourselves for someone to say we've done a good job, or that we're right, or to back us up.

I know one of the ways my permission loop used to run was I used to get a lot of collaboration, a lot of buy-in, and a lot of feedback, and I used to justify to myself, Well, that's the culture, you know, that's how we work here. It's all about collaboration.

But in truth, I was just covering my butt because I figured that, instead of backing myself and saying, This is what I want to do, I would circulate it with everybody, which was a way of me getting permission from everybody to have my own ideas. Even though all I would do was go out to everybody to get validation that my idea was a good one.

And so, all that does—no surprise—is add more work, because you spend all of this time getting buy-in, collaborating, and, you know, ceasing the world. And yes, that can be good; it can be a smart political move. But you have to ask yourself, Do I really need buy-in for this, or can I act and apologize later? And more often than not, the things that I was getting buy-in for didn't need buy-in. They were me looking for validation. They were me looking for feedback.

Of course, I was doing a board paper. Of course, I was going to circulate it. A big strategy that was going to impact five other departments. Of course, circulate, get buy-in, that's strategic. But something within my own team—that's completely within my control—and I'm going out to two or three people to get their thoughts on. No, that's a lack of confidence, that's self-doubt, and I'm looking to the opinions of others to substitute my own voice, which should be there. And when you add this belief that hard work will be rewarded, we often wait for that permission, that shoulder tap to say, You're ready for a promotion, or Would you like this new opportunity? instead of getting it ourselves.

There are very well-known stats. I'm going to get the numbers wrong, but something like men will apply to a job when they can do 25% of it, whereas women typically wait till they can do 85 or 90% of it, because we feel like we have to get permission, we want to be chosen, we want to be perfect for the job, because we're too afraid of rejection. We're too afraid to put ourselves out there and ask.

It's no surprise, in the 2025 data that came out about the gender pay gap, that one of the biggest areas the gap existed in was—yes, there's a base salary gap—but it was in bonuses, sign-on bonuses, and other incentives, because they usually require you to ask for them. They require you to negotiate, and if you're waiting there with your hand out saying, Please, sir, can I have some more? without strongly advocating for yourself, then it's never going to get given to you.

I once got told very early on by one of my chairmen, You know the whole 'Joe, don't ask, don't get,' and men don't hesitate to ask, so why aren't you coming into my office demanding a pay rise or demanding a bonus or making sure that your bonus matches somebody else’s? And it never occurred to me that I had to. I almost had to get permission from a man early on in my career, and I guess I was very I got this to give myself permission.

We see this with so many women who won’t invest in themselves. They're going to their work to ask permission for them to do a leadership program. This happens all the time with women who want to come and work with us, and they don't feel like they can invest in their own development. Work should be investing in them, and yes, that's true. But if you're the workhorse and the perfectionist, well, you're sort of irreplaceable, and you can do the job of two people without whining or asking. So why would I give you the funding for this? Well, they go to their husbands or their partners to seek permission because they don't believe that they can invest in themselves.

There's a quote I saw recently from Julia Cameron, which I think is just so beautiful and true. And what we sit with, and it hurts like hell when the world won't invest in you, but it's excruciating, almost more than you can bear, when you don't believe and invest in yourself.

So my question to you today is: What do you have to do to escape the workhorse trap? How do you tame your perfectionist so that you can escape this paradox, and particularly the workhorse and the perfectionism? We've got to detangle them.

It's all going to start with you breaking the permission loop, with you stopping looking to others to tell you what you can and can't do, where you can and can't put your time, your energy, your emotions, or your money, and for you to take back that control. For you to decide what matters to you, for you to determine that you don't want to be stuck anymore. 

You make these shifts and, believe it or not, you can literally write yourself a permission slip and say, I'm getting out of this loop. I do not, I no longer believe that I have to sit here and wait for someone to pat me on the head like a good girl and say, Well done. I'm going to go and ask for it. I'm going to no longer wait to be chosen. I'm going to strategically position myself to be the leader that I know I can be.

You make these changes, and my goodness, you are going to break through in 2025. You're going to step up into leadership on levels that you never knew possible. Most importantly, let's ensure that you're getting paid and you're earning your worth for everything that you can give to the world. So let's break out of the traps and not be stuck anymore. See you next time.

OUTRO: Thank you for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world. If you’re keen to dive deeper into our world, visit us at www.balanceinstitute.com to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance, and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast.