Last updated on June 3rd, 2026 at 08:00 pm
10 Unusual Strategies for Being a Successful Female Leader
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Summary
This post bypasses the text book and well-promoted strategies for successful female leadership.
It reaches back into my past work as a Women’s Project Coordinator for an international organisation, and allows me to sieve out the strategies that the strong, successful women used to navigate a male-dominated world.
The value of these strategies are located in the fact that these women were from diverse regions and cultures – Asia, Africa, Europe, Caribbean and Latin America – and yet these strategies work for all of them.
So, if you are, or planning to be, a successful female leader, this post is for you!
I remember the first time I became a “successful female leader” like it was yesterday.
I was 24 years old and looked even younger.
I was working in a financial institution — a world built on hierarchy, performance, and the unspoken rule that you don’t rock the boat.
It didn’t help that I was smart, and it didn’t help that I was genetically predisposed to be attractive either. But that was only part of the problem.
The real problem was that even then — young, new, and still figuring out my footing — I refused to toe anybody’s butt-kissing line or shrinked myself to fit in.
I called it as I saw it. And in that culture, I was labelled dangerous. Despite my constant above average performance.
From there I moved on to years of navigating boardrooms. First as Accountant to a regional organisation and eventually as a Women’s Project Coordinator to an international organisation.
In those work environments, I got to work alongside tough women at every level, from many different institutions, across different cultures and in numerous countries.
And above all else, here is what I learned:
Most of the regular advice women receive about leadership is well-meaning…AND almost completely useless!
That’s not to say the standard list – build your network, find a mentor, negotiate your salary – is wrong. It’s just not complete.
And as such, it doesn’t prepare you for the complicated, contradictory, deeply human reality of what it actually means to be successful female leader.
That’s why I am sharing just 10 of the strategies I know about, that few people talk about. The ones that actually work…
1. Don’t try to behave like a man
Let’s start with the most common mistake.
At some point, as a woman in a leadership role, you will get the message – spoken or unspoken – that you need to be more like your male counterparts. More assertive. Less emotional. Tougher. More transactional…Otherwise, you will never be a successful female leader.
And so, you start performing a version of leadership that doesn’t belong to you. And then you wonder why it feels hollow and wrong.
But here’s the truth: the qualities that are typically labelled as “feminine” such as empathy, intuition, the ability to read a room, the instinct to build consensus, are not weaknesses to be fixed.
They are actually leadership assets that most businesses and organisations are desperately in need of in today’s world.
When I worked internationally, the women who earned the deepest respect were not the ones who tried to prove they could be as “tough” as the men.
Actually, they were the ones who were completely unaffected by the characteristics and behaviour of the men around them.
They led with their own trusted instincts, their own confident style, their own powerful voice, and people followed because it was authentic.
So don’t try to imitate male leadership behaviour and characteristics. Just be your own assertive self.
2. Don’t Be Afraid To Be Tough
This is the other side of the “don’t try to behave like a man” coin.
Not behaving like a man doesn’t mean being soft. It doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations, tolerating poor performance, or backing down when you know you’re right.
Toughness and warmth are not opposites and one of the most liberating things you can do as a successful female leader is refuse to choose between the two.
In my experience, women often hold back from toughness not because we lack the backbone, but because we’ve been conditioned to worry about being labelled difficult, cold, or aggressive. (tell me about it!)
So we soften messages that shouldn’t be softened. We cushion feedback until it loses its meaning. We hesitate when a firm decision is exactly what the moment requires.
But your best leadership success strategy is to be the leader who gives the honest appraisal, holds the hard line, and makes the call nobody else wants to make.
If you do it with care and empathy, it’s not cruelty. It’s simply successful female leadership.
3. Be Bold – a must for a successful female leader
Boldness is not the same as recklessness.
Boldness is the willingness to act on your convictions before you have everyone’s permission.
Early in my career, I watched talented women wait — for the right moment, the right title, the right level of certainty — while others less qualified moved ahead, simply because they’ve decided to go for it.
But here is something successful female leaders know: boldness has an unfair advantage.
It looks like confidence even when it isn’t, and confidence opens doors.
This means pitching the idea before it’s fully formed. Raising your hand for the assignment that scares you. Disagreeing in the room rather than in the corridor afterwards. Speaking first, not last.
Yes…at first you will be uncomfortable. You will even be scared. At the worst, you will feel like an outright imposter.
But go ahead and be bold. Of course you will not always be right. Bold people seldom are.
But they are always in motion — and motion is where change happens.
4. Embrace Every Aspect Of The Job
Listen up ladies.
The leaders who last are the ones who don’t pick and choose the parts of the job they like.
Most women are happy to take the visibility, the decision-making, the credit.
But far fewer are willing to fully embrace the harder parts:
- the day-to-day administration
- the conflict resolution
- the accountability when something goes wrong
- the unglamorous work that keeps everything running smoothly
When I was a Women’s Project Coordinator, the work that built my credibility most wasn’t the big presentations or the high-profile initiatives. And yes…there were many of those.
It was showing up completely for the small things, the difficult things, the things that didn’t come with much recognition.
People notice and remember who can be counted on across the full range of the job. And that reputation is worth more than almost anything else.
So go ahead, embrace all of it. The whole job is where you build the whole leader.
5. Don’t Be Afraid To Be Sensitive
Here’s a strategy that will surprise people who expect a leadership list to be all grit and strategy.
Sensitivity is genuine awareness to what people are experiencing, what they need,and what they’re not saying.
It is one of the most powerful tools available to a successful female leader. That’s because it allows you to catch problems early and earn loyalty that truly goes deeper than just transactional obligation.
But above all, when you are sensitive, you navigate the human complexities of any business or organisation in much better ways than if you relied purely on a logical approach.
Yet the pressure for female leaders to suppress sensitivity in professional settings is still alive.
Therefore, your role is to understand the difference between emotional reaction (which undermines leadership) and emotional intelligence (which defines it).
So don’t try to be a tough leader by ignoring the part of you that shows empathy to an employee or a colleague.
That part is an asset. Lean into it.
6. Make Hard Work Gender Blind
There is a quiet trap that catches many talented, successful female leaders:
The belief that you need to work harder than men to be seen as equal, and the resentment that comes with it.
And I get it. The bias is real. The additional burden is real. But here’s the hidden truth: the work itself does not know your gender.
Excellence is excellence. Standards are standards.
And the women who have commanded the most genuine respect in every organisation I’ve worked in are the ones who brought their full capability to the work, without making the work about anything other than the work.
This is not to say you ignore injustice and structural barriers. They are worth naming and fighting to remove.
But inside the work itself, hold yourself to the standard of the best person in the room, regardless of their gender.
Don’t measure your effort against what men get away with. Measure it against what you know you’re capable of.
That approach will determine and define your success faster than any other strategy.T
7. Sharpen Your Negotiating Skills
Negotiation is not a male skill. You hear me? The problem is, it has been believed to be one for far too long.
Every successful female leader must have a clear-eyed, unsentimental understanding of negotiation. This must exist whether you’re negotiating for:
- new buyer/supplier relationships
- new credit terms from your bankers/investors
- your staff to arrange holidays that don’t shut down your business
- your partner to do dinner when you don’t have to work late
When you understand that negotiating is not aggression, you can apply this practical approach:
- Know what you want from the negotiating process
- Start negotiating from a position of trust and good faith
- Hold yourself to high standards
- Know what you’ll deliver and how to articulate it
- Know what you’re willing to walk away from
- and be genuinely willing to walk away
Remember: preparation transforms it. Practice makes it feel less foreign. And every successful negotiation makes the next one that much easier.
8. Rock The Two-Way Process Of Mentorship
Most people think of mentorship as something that flows in one direction: from experience to inexperience, from senior to junior, from those who have arrived to those still finding their way.
If that’s what you believe, you could not be more wrong.
When I think about it, I’ve had mentors all my life. Some evolved from association and some I chose deliberately.
But the one that changed everything and truly set me up to be a successful female leader was when a bright, young woman asked me to be her mentor.
Pretty soon I realised that both of us were genuinely invested in each other’s growth.
For her I represented a vast source of readily available clarity and experience. For me she represented a fresh perspective, new challenges and a mirror that shows me where the world is going.
My point is, you fast-track your success as a leader when as a mentor you are willing to be more than just an advisor – and can commit to learning from a mentee, who is earlier in their journey than you.
So rock the two-way process of mentorship. Learn to choose a mentor and be a mentor. I promise you it will be one of the most valuable things in your professional life. For both of you.
9. Build Sisterhood…Not Just Networks
Networking is transactional. Sisterhood is something else entirely.
It refers to the bond of unity, support, and shared purpose among women.
It’s when women, acting alone or part of an organisation, actively, deliberately invest in other women’s success without keeping score.
Not because it is strategic. Not because it would benefit them directly. But because they understood that the advancement of one is the advancement of all.
Sisterhood undermines the scarcity thinking – that idea that there are only so many seats for women at the table. Of course that’s a lie, which is designed to keep us competing instead of collaborating.
This doesn’t mean encouraging blind loyalty or ignoring poor performance from women any more than from men.
It means refusing to participate in the quiet undermining that holds so many women back.
Your mission: to use your position as a successful female leader to hold the door of sisterhood wide open.
10. Know When To Walk Away
For me, the most underrated leadership skill and strategy is when you, in the words of Kenny Rogers, “know when to walk away.”
If you’re not leading your own business, you can find yourself in environments that are not built for you to thrive in. No shame in that.
You see, not every institution deserves your talent. Not every culture can accommodate your integrity. Some battles are worth fighting; others will cost you more than they’re worth.
The ability to tell the difference – and to act on it – is not failure. It is discernment.
Therefore, when you find yourself in this position, you must find the strength and assertiveness to briskly walk away, rather than slowly diminish trying to fit in.
I learn this from my Mom first hand.
Many times, she would walk out of her “domestic worker” jobs because she felt disrespected or abused. Yes, we would struggle and be hungry until she found the next job, but even as children, the lessons were powerful.
I know she was cheering in her grave when earlier this year, while trying to deliver on a consultancy, I found myself being undermined by the very people who had hired me. And I walked away. Professionally and politely.
Know your worth. Know your limits. And be willing to bet on yourself.
A Final Word…
By now you would have realised that none of these strategies came from a textbook.
They evolved primarily from my work with female leaders, from leading organisations and from managing and leading my own diverse businesses.
The bottom line in all this?
Successful leadership is not a performance. It’s not a list of behaviours you adopt to appear credible.
It’s the slow, sometimes uncomfortable process of figuring out who you actually are as a leader – and then having the courage to be exactly that. Consistently, relentlessly, regardless of who is watching.
So…embrace and implement these strategies. No rush. One at a time…
And don’t be surprised when you discover that being a successful female leader is not only a destination. It’s also a complete, significant journey…
Lorna Barrow
Lorna Barrow excels at leading small business owners to get the breakthrough they are looking for in their businesses! She unleashes her 25+ years of small business experience and knowledge on your business, which was developed from working with small business across the Caribbean and beyond. This ensures you get the solutions that are right for you and your business...
