What is the worst advice you can give to women who aspire to leadership?

“Just be yourself!”

After 35 years as a leader and steeped in leadership development, I’ve watched the concept of “authentic leadership” become celebrated. We’re told that authenticity is the gold standard of leadership. Be genuine. Be real. Bring your whole self to work.

But here’s what nobody tells women leaders: authentic leadership advice assumes there’s a level playing field. There isn’t.

When a male executive is direct and assertive, people see him as authentically confident. When a woman is equally direct and assertive, she’s perceived as authentically… aggressive.

Here’s the paradox for women: Be authentic, but only in ways that conform to gender expectations. Be yourself, but not too much of yourself. Be genuine, but strategically so.

The Strategic Authenticity Paradox

Women leaders must be authentic AND strategic about how that authenticity is expressed. We need to:

• Be genuine in our confidence while carefully modulating how that confidence is perceived
• Express our authentic opinions while reading the room to determine if this is the right moment
• Show our real expertise while ensuring we don’t come across as arrogant
• Demonstrate authentic passion while managing whether that passion will be seen as “emotional”
• Be our real selves while calculating which aspects of our real selves are acceptable in this context

But hey…actually, isn’t that what we all need to be doing as leaders?

Here’s where it gets really interesting—and where most leadership advice completely fails women.

The phrase “strategic authenticity” sounds like a contradiction, an oxymoron. Isn’t strategy the opposite of authenticity? If you’re being strategic about how you show up, aren’t you being… inauthentic?

We’re told that authentic leaders don’t calculate or strategise about how they show up; they just show up as themselves. But when women “just show up as ourselves,” we get penalized. So we strategise. But then we feel like frauds for strategising. Which triggers impostor thoughts and makes us question whether we belong in leadership at all, creating a psychological spiral:

1. Be yourself authentically and get negative feedback
2. Strategize how to adjust and feel inauthentic
3. Feel like a fraud and question your leadership capability
4. Internalize it as personal failure and consider leaving leadership exhausted and frustrated

The Liberating Reframe

Strategic authenticity isn’t an oxymoron. It’s sophisticated leadership. It is managing a critical paradox for women – the Intentionally Authentic Paradox.

And it is helping us build the leadership muscles we need because we live in what we call the “permacrisis”—an era where volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are the norm. In this environment, the idea that leaders can just “be themselves” without reading context, adapting skilfully, or making strategic choices is naïve – and dangerous.

All effective leadership requires what is called “contextual intelligence”—the ability to read situations and adapt behaviour while maintaining core integrity.

Strategic authenticity is the integration of character and skill. It’s knowing who you are at your core (your values, your purpose, your strengths) AND knowing how to express that core effectively in different contexts.

The Intentionally Authentic Paradox is training women leaders to develop something extraordinary: the ability to maintain integrity while adapting skilfully. To stay true to core values while flexing your behavioural approach. To be genuine AND contextually intelligent simultaneously.

Academic research confirms that leaders with a “paradox mindset” – those who can hold seemingly contradictory elements like authenticity and strategy together – significantly outperform those who see these as either/or choices. You might be interested in my conversations with Dr Ronit Kark as well as with Professor Marianne Lewis around a paradox mindset and skillset as a source of competitive advantage.

Don’t Get Stuck in a Double-bind Dilemma

The real trap is the either/or dilemma thinking that says you must choose between being authentic OR being strategic. Paradox and both/and thinking says: I can be true to who I am AND strategic about how I express that in different contexts.

This means:

• I have core values AND I adapt my approach based on what each situation requires
• I am genuinely myself AND I develop the skill to communicate that self effectively
• I maintain my integrity AND I build the capability to navigate complex social dynamics

This isn’t compromise. This isn’t selling out. This isn’t being fake.

This is leadership mastery.

Every skilled leader needs to do this, and women need to be particularly conscious of it because the penalties for getting it wrong are higher for us.

It’s Not Fair

Yes it’s not fair that women must be more strategic about authenticity than men. It’s not fair that the same adaptive behaviour that makes Tom “savvy” makes Sarah seem “calculating.” You have every right to be frustrated about this reality.

And… this frustration can either exhaust you or fuel you. You choose.

It is fuel for me because I know as leaders right now we exist in the gap between “how it was” for women and “how it will be.” We are the bridge generation. Our grandmothers couldn’t imagine the leadership influence we have. While we are developing the sophisticated both/and capabilities that our granddaughters (and their daughters) will inherit as normal. Every woman who demonstrates today that you can be both authentic AND strategic, both genuine AND contextually intelligent, expands what’s possible for the women coming behind us. Doing this while building great paradox mastery skills so central to good leadership today.

From Fraud to Mastery

Every woman who navigates the Intentionally Authentic Paradox skilfully—who demonstrates that being strategic doesn’t mean being fake—weakens the very stereotype of Think Leader: Think Male that creates it.

The effort and discomfort isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong—it’s a sign that you’re developing mastery. What if instead of seeing strategic authenticity as evidence that you’re a fraud, you saw it as evidence that you’re developing a sophisticated leadership capability that gave you a source of competitive advantage? Imagine being able to say:

“I know who I am at my core AND I’ve developed the skill to express that powerfully in different contexts. I’m strategic about how I show up, not because I’m inauthentic, but because I’m effective and I am conscious of the impact I need to make as a leader. I navigate this paradox with my integrity intact because I choose to transform it into mastery.”

The Intentionally Authentic Paradox is real. Yes it means we need to be deeply skilful, intentional and self-aware. Yet they are all the things we need to deploy when we are developing any sophisticated leadership capability – skilful, intentional and self-aware.

The choice isn’t between being authentic or being strategic. The choice is whether you’ll keep seeing them as opposites—or start integrating them, building the both/and leadership that our complex world desperately needs.

As always thanks for reading this and sharing it. Feel free to read more on my blog page.