Pour your favorite sip.

I have been called too strong.

I have been told I was too much.

And if I’m looking back accurately at my leadership journey, I don’t think my biggest struggle was wondering whether I should say what I thought.

Most of the time, I did say it.

Sometimes I paid a price for it.

There were expectations around me about what a woman should be like. Nice. Kind. Relational. Accommodating.

I could be those things. I am those things.

But I was also strong. I had opinions. I could see what needed to happen and say so. I was willing to challenge something that wasn’t working.

And sometimes that strength did not fit what people expected from me.

That is different from receiving feedback I genuinely needed. I have received plenty of that over the years, and I’m grateful for people who cared enough to give it.

What I’m talking about is something subtler:

When the same qualities that help a woman lead can become the qualities for which she is judged.

Be decisive, but not abrasive.
Be confident, but not intimidating.
Be warm, but not soft.
Speak up, but don’t be too much.

That is the double bind.

And I suspect some women reading this know exactly what I mean.

When the leadership standard keeps moving

In my DAWN Leadership Cake Framework, the double bind is one of the pressures women can carry at work.

Imagine a woman taking over a team that needs stronger accountability.

She is told she needs to be more decisive.

So she becomes more direct.

Now she hears that her tone is too strong.

She works harder to build relationships and include others.

Then perhaps she is told she needs more executive presence.

The challenge is not that every piece of feedback is unfair. Good leaders should learn, flex, and grow.

The question is whether the acceptable range of leadership behavior becomes narrower for her than for the person beside her.

The research helps explain why

One of the clearest studies comes from psychologist Alice Eagly and colleagues, who analyzed 16 nationally representative U.S. public-opinion polls involving more than 30,000 adults from 1946 to 2018.

They found something important: perceptions of women’s competence changed dramatically over those seven decades. By 2018, Americans were much more likely to see women and men as equally competent. But perceptions of agency changed very little. Men were still more likely to be associated with traits such as ambition and courage, while women were even more strongly associated with communal traits such as compassion and sensitivity.

That distinction matters.

This research is not saying women are naturally warmer or men are naturally more assertive. It is measuring the traits people associate with women and men.

And those expectations can create a narrower lane for women leaders.

Be confident, but still likable.
Be strong, but not intimidating.
Be serious, but not unfriendly.
Lead the room, but make sure everyone still feels comfortable with you.

A separate landmark meta-analysis by Anne Koenig, Alice Eagly and colleagues examined 69 studies of leadership stereotypes and found that leadership itself was still culturally associated more strongly with masculine and agentic qualities than with feminine and communal ones, although that association had weakened somewhat over time.

And here is an encouraging piece of the research: a 2024 meta-analytic review of 50 years of leadership research found that women were often evaluated as demonstrating effective leadership behaviors across both relational and more traditionally agentic dimensions.

Women, we ARE effective leaders.

The question is not whether women can be both strong and relational. The research suggests we can.

The question is whether organizations allow women the same range of leadership behavior without attaching a penalty to it.

And one place those penalties often show up is in the language we use to describe women leaders.

Listen for the adjectives

One practical way leaders can notice this is to listen carefully to the words we use when talking about women in leadership.

Abrasive.
Difficult.
Emotional.
Intimidating.
Not warm enough.
Too quiet.
Not confident enough.
Needs more executive presence.

Then ask:

What actual behavior are we describing?

Instead of “She’s abrasive,” is she actually interrupting people, dismissing input, or speaking disrespectfully? Or is she simply disagreeing directly, challenging an idea, or speaking firmly?

Instead of “She isn’t warm enough,” is she actually failing to greet people, listen, acknowledge others, or respond respectfully? Or are we reacting because she does not soften every disagreement, smile often, or work especially hard to make everyone around her comfortable?

Even smiling can become part of the expectation. Women can be expected to communicate warmth not only through what they say, but also through facial expression, tone, and demeanor.

And then there is executive presence.

That phrase can be useful if we actually define it. Is she struggling with clarity, preparation, decisiveness, influence, or confidence under pressure? Or are we reacting because she does not look, sound, or act like the leaders we are most accustomed to seeing?

If there is a specific leadership behavior that needs to improve, say what it is.

Otherwise, “executive presence” can become a vague way of saying:

She doesn’t quite look or sound like the leaders we’re used to.

So how do we make sure necessary feedback stays useful without letting vague expectations creep into it?

A better way to give feedback

Before giving someone leadership feedback, try this simple three-part check:

Behavior → Impact → Standard

What did she actually do?
Name the observable behavior.

What effect did it have?
Describe the impact on the team, decision, relationship, or outcome.

What standard are we using?
Would we apply the same expectation if another leader behaved the same way?

That final question matters.

Not because women and men need to lead identically.

But because the leadership standard should not move while someone is trying to meet it.

Questions to carry into the week

• Where might women on our team be receiving contradictory expectations about how they should lead?

• Which adjectives do we use for women leaders that we rarely use for men?

• Are we describing observable behavior, or simply our reaction to how she made us feel?

• Would we describe the same behavior differently if another leader did it?

Your Fall Cake Resource Takeaway

This week’s Fall Cake takeaway helps leaders examine double-bind language in feedback, talent conversations, and leadership evaluations.

It includes common assumptions to watch for:

Direct = difficult
Serious = unfriendly
Confident = intimidating
Quiet = lacks presence

The goal is not to stop giving feedback.

It is to make feedback specific enough to help someone grow and fair enough that the standard does not quietly change depending on who is leading.

WHEN AVAILABILITY BECOMES A LEADERSHIP STANDARD

And if you missed last week’s resource, Leader Takeaway #5 helps teams examine whether constant availability has quietly become part of their leadership standard.

WHEN AVAILABILITY BECOMES A LEADERSHIP STANDARD

Before you finish your morning cup

I don’t think women leaders need a special set of lower expectations.

We need enough room to lead.

To be direct and relational. Ambitious and generous. Confident and curious. Decisive and human.

So perhaps this week we ask:

Are we evaluating her leadership — or how comfortably she fits our picture of what a leader should look and sound like?

Warmly,
Dawn

Research Notes

Eagly, A. H., Nater, C., Miller, D. I., Kaufmann, M., & Sczesny, S. (2020). Gender stereotypes have changed: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018. American Psychologist, 75(3), 301–315.

Heyder, A., & Kortzak, O. (2024). Research published in Psychology of Women Quarterly examining backlash and gender-stereotype-inconsistent behavior.

Koenig, A. M., Eagly, A. H., Mitchell, A. A., & Ristikari, T. (2011). Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 616–642.

Paustian-Underdahl, S. C., Smith Sockbeson, C. E., Hall, A. V., & Halliday, C. S. (2024). Gender and evaluations of leadership behaviors: A meta-analytic review of 50 years of research. The Leadership Quarterly.