Built to Lead, Forced to Prove It - Leadership on the Glass Cliff

This Women History Month, we challenge the conventional narrative that separates "leaders" from "entrepreneurs," and examine what happens when you must be both, often simultaneously, often without formal authority.

Here's the question no one asks about entrepreneurship:

What happens when you must lead and build simultaneously, often without the formal authority that makes leadership legible to others?

No org chart. No HR department. No institutional credibility. Just you, trying to lead a team, manage clients, influence stakeholders, and build a business, while half the room is quietly questioning whether you have the right to be doing any of it.

For women, the data is uncomfortable:

38% have their judgment questioned in their area of expertise. 65% of women entrepreneurs experience burnout symptoms. Female leaders face a "self-reinforcing cycle of illegitimacy", struggling more than male counterparts to elicit respect from the same subordinates.