04 Leading from Within: Embracing Authentic Leadership

🎙️ What If You Didn’t Have to Prove Yourself Anymore? | Joyfully Unstoppable Podcast

You’re successful. Capable. Respected.
 And still… somewhere deep down, you feel like you're performing leadership instead of living it.

In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, we kick off the Authentic Leadership series with a powerful question:
What if you didn’t have to prove yourself anymore?

If you’ve ever felt the pressure to lead like someone else—or the exhaustion of always striving to meet others' expectations—this conversation is for you. You’ll learn:

✨ What authentic leadership really means (and what it doesn’t)
✨ Why so many high-achieving women struggle with it
✨ What it looks like to lead from your values, not your mask
✨ How authenticity can help you break free from burnout

You don’t need to choose between success and being yourself. You can lead with clarity, confidence, and joy. And this is the first step.

Download the Leadership Values Worksheet!

Joyfully Unstoppable—helping women reconnect with what matters most.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

✨ Let’s stay connected
Want more support as you lead with clarity, confidence, and joy? Here’s how we can keep growing together:

📋 Join the Waitlist for Frantic to Flourishing!
🌿 Meet Becky – Get to know the heart behind the mic
💼 Coaching for Women Leaders – Ready for personalized support? Explore 1:1 coaching
📚 Free Leadership Resources – Practical tools to help you lead (and live) well
🏡 Explore Women Lead Well – Learn more about Women Lead Well and everything we offer

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I'm so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Ham leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well, after years of high level leadership, I discovered that success doesn't have to come at the cost of your peace, your values. Or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead with clarity, confidence, and authenticity. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder and prove your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Now, today we are talking about one of the most important pillars of leading well authentic leadership, and we're starting with a big freeing question. What if you didn't have to prove yourself anymore, how would you show up different? Let's talk about what authentic leadership really means and how it might be the very thing that helps you move from frantic to flourishing. Authentic leadership is one of those buzzy terms that gets thrown around a lot. It is often misunderstood. So before we talk about what it is, let's talk about what it's not authentic. Leadership isn't a personality type. You don't have to be loud or extroverted or ooze, charisma to be authentic. But I mean, rock on if you are. It's also not about being nice all the time, being overly vulnerable or putting all of your mess on display in the desire to seem relatable. And finally, and maybe most importantly, it is not soft. It is not weak. It is not less effective. In fact, authentic leadership is deeply powerful, but that power comes from alignment, not projection. Authentic leadership isn't something you perform. It is something you embody. It's about leading from your values, your voice, your vision, not from fear over functioning, or need to prove that you belong in the room. But now here's where it gets real. If you are a high achieving woman, you have probably learned how to lead by adapting. You have probably learned how to read the room code switch to fit different contexts, anticipate everyone's needs. You've probably stayed five steps ahead and you've probably proved, constantly proved that you are competent, capable, and worth taking seriously. And that works until it doesn't, because somewhere along the way, many of us

Becky: 2:56

start disconnecting from ourselves. We become what the role demands, what the organization expects, what our families expect. We lead from the outside in and over time we start to feel off. We're successful but exhausted. We're respected, but we're restless. We've earned our seat at the table, but we don't always feel like we can bring our full self to it. Here's the truth. Authentic leadership becomes scary when we've built success by shape. Shifting, letting go of the mask can feel like losing control, but that's actually how you regain it. So what does authentic leadership look like day to day meeting to meeting. It's not a script, it's a shift. It's moving from reaction to alignment, from people pleasing. To purpose from performing to being here are a few markers. You lead from your inner compass, not just external expectations. Now, this means you have to get in touch and stay in touch with your core values. You say no without apology, without overexplaining. Now, this means you have to let your values inform what you say yes to and what you say no to, and you have to stick to both. You create boundaries that protect your peace and your productivity. Now this means that you have to know yourself well enough to be clear on your energy engines and your energy vampires. What gives you energy and what drains your energy feed one, cut the other. You trust your instincts even when they go against the grain because you, my friend, were created for a reason. Not anyone else's reason. Your reason. The grain doesn't apply to you. You have your own unique mission. And finally, authentic leadership means that you allow your full humanity in the workplace. You don't have to numb yourself to be taken seriously or pretend like your family doesn't exist. You stop asking, what do they need me to be? And you start asking What's true to who I am, what's true to the person I'm becoming? That's where power lies. That's where peace is found. Authentic leadership is joyful. It is sustainable, and it is powerful and it ain't something you earn. It is something you remember. Now y'all, this conversation isn't just a leadership trend. It is a lifeline because if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you're tired. Not just physically, but existentially tired. You're tired of running on adrenaline. You're tired of trying to lead like someone else. You're tired of success that cost you your soul. Burnout is not a personal failure. It is a leadership signal. It is your body's way of saying this isn't sustainable. Something has to shift and here is the good news. Authentic leadership isn't just about leading better. I. It's about feeling better. When you lead from your values, your nervous system settles. When you stop over functioning to prove your worth, you reclaim your time, your clarity. And your joy, and as someone who has made the transition, let me tell you, it is so worth it. Once you own your worth, your inherent divine worth that was instilled in you by the universe itself. Other people's opinions and expectations become a whole lot less compelling. And the freedom that comes with authenticity is better than any external validation you could ever receive. Because once you step into alignment with who you truly are, everything gets clear and the work gets fun again. You don't have to choose between being successful and being yourself. That is a false choice, and it's one we are done accepting. Now, if this resonated with you, I hope you know that you're not alone. You are not too sensitive. You are not asking for too much and you don't have to white knuckle your way through this season. There is a different way to lead a way that is deeply you. A way that helps you thrive instead of just survive. No more proving, no more performing, just powerful, sustainable, authentic leadership that doesn't burn you out. And I'm gonna invite you, I'll put it in the show notes below a finding your values worksheet that you can use to help you figure out those core values. Because that's where it starts. You get real clear on what matters most to you, and then those things that don't align with your core values, you can start putting those away. Because my friend, I want you to lead joyfully. I want you to tap into that divinely inspired intention for your life and live it because there's not another human being on this planet who can. So friends, if this episode resonated with you, please share it with another woman who you think would excel as an authentic leader, even though perhaps she might not believe in herself enough to say it. Let's start that process for her and please like subscribe to this podcast. That's how we gain traction. That's how a brand new baby podcast like mine comes into being and, and makes its way in the world. Sign up for my weekly email for the the newsletter, the confidence edit. Then you can get the podcast releases. You get new blog posts when they come up. Any new free downloads that I've added to the website. And then if you'd be interested in one-to-one coaching, you can go to Women Lead well.net and you can learn more about that. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable. I hope it brought some value to you. You are an amazing leader. You already are just now, and you can be fully you and be an amazing leader. So let's lead well, and let's make it joyful again. All right, take care. Bye.