8 Female Leaders On How To Overcome What’s Holding Women Back

“Who or what is your worst enemy?” If you ask women leaders this question, you might find a lot of the answers to be “myself.”

It doesn’t matter that we’ve come a long way. We’re educated, we’re climbing–and excelling–in corporate ranks. When you’ve been fighting so hard to get to the top for so long, it’s easy to convince yourself that luck had a hand on your success.

According to authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book The Confidence Code, women tend to struggle with a lack of confidence disproportionately. When something goes wrong professionally, women blame themselves while crediting others when things go right.

Kay and Shipman also found that women are more likely to be perfectionists and hold themselves back from asking for a raise or even answering a question until they’re 100% sure the outcome will be as they predicted.

Source: www.fastcompany.com

Societal pressure, gender bias, insecurity–these leaders have all felt weighed down at some point. Here’s how they took back the control.