Charity leadership like a Lioness

Those who follow me on LinkedIn will know that I recently had a full-on rant about the fact that Sarina Wiegman, the Manager of the Lionesses, gets paid £400,000 pa compared to the Manager of the men’s team, Thomas Tuchel, who gets £5,000,000!

It’s still the case that women in leadership have to work twice as hard to get half as far, with less pay. It’s bloody exhausting. And yet, despite the glass ceilings and the paper cuts from constantly having to prove ourselves, we crack on.

Sarina Wiegman is touted as an exceptional kind of leader. She dreams big, is incredibly resilient, incredibly calm in the face of setbacks, and ultimately knows how to get the best results out of her team.

But I don’t think that is that unusual in women leaders. Especially not in our sector. Whilst we’re definitely not perfect I think we have much in common with Wiegman’s approach.

She trusts her players. Supports them. Holds them to account. And when things go wrong, she doesn’t throw anyone under the bus—she rolls up her sleeves and works out how to fix it. Doesn’t that remind you of us?

Because here’s the thing: real leadership isn’t about being the loudest in the room. It’s about creating the kind of space where people feel safe to be brilliant—and brave enough to fail without fear. It’s about asking, “What do you need to thrive?” not “Why aren’t you perfect yet?”

In our sector we see this kind of leadership in spades. It’s the women running small organisations on shoestring budgets, juggling 20 hats, and still finding time to check in on their staff’s mental health. It’s the middle managers quietly mentoring the next generation while keeping the wheels turning. It’s the CEOs who don’t pretend to have all the answers but know how to ask the right questions. We all have a lot to learn from these leaders – including men.

However, we’ve got to stop waiting for permission to lead like women. Because we’re actually really good at it. We know how to listen. We know how to bring people together. We know how to get stuff done while managing a crisis, a budget cut, and a broken printer.

So if you’re a woman in leadership—or want to be—don’t wait to be invited. Pull up your own chair. Or better yet, bring a whole table and make room for others too.

And if you need a boost, sat comfortably at home with a nice cuppa, join us at the Women in Leadership Conference this September. It’s online, it’s powerful, and it’s packed with fierce, funny, fabulous women who know exactly what it means to lead from the front—and sometimes from the trenches too.

You eat the biscuits. We’ll serve up the inspiration! Register here today.