When it comes to strong leadership, most people picture a big corner office or a large boardroom table. Not me. I picture a garden.
For women in leadership, especially in fields like healthcare, where compassion and clarity must coexist, leading isn’t about commanding from above; it’s about cultivating from within. Every organization, every team, has its own ecosystem: a delicate mix of sunlight and shade, storms and soil, seeds and seasons. Women leaders often serve as both the plants and the gardeners. We grow in the environments we inherit, and we shape those environments for others.
Great leadership isn’t a performance; it’s a practice. It’s daily tending. The small, consistent acts of care and courage that help people and organizations thrive. In a healthy garden, no single bloom can steal the show or make up for an otherwise untended crop. The beauty lies in how everything grows together.
The power of presence: How leaders make us feel
In a garden, presence matters. A gardener who never walks the rows won’t notice which plants are thirsty or which ones are struggling in the shade. Leadership works the same way: it’s defined not by title or hierarchy, but by presence.
We don’t remember leaders for their résumés; we remember them for how they made us feel. Did they give us light when we needed it? Did they create space for us to root deeply, grow authentically, and reach upward? Did they trample us when the wind knocked us over, or did they provide a stake of support and allow for further growth?
Women leaders, in particular, often cultivate presence through empathy, intentionality, and emotional intelligence. Qualities that nourish trust and psychological safety. True leaders balance accountability with compassion. Their presence signals that it’s safe to stretch, to try, to fail, to bloom again.
A garden never flourishes because of a single beautiful flower; it thrives through diversity, cooperation, and shared strength. When we lead with both purpose and presence, we cultivate belonging. And belonging, in any organization, and especially in healthcare, is the most fertile ground there is.
Barriers for female leaders
Every gardener knows there are weeds to pull. Some are visible; others hide beneath the surface. For women in leadership, those weeds take many forms.
Some are external: unconscious bias, outdated models of what a “leader” should look or sound like, environments that reward loudness over listening. Others grow quietly within us: self-doubt, imposter syndrome, the instinct to shrink when we should stand tall.
But here’s the truth: leadership doesn’t require shouting to be heard. You don’t need to drown out the noise; you need to speak with intention. Whisper with purpose, and people will lean in. Impact is never about volume, it’s about depth.
And as we pull these weeds, in ourselves and in our systems, we make room for new growth. For others to rise beside us. For leadership that looks more like a meadow than a monoculture.
Resilience: The strength to bend without breaking
Every garden faces storms. And every great leader knows that resilience is not resistance — rather, it’s the ability to bend without breaking.
Women often serve as both the roots and the stem. Strong enough to hold others, flexible enough to sway with change. In healthcare and beyond, change is constant. Rigidity will snap us; resilience allows us to adapt, to find nourishment even when the season shifts unexpectedly.
We must focus on what lies within our circle of control, the soil we can enrich, the plants we can tend, the influence we can extend. Real leadership, like real growth, happens in the space where intention meets effort.
Growing together
Leadership, like gardening, is never done. There’s always something new to nurture, a fresh seed to plant, a wilted leaf to prune.
To all the women shaping the future of healthcare and beyond: Be bold in what you plant. Be kind in how you tend. Be resilient when storms come. Whisper with purpose. Expand the table. Water generously.
Because when the garden thrives, everyone benefits — patients, teams, and communities.
And when the winds rise — as they inevitably will — stand tall. Know that your roots, and the roots you’ve helped others grow, run deep and are intertwined, providing further protection from the storm. Because leadership, at its heart, has never been about power. It’s about growth.
