Leadership Tea
On Leadership Tea, we talk about what it takes to reach the executive level, and how to thrive when you get there. Powerful leaders share their journeys, insights, and triumphs in conversations with hosts Shelby Smith-Wilson and Belinda Jackson Farrier.
Join us every other Wednesday to be inspired by the unvarnished stories of amazing executives who know what it's like to be "the only" at the table and who have succeeded regardless. They have proven leadership experience in their respective fields, from international affairs to the private sector to academia, and want to help others create their own success stories.
Leadership Tea
What’s Really Breaking Women Leaders? A Conversation on Burnout & Broken Systems | S4 EP 20
In this heartfelt conversation, Shelby and Belinda share their reactions to the 2025 Women in the Workplace report by McKinsey & LeanIn.org. They highlight the deep fatigue and burnout women experience as they rise into senior leadership.
They reflect on the emotional and logistical realities that the data doesn’t always capture:
– women reaching the top of the ladder only to find exhaustion waiting for them
– the cultural pressure in the U.S. to “do it all” without asking for help
– the double standard where men receive quiet support systems while women feel judged for needing them
– the loneliness of leadership, especially for women of color
– the guilt that comes with caregiving and boundary-setting
– the absence of sponsorship and empathetic leadership in many workplaces
Grounded in personal stories—from missing their children’s milestones to carving out time for family despite career demands—they illustrate how women are not less ambitious; they’re simply navigating systems designed without them in mind.
The episode ends with a call for leaders everywhere to build cultures rooted in trust, compassion, humane expectations, and real support—because meaningful leadership is not about suffering in silence; it’s about helping others rise with you.
Referenced in this episode:
McKinsey & Company: “Women in the Workplace Report”
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace
Join us on February 28th, 2026 at the DC Wharf for the Recommit: Winter Retreat. Join the Early Bird list here.
We publish new episodes every other Wednesday.
Follow us on Instagram @Leadership_Tea for more inspiration and insights.
Hi, welcome to the Leadership Tea podcast where we talk about not only what it takes to get to the senior level, but also what it takes to thrive once you're there. And today I think we're having a conversation that really is very much in line with that theme. And that is a conversation about a recent report from McKinsey and the Lean In organization. And in that report, they are talking about the state of women in the workplace and feelings that women have about feeling burned out, unsupported, and in need of sponsorship and allyship in the workplace. And so that's just sparked some ideas here. And Shelby and I wanted to share with you today quotes that stood out for us in the reporting and in the report itself, and also our ideas on how we can better support each other in the workplace. So Shelby, maybe you want to kick it off?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'll just hop right into it. The quote that stood out for me the most from this report women are hitting the top of the corporate ladder only to find something waiting for them. Exhaustion. That spoke to me because we have discussed oftentimes how tired and how lonely leadership is. And I remember in one of my senior roles, just this feeling of not having enough of me to do everything that was required when it came to the job, when it came to being a wife, when it came to being a mother. Oftentimes, women are reaching these senior roles just at the pivotal moments at home when our kids have different needs of us. And for me, it was my my ascension into a senior leadership role coincided with my kids being teenagers. And one of the things that I've been talking about a lot recently with other women who are trying to find that balance between professional life and being a mom is that your kids, you don't realize it, but your kids need you more when they're teenagers. And this became apparent to me during some difficult moments in my children's adolescence and adjusting to being teenagers and adjusting to being back in the United States after living abroad for a while. And so this quote about exhaustion at the top of the corporate ladder as you're ascending the corporate ladder struck me because I recall just trying to figure out how do I manage it all? How do I create the systems at home and at work that will allow me to shine and be my best, to do my best in all of these roles. This is something you and I talk about a lot. It's one of the main reasons why we we started the podcast. And I think one of the things that I did was to communicate with my team and with my boss in a way where they understood, okay, Shelby is not available during this time. And I'll I'll just give an example. In the evenings, there was a moment when my daughter was playing water polo. And I would rush home from a high-profile position, um, a very demanding position, and I would leave the office and tell people, listen, I gotta leave the office at at 7:15 PM. Like whatever is happening in the world is gonna have to happen, but I need to leave the office by 7.15 so that I can get my daughter to water polo practice. And I would put a calendar reminder with a color so that people would know, okay, the boss is is leaving between seven, you know, seven, seven fifteen, like she's out. And that allowed me to kind of set expectations and to model behavior for them so that they would know that it was okay for them to also establish those, those boundaries and and to communicate, you know, with me when they needed to be away, if there was something significant happening, you know, in their personal lives that they needed to attend to. And this was a small thing, but it also signaled, you know, to my boss an expectation that this was time that was important to me, that I needed to be there for my daughter, and that only in the most extreme circumstances should anyone try to interfere with that time. And in doing that, it made me feel less guilty and in just communicating this block of time is important. It made me feel less guilty about being a mom and needing to be there for my daughter, but it also modeled behavior that I wanted other women, particularly on my team, to emulate and for them to know that there are there are ways, there are micro mechanisms that exist for us to still perform at these high levels as we assume more responsibility and to still be, you know, who we need to be at home.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. I, you know, I also reflect back on there's a moment living overseas where as I looked at my colleagues around me, I saw that many women around me, they were in a culture where they were allowed to ask for help. You know what I'm saying? They were allowed to like hire help, ask for help, help us all around. And there's something about the US also, where there's there's a sense that, like, oh, well, you've made life choices, you know, you asked to be in this position, so sex for you. Uh also, nobody told you to like, you know, have a partner or you know, have children or get a dog or like whatever. That's on you, figure it out. That's your problem. And if you can't balance it all, that's somehow a failure on your part. You as an individual should be able to do all of that. But when I look around the world, I don't see that elsewhere. Again, once you hit a certain point in terms of your responsibility and your income, people exercise the right to have a housekeeper, have a nanny, have somebody help helping with the shopping, have somebody driving, help, right? And and there's just something about it here about not being allowed to ask for help. Um, and then I also, as you were talking, I was thinking a lot about how I've done something similar to what you've just described, but I've also been in environments where my leadership didn't even want me to do that. You know, I've been in spaces where I felt like I had to I my bosses would say, Oh, yeah, yeah, you can totally just like block out your daughter's volleyball practice and you know it's once a week. Yeah, yeah. You can totally, as long as you're available for the team, like that's fine. And no, that was not the expectation at all. It was, what do you mean you're like you need to open your laptop and be available and be working and be like have your foot on the neck of your team and not watching volleyball. Um, there's a season of volleyball I didn't see. I didn't see there were days that season where I would I would somehow be able to get my daughter to the volleyball practice, but then I would have to be on camera in something right in a corner, and I would have to be texting my husband to say, like, I know I'm at the practice, but I'm not at the practice. So can you actually come pick her up and take her home? Because I actually can't even get away from my computer enough to do that. And I don't know a way out of that, right? My way out of that was to leave that job, but not everybody has that choice. Um, and that was a really hard choice to make, but I know that ultimately living like that wasn't sustainable, like it was, and and again, the energy was okay, well, you wanted you wanted leadership, like, but when I looked at the men around me, they had structures supporting their personal lives that I somehow didn't have. And I remember being in a conversation once with someone senior, you know, more senior than me in a particular role, and they were like, We pay you so that you can hire the people you need to hire. Like, just do it. Sucks for you. So, again, that is so I really understand this idea of feeling burnt out. I would also say feeling trapped, and I don't know an easy solution for it, other than there's something culturally that needs to shift. Yes. Um, both in our professional culture, but the culture with large. Because again, it feels like if you so much as need to go home to walk your dog, it feels like the culture is saying, Nobody told you to get a dog. Yeah. Like when you need companionship, like, what's that? This is that's your problem. Type this memo. Right. So that's that's what I struggle with. The tension of I get it, why people don't want to be promoted or don't want to move forward because they feel burnt out once they get there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I don't know. It's not a question of ambition. It's it's not that women are becoming less ambitious. It's like you said, Belinda, there's this cultural penalty for women who have decided that they want to have fulfilling careers. And in many instances, you know, they're more and more women are like the lead breadwinner at home. And yet we we place these unrealistic expectations where they're supposed to give 100% on the job and give 100% as moms and give 100%, you know, as partners. And it's it's just impossible to comply and live up to these social constructs that we have imposed. And as you said, in other cultures, it's totally acceptable to ask for help. And so why are we not encouraging more women to ask for that help? And you know, the one thing that I left out in the example that I gave of being at water polo practice, I would immediately log on while I was in my car, waiting for my daughter in practice, like you, you know, waiting on Olivia at volleyball practice. I'm still working. I'm still, you know, in my mobile office, literally in my car, in the parking lot of the facility wherever, you know, Viola had her practice. I'm still working up until, you know, 9:30, 10 o'clock. Whenever her practice ends, I'm in the car doing my thing. And then when we get home, and after I've, you know, given her dinner or whatever, I log back on again. So it's like it's it's not this false narrative of, well, you're just not, you're, you, you're not performing. You're you're lazy. It's it's almost as though if you're not in the office burning yourself to the midnight oil, that there's this perception of you're not you're not carrying your weight. And it's it's so unfair. We we need these structures in place. And, you know, the one point that I would make before turning it back to you is we need to create structures that help us to remove the guilt and to to prevent burnout. And by that I mean, you know, I started ordering my groceries online, I started outsourcing my dry cleaning, um, where I would sign up for a delivery service, you know, leave the dry cleaning outside of my home and have them come and pick it up. Like everything that I needed in place to make life easier and smoother and less hectic and stressful. I started to put these systems in place and I removed this inner guilt from myself. Like, I'm a better mom, I'm a better wife, I'm a better, you know, fill in the blank because I have these systems in place where I feel that I have the support that I need and I'm not stressing myself out or my family. And guess what? I'm also sharing these tips with the women on my team so that they too can feel less guilty and less burnt out.
SPEAKER_01:One regret I have and I've been thinking about lately, I might, I might look into um in 2026 is I wish I had gotten a house manager when I was in the US. Yeah. Like I need I need a house manager, and that seems to be an a growing trend. Um, so I need like an assistant or somebody, right? Who's like, actually, I'm gonna work on getting the dry cleaning picked up, right? And and yes, my husband does a lot. He does a lot. Yes. There's just there's there's a lot to living in America, like there's a lot of things that have to be coordinated that I don't feel like I have the burden of elsewhere. I just have more help. Right.
SPEAKER_00:So um you had more help, but you also had the understanding that help was okay, and that help was okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. You know, I I used to joke that um uh there was a uh a point, there was a country we're in where my nanny had a nanny, you know. Like one day I'm talking to the nanny and she's like, Hold on, I I gotta I gotta call my kids nanny. Like, um, we're gonna that's right. I was like, you know what? Hey, I'm paying you enough, yay. But that you can afford, yeah, yeah. So for it, but also like you see that like we all need help helping you too, yes. And you know, and just watching the women in my office, they just that hour that you aren't like you know in America, you're told like I you gotta cook this home cooked meal or else like your kid won't love you, and we're gonna be fine. Yeah, like this takeout's okay because now that hour instead of me like doing something or or my husband doing something, now we're all just engaging, yeah. Right? Like we got that hour back now. Oh, did you did you show up at school today?
SPEAKER_00:Did you we can actually have a conversation?
SPEAKER_01:Like yeah, communicate with you. Like, are there activities like yeah? So no, I think that it's that it's just being able to ask for support, you know. But um, I think for me, when I was looking at the report, I in some of the media reporting was focused on this idea that people don't feel like they have sponsorship and that they don't have again this idea of support, real support within the organization. But I'm gonna focus for a moment on this idea of sponsorship, not just allyship. And I'm gonna focus on it from the point of when I was in those spaces, feeling like I never wanted to repeat the hazing that I went through as I came up the ranks, where people were like, you know, I don't know, Bullinda, write this, write this extra memo, and we don't care that you haven't had an opportunity to like do your laundry in weeks and you know, you're coming to work in dirty clothes. Like, I didn't want people to feel like that. So where I have been able, and this is hard, like where I have been able to give people space to um take the time they need to do stuff without feeling guilty. Like, yeah, you need to take off a few hours to um well, here's a good example. Like, again, I'm gonna use a pet example because I just feel like that's they're universal. Um, I remember seeing an employee in a hallway crying because their dog had just been um diagnosed as like terminally ill and needed to be put down that day. And they felt like they couldn't take off work, like their partner was going to take in the dog, they weren't gonna get to say goodbye. I was like, that's crazy. Like there's nothing happening here right now that you can't take a today, especially a day that can't be repeated.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? What and what good is it to have you here in the seat in grief? Like you're not producing. So I need you to go and like take care of the things that you need to take care of. I don't understand why like bosses can't see that. Like forcing someone to be present or forcing someone to do something when they just aren't able to focus isn't gonna get me the outcomes that I need. So go do what you need to do so you can come back here and be here and present for me. Right. Right? So that is something that I would often try to do. And then on the sponsorship piece, it's really how am I investing in talent? You know, again, like I feel like training and supporting and giving people projects and opportunities to stretch and grow and mentoring them through that, not just handing them a project and saying, like, yeah, good luck with that. Hope you make it. Yeah, like here's what I need you to do, here are the outcomes, and here's how I need you to implement it. And it's it's gonna take some time, but a 30-minute conversation for me to help you an employee navigate something uh is worth hours of drama and problem solving on the back end, right? So I've now don't have to deal with that, but I've invested in you, I've set you up for success, I've put you in touch with the right people. Like you have an opportunity to grow because so much about getting people to these senior level roles is about getting them in the right spaces, helping them understand how to navigate politics. That that doesn't like that's hard, but that is part of the job. Um, and I I know it's hard right now, but like I think that I it's something I thought about a lot is how can I be the change that I wanted to see?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And that's leadership. That is what leadership looks like. I think sometimes some of us are so caught up in ourselves that we just don't give space or opportunity to, you know, the people around us, the people who are reporting to us who need, you know, the investment that that you just described. And we're so caught up in thinking that everything begins and ends with us that we don't we we miss opportunities to invest in others and to secession plan and to sponsor and shape and mentor the next generation to keep you know institutions going. But you have to be willing to look beyond yourself and to not assume the worst in people. As you were talking, it it also made me think about something that I think is embedded in American culture, this like unspoken animosity that we seem to have for one another, where we just assume the worst. We assume that, oh, this person is is lazy. They don't really want, you know, to get the job done or you know, they're not really ambitious without really just taking a moment to to see the person as a whole person. As you mentioned, you know, that the example that you gave of of the person who uh had an issue with with their pet. Like if we would just take a moment to to to to have a more humane approach to one another, I think you know, the results could be amazing um in our workplaces. It it just depends on, you know, what is the what is the culture that you want to cultivate?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know. Someone asked me earlier this week, um, in a conversation, how do you receive support from other people? When someone does something for you, how do you how do you receive that? And as I thought about it and I was answering it, I eventually told them, when I'm here, I realized when I'm here in America, I have that reaction. Oh, you're doing something for me. Oh, now what do I owe you? Are you keeping score? What are you really trying to do? Like, now I look weak. Now I look vulnerable. Yeah. When I'm other places, it's like you, you know, I don't know, offer, you know, I meet you on the street and you're like, come to my restaurant and have a free meal. And I'm like, No, yeah. Okay. So people do. They they they meet each other, they like each other. Like, come on, let's keep talking. Here. There's something like you said, there's something going on where there's just this lack of trust and there's this lack of normalcy about just engaging with people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and and I don't I don't know how we're gonna fix that, but but I I definitely feel and I often talk about feeling that difference, even at a gate, when you're ready to get on a plane. Like I'll travel all over the world, and then it's my last my last flight before flying back to the US, right? You get to the gate for your US bound flight, and all you feel is tension. Tension that you didn't know. So true, right? Everybody's at the gate. Like, if you if you push your seat back too far, if you oh, why is that baby crying? Like, why so I I try to remind myself that I don't want to be a part of that tension, I want to run counter to it. Yeah, um, yeah, that feels like I need to get on a flight and go, I need a beach vacation, I need an island.
SPEAKER_00:I'm ready. A fruity beverage with an umbrella in it. Yes. I feel more like helping people, like seeing the best in everyone. Seeing the best in everyone. I I think fundamentally, yes. I think the study that you know, the McKenzie study and our conversation, it's it's a reminder for executives and leaders to think about what is the culture that you want to cultivate in your workspace, in your work environment? Are you trying to keep it light? Are you trying to give people the benefit of the doubt? You know, how are you modeling the behavior that you want them to emulate is the bottom line. How can how can we work together to reduce anxiety and stress and to prevent burnout? There are ways to do it. We just have to be, we have to be willing to facilitate environments where people feel comfortable asking for help and where people feel that they can be empowered to build the structures that they need in their lives to help them.
SPEAKER_01:So I feel like drop it in the comments. Like, how what's your reaction to this report? And what can we do differently in the culture to better support people? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So we hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you're listening to us, you really need to come over to YouTube to see our smiling faces. We invite you to subscribe to the Leadership Tea podcast on YouTube. We're really supportive. We're really grateful for the support that we've gotten from all of you from across the world. We're we're really appreciative of this community, and we look forward to sipping wisdom and stirring success with you again, real soon.
