Here’s the uncomfortable truth: women in leadership struggle with confidence at rates significantly higher than their male counterparts. This isn’t anecdotal. It’s proven across decades of research—from middle school girls to C-suite executives. And it’s costing businesses growth, innovation, and competitive advantage.
Dr. Linda Fisk—multi-award-winning CEO, TEDx speaker, five-time international bestselling author, and chairwoman of Leadership Global—has spent her career studying the psychology behind this gap. With a PhD and MA in clinical psychology, she’s researched influence, persuasion, negotiation, and the science of success. But more importantly, she’s built a global community of 10,000 high-caliber women leaders who are actively closing the confidence gap—and accelerating their success as a result.
Linda’s work sits at the intersection of psychology, leadership strategy, and community infrastructure. She doesn’t just coach women to “lean in” or “think positive.” She builds systems, networks, and frameworks that remove the structural barriers to growth—so women can stop working in their businesses and start working on them.
Her thesis is urgent: the health of your business is too important to postpone or neglect. The pace of change is overwhelming. The number of options is paralyzing. And if you’re buried in day-to-day tasks, reacting instead of leading, you’re not just missing opportunities—you’re actively falling behind.
For business executives—especially women navigating the compounding pressures of entrepreneurship, leadership, and often single parenthood—Linda’s insights offer a roadmap. Not to work harder. But to work smarter, lead bolder, and scale faster by leveraging community, intentionality, and emerging technologies like AI.
Here are the three key takeaways from Linda’s journey that every executive must internalize if you want to lead through uncertainty, harness disruption, and build a business that scales without sacrificing what matters most.
Takeaway 1: The Confidence Gap Is Real—And It’s Holding Women Back from Innovation
Linda is blunt: women designate their contributions, capacity, and capability as lower than their peers—consistently and across all levels of leadership.
This isn’t about competence. Women in leadership are talented, driven, and capable. But research shows they struggle with confidence at rates far exceeding men. And this confidence gap has real, measurable consequences:
- Women are less likely to negotiate for higher salaries or promotions.
- Women are less likely to pitch bold ideas or take visible risks.
- Women are more likely to attribute success to external factors (luck, timing, help) rather than their own skill.
- Women are more likely to experience imposter syndrome—the persistent belief that they’re not as competent as others perceive them to be.
The Overwhelm-Confidence Spiral
Linda identifies a vicious cycle: overwhelm erodes confidence, and low confidence fuels overwhelm.
Here’s how it plays out:
- You’re buried in day-to-day tasks. You’re always reacting, never leading.
- You feel like your audience doesn’t see you. You feel like funding is out of reach. You feel like you don’t have time to focus on the big picture.
- These feelings of scarcity and invisibility erode your sense of competence and confidence.
- Low confidence makes you hesitant to delegate, to invest, to take risks—so you stay buried in tasks.
- The cycle repeats.
And here’s the kicker: women are more likely to sacrifice parts of their lives to achieve success. They miss moments that matter—family dinners, school events, self-care—because they believe that’s the trade-off required. And those sacrifices compound the erosion of confidence, purpose, and drive.
The Busy Trap: Hiding from Growth
Linda and I discussed a pattern we both see constantly: leaders who are “too busy” to think about the future are often hiding from the discomfort of growth.
It’s easier to stay busy in the business—answering emails, managing tasks, putting out fires—than to carve out time to work on the business. Because working on the business requires:
- Confronting uncertainty
- Making strategic bets
- Risking failure
- Challenging your own status quo
And if you’re already struggling with confidence, those activities feel terrifying. So you stay busy. You tell yourself you don’t have time. But what you’re really doing is avoiding the opportunity to innovate, disrupt, and grow.
Why This Matters for Executives
If you’re leading a business—especially a mid-sized or scaling business—your ability to elevate yourself out of the weeds is the single most important factor in your success.
You cannot innovate if you’re buried in operations. You cannot disrupt if you’re always reacting. You cannot scale if you’re the bottleneck.
And if low confidence is keeping you stuck in the busy trap, you’re not just limiting your own growth—you’re limiting your team’s growth, your customers’ experience, and your business’s future.
Practical executive moves:
- Audit your calendar. How much time are you spending in the business vs. on the business? If it’s less than 20% on strategy, innovation, and future-casting, you’re in the busy trap.
- Name the fear. What are you avoiding by staying busy? Is it a difficult conversation? A strategic pivot? A funding ask? Name it. Then tackle it.
- Build a confidence practice. Track your wins. Celebrate your contributions. Attribute success to your skill, not luck. Reframe failure as learning, not evidence of inadequacy.
- Invest in community. Surround yourself with leaders who lift you up, challenge you, and remind you of your mission when it feels daunting. Confidence is contagious.
Takeaway 2: AI Is Not the Enemy—It’s the Leverage That Frees You to Lead
Linda’s perspective on AI is refreshingly pragmatic: AI is not here to replace you. It’s here to free you to do what you do best—strategize, connect, create, and lead.
But she acknowledges the fear. Many leaders—especially women—worry that AI will:
- Replace their jobs
- Devalue their expertise
- Render their skills obsolete
And those fears are not unfounded. AI is automating tasks that used to require human labor. But Linda reframes the question: Instead of asking “Will AI replace me?” ask “How can I leverage AI to level up?”
The Business Analyst Example
Linda’s example is perfect. Imagine you’re a business analyst. You recognize that AI can do much of your work—data analysis, trend identification, forecasting—faster and more accurately than you can.
Your first reaction might be panic. But Linda’s reframe: You can become the conduit between the business and the AI.
- The business has questions. AI has answers. But someone still needs to:
- Ask the right questions in the right way
- Craft the right prompts
- Interpret the results
- Communicate the insights in a digestible, actionable format
- Facilitate the human-to-human connection and trust
That’s where you add value. Not by competing with AI, but by harnessing it.
The AI Agent Team: Research in Days, Not Months
I shared an example with Linda that blew her mind (and mine): training a team of AI agents to work together.
Instead of using one AI to do one task, you can build a team of four or five AI agents that:
- Cross-check each other’s work
- Quality-control outputs
- Collaborate on complex tasks
For example, I’m using AI agent teams to research and draft my next book. They:
- Learn my voice from my previous three books
- Analyze my speaking content and thought leadership
- Draft first-pass chapters in days—work that would have taken me months
The output is 40-50% accurate on the first pass. But with multiple agents cross-checking, that accuracy grows exponentially. And I get months of my life back to focus on strategy, refinement, and the creative work only I can do.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s available now. And any leader can start leveraging it.
The Healthcare Vision: AI + Human Connection
Linda and I riffed on a future where AI transforms healthcare. Imagine:
- An AI agent in the exam room doing diagnostics, pulling lab results, synthesizing medical records from multiple specialists.
- Your physician spends 10-15 minutes actually talking to you—learning your fears, your concerns, your lifestyle—instead of reading charts.
- AI synthesizes data from your oncologist, cardiologist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist. It identifies patterns no single specialist would catch. It flags risks before they become crises.
- Your medical records live on the blockchain in an NFT. With a key, you can access them anywhere—even if you’re unconscious in a car accident in the Philippines.
This isn’t fantasy. Linda shared that a member of Leadership Global has already created a medical bracelet tag that stores a patient’s entire medical history in real time. Accessible by any provider. Anywhere.
This is the future. And it’s being built by leaders who are asking: How can I harness AI to create deeper, more meaningful human experiences?
Why This Matters for Executives
AI is not a threat. It’s leverage. But only if you’re intentional about how you use it.
Practical executive moves:
- Identify tasks AI can automate. What takes up your time but doesn’t require your unique expertise? Research, data entry, scheduling, first-draft writing, customer service FAQs. Automate it.
- Experiment with AI agent teams. Use platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, or specialized AI tools to build workflows where multiple agents collaborate. Test it on low-stakes projects first.
- Reframe your role. You’re not the doer. You’re the strategist, the connector, the interpreter. AI does the heavy lifting. You add the human insight, judgment, and relationship.
Invest time in learning. Block two hours a week to explore AI tools relevant to your industry. Test. Fail. Iterate. The leaders who win in the next five years will be the ones who move fastest on this.
Takeaway 3: Community Is the Infrastructure for Innovation—You Can’t Disrupt Alone
Linda’s most powerful insight: innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in community.
Leadership Global isn’t just a networking group. It’s a strategic infrastructure designed to accelerate growth through three pillars:
Pillar 1: Expert Guidance
Members get access to mentorship, advisory services, and tailored learning programs. They can sharpen skills, overcome specific challenges, and build legacy.
But it’s not generic coaching. It’s targeted, high-caliber guidance from leaders who’ve been there, done that, and are invested in your success.
Pillar 2: Powerful Connections and Collaboration
Linda’s thesis: disruption happens in the collision of perspectives.
When you bring together accomplished women leaders with different life experiences, industries, values, and visions, you create the conditions for breakthrough ideas.
- Joint ventures
- Strategic partnerships
- Idea exchange
- “Holy cow, why didn’t I think of that?” moments
This is where innovation lives. Not in your office alone. But in the collaborative exchange with leaders who challenge your thinking and expand your vision.
Pillar 3: Expanded Influence and Visibility
Leadership Global provides access to speaking opportunities, media features, and branding resources. But the real value isn’t the platform—it’s the impact.
When you step onto a stage and share your expertise, you:
- Create impact for other women who need your knowledge
- Elevate your own credibility and visibility
- Attract clients, partners, and opportunities aligned with your mission
And you contribute to a rising tide that lifts all boats. When one woman succeeds visibly, it opens doors for others.
The Global Advantage
Leadership Global is a global community—10,000 members worldwide. That’s not just scale. It’s diversity of perspective.
When you engage with leaders from different countries, cultures, and markets, you:
- See the world through different eyes
- Challenge your assumptions
- Identify opportunities you’d never see in your local bubble
Global community is a competitive advantage. It’s how you stay ahead of trends, spot emerging markets, and build resilience in uncertainty.
Why This Matters for Executives
You cannot disrupt alone. You cannot innovate in a vacuum. You need a board of directors—a curated group of leaders who challenge you, support you, and accelerate your growth.
Practical executive moves:
- Audit your network. Are you surrounded by people who think like you? Or people who challenge you? If it’s the former, you’re in an echo chamber.
- Join a high-caliber community. Not a generic networking group. A community of leaders who are as driven, talented, and ambitious as you are. Invest in it.
- Be intentional about collaboration. Block time for idea exchange. Host mastermind sessions. Broker introductions. Treat collaboration as a strategic priority, not a nice-to-have.
- Share your expertise. Speak. Write. Teach. When you share what you know, you elevate your influence—and you contribute to the success of others.
The Bigger Picture: The Pace of Change Is Accelerating—And So Must You
Linda rattled off the technologies reshaping business right now:
- Artificial intelligence
- Edge computing
- Augmented reality
- Cybersecurity
- Generative AI
- Quantum computing (solving humanity’s most daunting challenges)
- Extended reality
- Internet of Things
- Blockchain and crypto
The pace of change is overwhelming. And it’s accelerating.
But here’s Linda’s reframe: You don’t need to master all of it. You need to understand which technologies are relevant to your business—and harness them to accelerate your success.
That requires:
- Time. You must carve out space for innovation, future-casting, and exploration.
- Intention. You must be purposeful about what you focus on and what you ignore.
- Community. You need leaders around you who are exploring the same questions and can share insights, resources, and breakthroughs.
The Two-Year Horizon
Linda is explicit: the next two years will see unprecedented change. Rules that seemed fixed are being rewritten. Industries are being disrupted. Customer expectations are shifting.
If you wait to see what happens, you’ll be too late. If you stay buried in day-to-day tasks, you’ll miss the opportunities.
But if you elevate yourself, leverage AI, and invest in community, you’ll be positioned to lead through the chaos—and come out stronger.
The Executive Playbook: What to Do This Quarter
If Linda’s insights resonate, here’s where to start—this quarter:
- Audit your time. How much are you spending in vs. on your business? Aim for 20% on strategy, innovation, and future-casting.
- Name the fear. What are you avoiding by staying busy? Tackle it head-on.
- Build a confidence practice. Track wins. Celebrate contributions. Reframe failure as learning.
- Experiment with AI. Identify one task to automate. Test AI agent teams. Block two hours a week to explore tools.
- Join a high-caliber community. Surround yourself with leaders who challenge and elevate you. Invest in collaboration.
- Share your expertise. Speak. Write. Teach. Expand your influence and contribute to the success of others.
- Carve out time for innovation. Block it on your calendar. Treat it as non-negotiable. This is where your future is built.
Final Thoughts: From Overwhelm to Acceleration
Linda’s work is a reminder that success is not about working harder. It’s about working smarter, leading bolder, and building the infrastructure—community, systems, mindset—that accelerates growth.
The confidence gap is real. But it’s not insurmountable. When you:
- Elevate yourself out of the busy trap
- Leverage AI to free your time for strategic work
- Invest in community that challenges and supports you
You don’t just close the confidence gap. You accelerate past it.
For women in leadership—and for any executive navigating the compounding pressures of growth, change, and uncertainty—Linda’s message is clear:
The health of your business is too important to postpone. The pace of change is too fast to wait. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Surround yourself with leaders who lift you up. Harness the technologies that free you to lead. And carve out the time to innovate, disrupt, and build the future you want—not the one that happens to you.
Executives, the rules are being rewritten. The opportunities are unprecedented. And the leaders who thrive will be the ones who move fastest—not alone, but together.
That is the work. And it’s entirely within your reach.
Listen to the full episode on C-Suite Radio: Disrupt & Innovate | C-Suite Network
Watch the episode: DI 124 Unlocking Success: Leadership, Innovation & Community for Women
This article was drafted with the assistance of an AI writing assistant (Abacus.AI’s ChatLLM Teams) and edited by Lisa L. Levy for accuracy, tone, and final content.
