Overfunctioning At Work Is Part of a Hidden Leadership Curriculum Women Are Rewriting

Before we lead with authenticity, we have to name—and unlearn—the rules we didn’t choose.

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You did everything “right.”

You rose through the ranks. You learned how to read a room, soften your edges, make things happen, and keep things running. You led with grace under pressure—even when the pressure was unspoken.

But if you’re honest, it still feels like you have to prove yourself. You’re valued—but not openly recognized. Capable—but not always noticed. And the balance between what you have to do in order to live, and what you long to do in order to lead, feels skewed.

This is the quiet ache I hear from so many women in leadership. Not because they’re failing—but because they’ve been following the unspoken curriculum of leadership—one they never asked to enroll in.

The Hidden Curriculum We Absorb

Most of us didn’t learn leadership—we absorbed it. We internalized expectations long before we were in charge of anything.

We picked up unspoken rules about what makes a “good” leader. And for women in leadership, those rules are often layered with impossible contradictions:

• Be confident, but not too direct

• Be excellent, but don’t outshine

• Be grateful, but don’t ask for more

• Be resilient, but never overwhelmed

• Be collaborative, but never too emotional

This is the hidden curriculum: the invisible rules of leadership that shape not only what we do, but also how we feel while doing it.

And often, the better we are at navigating these rules, the more misaligned we feel.

Survival Isn’t the Same as Leadership

Many of the behaviors women get rewarded for: hyper-functioning, people-pleasing, over-preparing, self-editing—aren’t leadership. They’re survival strategies.

And they’re brilliant ones.

They keep our organizations humming, moving, together.

Of course you learned to adapt. You may have even been mentored in how to take it all on.

But when survival becomes your baseline, leadership starts to feel like performance.

That performance might look like success from the outside. But inside, it costs more than it gives.

And lately, more women are noticing the toll.

I’ve had a growing number of women come to me not just to rise, but to pause. To ask if the next step even makes sense. Many are questioning whether the roles they’ve worked toward are truly a fit for who they are now.

And for those who’ve already stepped in? I hear this tension again and again:

“I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to seem like I can’t handle it.”

“I can feel myself shrinking, even as I take on more responsibility.”

“If I showed up fully as myself, I don’t know if they’d respect it.”

This isn’t impostor syndrome. It’s internalized realism. It's a reflection of how things have actually played out for women leading in systems they didn’t design.

Over-functioning at Work Is a Lesson We Were Taught to Master

For many high-achieving women, overfunctioning isn’t a flaw—it’s a requirement we silently absorbed and integrated into our lives. It’s part of the hidden curriculum: Be twice as prepared, don’t drop the ball, carry the emotional weight, smooth things over, anticipate needs before anyone asks.

You learned to lead by doing more, feeling more, holding more. But here’s the truth: overfunctioning is a survival strategy—not a leadership style. And the longer you perform it, the more invisible your actual leadership becomes.

Unlearning leadership means unlearning this too: The idea that being stretched to your limit is proof you’re good enough to lead.

Women Are Rewriting the Rules

And yet, change is happening.

Some of it is loud. Some of it is quiet. But women are rewriting the leadership rules every day.

. . . it’s happening now because more and more women are doing the inner work necessary to break the cycles.

Let’s pause and name and recognize a few of the women doing it visibly:

Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, shifted from advocating for women in tech to publicly championing the care economy. She reminds us that asking for more isn’t selfish, it’s strategic.

Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, led with empathy and emotional intelligence on the global stage. She showed us that transparency doesn’t weaken leadership, it reinforces it.

Bozoma Saint John, former CMO of Netflix and Uber, refused to assimilate. She claimed her space with cultural authenticity in industries where she was often the first and only.

Minda Harts, author of The Memo, centers the experience of women of color in leadership. Her voice makes clear that real inclusion requires truth-telling, not politeness.

Melanie Ho, author of Beyond Leaning In, helps us see how systemic bias, not individual failure, shapes women’s workplace realities. Her work challenges the myth of meritocracy.

And then there are the women you’ll never see on a keynote stage, but whose rewrites are no less powerful.

They’re:

• Walking out of roles that no longer align, even when it scares them or

• Reshaping their leadership in ways that are powerful and fulfilling.

• Noticing and naming bias in real time, instead of absorbing the harm.

• Leading teams with values-aligned clarity, not fear-based urgency.

• Choosing sustainability over self-sacrifice.

• Speaking up not to be seen, but because they have something to say

These rewrites might not look revolutionary at first glance. But they are. Because they’re not just personal, they’re cultural counterweights. This is what authentic leadership looks like in motion.

I believe it’s happening now because more and more women are doing the inner work necessary to break the cycles.

They’re tending to their mental health through therapy, trauma recovery, and nourishing their nervous systems.

They’re investing in their development, from podcasts, to self-help, to working one-on-one with coaches.

They’re creating space for themselves that allows them to drop the concern about someone’s judgment, eye-roll, sigh, in a meeting.

Because that’s not where their sense of worth comes from. Their self-leadership is their way to step away from overfunctioning at work.

What Does It Mean to Unlearn Leadership?

Unlearning doesn’t mean tearing it all down. It means getting honest about what no longer serves—and reclaiming what does.

It means:

• Letting go of the idea that leadership must look a certain way.

• Reclaiming your own blend of clarity, power, and presence.

• Rewriting your inner contracts—so leadership becomes an expression of who you are, not a performance you sustain.

This isn’t rebellion. It’s return.

And that’s what this series is about.

The Series: Unlearning to Lead

This blog kicks off a series of short posts I’ll be sharing weekly, or so. Each post exploring a turning point in the unlearning and rebuilding process.

We’ll begin by naming the rules you never consciously chose, and move into the quiet work of reconnecting with your own truth. From there, we’ll explore what it takes to claim your seat, speak your truth, and redefine your leadership in a way that’s sustainable and fully your own.

This isn’t a how-to. It’s a call back to wholeness.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything “right” but something still feels off?  You’re not broken. You’re just being called back to yourself.

Welcome. I hope you join us.