Look For Space, Not Certainty

Most women leading in the healthcare ecosytem right now feel the same tension:

You’re expected to have answers inside a system that makes answers impossible.

Structures are shifting.

Accountabilities are blurred.

Budgets are tight.

Pressures are real.

And yet the expectation remains:lead decisively, act confidently, carry the weight.

But the truth is becoming unavoidable:

The old model of leadership no longer works.

The old way:

• Be the heroic individual

• Carry the burden alone

• Arrive with solutions already formed

• Tell people where they're going and how to get there

The new reality demands something different.

To lead in today's complexity, low trust system you must:

Create space to act.

Mobilise

Lead with, not alone.

This isn’t a theory we admire from a distance. It’s a survival strategy.

Because no leader, however experienced, however committed, can outwork the scale of complexity facing the system today.

But we can out-learn it.

We can out-collaborate it.

We can create environments where better thinking becomes possible.

That begins with asking different questions.

At our recent Senior Women in Health Leadership Retreat, Professor Anita Charlesworth encouraged us to side step the search for “the right decision” and instead explore:

→ How could this play out?

→ Where are the no-regret moves?

→ Where might we see phenomenal upside (act here) or catastrophic risk (don't act here)?

→ What’s our collective appetite for risk?

These aren’t soft questions. They are the questions of leaders navigating disruption with intention rather than fear.

Because leadership right now presents us with a paradox:

Work thoughtfully, at pace.

Act quickly, but not reactively.

Create space for others, while managing pressure yourself.

And here’s the opportunity hidden inside the chaos:

When we lead like this, we make things better and we enable everyone around us to do better.

We can work together to find answers.

We build the conditions for change that lasts.

The system needs this more than ever.

So do the people working within it.

Leadership is shifting.

And the women who thrive will be those who embrace this new way - not by having all the answers, but by creating the environment where answers can emerge.

Are you ready to lead this way?