The Quiet Cost of High Performance: Why senior women are leaving alignment behind and how to reclaim it.

You’re still delivering. Still leading. Still showing up.

But something’s shifted.

You don’t feel burnt out, well, not exactly. You’re still functioning, you’re effective, and from the outside, nothing looks wrong. But inside? There’s a quiet disconnect. A tension you can’t name. A calendar that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you anymore.

This isn’t failure. It’s misalignment. And it’s costing more than you think.

The Invisible Cost of Keeping It Together

High-performing women have learned to lead through complexity, visibility, and pressure. Usually while wearing a million other hats at home and in our communities. Often in environments where excellence isn’t optional and nuance isn’t always welcome. You're not just managing work. You're carrying culture. Responsibility. Other people’s expectations and anxieties. Legacy systems. Invisible labour.

And for a long time, you’ve made it work. You’ve adapted. Delivered. Pivoted.

But here's the part we don't acknowledge often enough - high performance doesn’t protect you from drift. In fact, sometimes, it hides it.

When Performance ≠ Alignment

A McKinsey & LeanIn 2022 report found that women leaders are leaving their roles at the highest rates ever recorded. This isn’t happening because they lack commitment or capability, but because the load of leadership is no longer sustainable in its current form.

They're not walking away because they can’t keep up. They're walking away because they no longer want to. Because performing isn’t the same as leading on purpose.

Since Covid, much attention has been given to risk factors and costs related to workplace burn out. But the impact of misalignment is often under appreciated as it doesn’t always look like a crisis. Sometimes it looks like:

• Being in the room, but no longer speaking with full conviction

• Delaying the decision that actually needs to be made

• Over-delivering by default, because it’s easier than saying no

• A sense that your voice is still there, but your centre is not

Yes, you’re still moving, but the momentum isn’t coming from clarity anymore. It’s coming from habit, expectation, even inertia.

The Consequences of Prolonged Drift

Here’s what no one tells you about quiet misalignment: it accumulates.

It erodes your presence. Your strategic clarity. Your ability to respond instead of react. Your sense of agency over what you’re creating and who you’re becoming while doing it.

Eventually, something gives. Do any of these examples sound familiar?

• You overcommit to something you no longer believe in

• You say yes when your whole body is saying no

• You pause mid-sentence in a meeting and wonder, “Is this really how I want to lead?”

And still, we tell ourselves: “It’s just a phase.” Until the phase becomes a pattern and the pattern becomes the norm.

What Alignment Actually Looks and Feels Like

Alignment isn’t about having a perfectly balanced life or a perfectly colour-coded diary.

It’s about knowing:

• What matters and what doesn’t anymore

• What you’re leading for, not just what you’re leading through

• How to say yes with clarity, and no without guilt

• What protects your energy, so you can protect your impact

Aligned leadership doesn’t always look radical from the outside, but inside, it feels different. More honest. More powerful. Less performative.

And when you shift into it, even subtly, people feel it. They respond differently. Because you’re not just showing up. You’re showing up on purpose.

The Invitation: Reset, Don’t Retreat

This isn't the moment when you need to burn it all down before you can build it back up better. You don’t need a dramatic reinvention. You need a moment to pause, intentionally,

and ask:

• What’s working?

• What’s quietly eroding my confidence, my voice, my energy?

• What wants to change and what happens if it doesn’t?

You don’t need a break in the hills somewhere. What you do need is a reset.

One that’s structured, strategic and spacious enough to help you reclaim your clarity, without losing momentum.

Final Thought

If you’ve read this far, something in what I've shared has probably landed.

Not in a dramatic, breakdown kind of way. But in a quiet, clear one. The kind of way that says: “This is me. Right now.” I know, because I've also been there and back again a few times.

If that’s the case, consider this your invitation. Not to step back, but to realign and step forward, with intention.

Learn more about the Strategic Spring Reset Spots are limited until 9th May, 2025.