When Being the Capable One Becomes the Expectation

How the strength women are praised for can become the very thing that keeps them from asking for what they need.

I recently asked a group of mothers in leadership positions what would make the biggest difference in their lives right now. As I read through their responses, I noticed something that I couldn't stop thinking about.

Some women wanted more flexibility in their schedules. Others needed reliable childcare, understanding from their leadership, or simply enough time in the day to fulfill their responsibilities without feeling like they were constantly falling behind. One woman talked about wanting uninterrupted time to focus on her work, time to give her child her undivided attention, and time that belonged to her.

Another woman said she felt guilty when she was working and guilty when she was home.

And then there were the women who simply wanted a break.

Not a vacation. Not some elaborate opportunity to escape their responsibilities. Just a moment when they weren't trying to anticipate what everyone else needed or figure out how to make everything work.

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What struck me wasn't that these women were struggling. It was how much they were already accomplishing while they were struggling.

They were leading teams of various sizes, raising children, managing households, navigating demanding careers, and continuing to show up for people who depended on them. These weren't women who lacked discipline or ambition. They were women who had become exceptionally good at doing what needed to be done, even when doing it required more of them than anyone seemed to recognize.

And I started thinking about how often we mistake a woman's ability to handle something for evidence that she should have to.

At what point does being capable stop being something we're proud of and become something we're expected to prove every single day?

The Leadership Insight

I've spent years in environments where competence matters. In the military, people depend on you to make decisions, solve problems, and accomplish the mission. You learn to adapt, work through challenges, and find a way forward even when circumstances aren't ideal.

Those experiences shaped me, and there are lessons from that part of my life that I will always carry.

But I've also learned that being capable can create expectations that nobody ever stops to question.

When you're the person who consistently figures things out, people begin to assume you always will. When you make difficult situations look manageable, they may never realize how much effort went into making them manageable in the first place. And when you're the woman who rarely drops the ball, it becomes easy for everyone, including you, to believe that keeping every ball in the air is simply who you are.

The problem is that eventually, what you do becomes confused with what you're supposed to do.

I think this is especially true for women who are navigating leadership and motherhood simultaneously. We're often expected to be fully committed to our careers while also being fully available to our families. We're encouraged to pursue opportunities, but we're also expected to manage the consequences of pursuing them without inconveniencing anyone else.

And somehow, when those expectations collide, we often assume we're the ones who need to become better at managing them.

Better organized. More disciplined. More efficient. More patient.

But what if the problem isn't that you need to become more capable?

What if you've simply become accustomed to carrying expectations that were never meant to rest entirely on your shoulders?

During my recent masterclass, Returning to Yourself: Reclaiming Your Identity in Leadership, we talked about the blueprints women inherit and how those expectations influence the way we lead and define success.

Some of those blueprints were handed to us long before we ever entered a workplace or became mothers.

I was raised with an understanding that you handled your responsibilities. You worked hard, figured things out, and did what needed to be done. There is strength in that kind of upbringing, and I don't believe we have to dismiss those lessons simply because we're questioning how they show up in our lives today.

But I also believe we have a responsibility to examine them.

Because honoring the strength of the women who came before us doesn't mean we have to recreate every sacrifice they made.

Maybe our mothers and grandmothers did what they had to do with the resources, opportunities, and expectations available to them. Maybe their ability to endure difficult circumstances became part of what we learned to admire about womanhood.

And maybe some of us have spent years measuring our own strength by how much we can endure without asking for help.

That doesn't mean the women before us were wrong. It means we get to decide which parts of their example still serve the lives we're building.

We can carry forward their resilience without believing exhaustion is proof of commitment. We can value responsibility without assuming everything is our responsibility. We can pursue ambitious goals without treating our personal needs as obstacles to achieving them.

That's the difference between inheriting a blueprint and intentionally designing your own.

And it matters just as much in the workplace as it does at home.

One of the things that stood out in the feedback I collected was how often women described needing understanding from the people leading them. Some wanted flexibility when their children had appointments. Others wanted leaders who recognized that pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and childcare responsibilities didn't make them less committed professionals.

These are not always problems an individual woman can solve by setting a better boundary or changing her mindset.

Sometimes the expectations themselves need to change.

As leaders, we have to be willing to recognize when we're rewarding people for their ability to function without adequate support. We have to question whether the standards we're applying actually reflect what successful leadership requires or simply what we've become accustomed to expecting.

And as women, we have to become more intentional about the expectations we accept as our own.

Because there is a difference between being committed to your responsibilities and believing you have to sacrifice yourself to fulfill them.

Your ability to carry something does not automatically make it yours to carry.

Your Action Step

I want you to think about the roles you occupy right now. Maybe you're a mother, a leader, a partner, a daughter, a business owner, or the person everyone calls when something needs to get done.

Now consider this question:

Where in your life have you become so good at meeting an expectation that you've stopped questioning whether it should be yours in the first place?

Maybe you're the one who manages every detail at home because you've always been the organized one. Maybe you're the leader who takes on additional responsibilities because you know you can get the job done. Or maybe you've convinced yourself that asking for support would somehow diminish the success you've worked so hard to achieve.

I want you to go a little deeper than identifying what feels overwhelming.

Ask yourself where that expectation came from.

Was it something you consciously chose? Was it modeled by the women who raised you? Did it come from a workplace culture that equates availability with commitment? Or did you begin carrying it because, at some point, everyone realized you could?

Then ask yourself what it might look like to approach that responsibility differently.

Not necessarily to abandon it, but to examine whether the way you're carrying it still aligns with the woman you are and the life you're trying to build.

That might mean asking for help. It might mean having a conversation you've been avoiding. It might mean recognizing that a system around you needs to change rather than continuing to assume you are the problem.

And sometimes, it simply means giving yourself permission to acknowledge that something is harder than you've allowed yourself to admit.

Closing Reflection

I don't want women to walk away from conversations about leadership and identity believing that the answer is to become less ambitious or less committed to the people they love.

That's not what this work is about.

I want women to recognize that they can be successful leaders, present mothers, supportive partners, and individuals with their own aspirations without believing that every role requires them to disappear a little more.

But that kind of integration doesn't happen simply because we want it to. It requires us to examine the expectations we've inherited, recognize the ones we've accepted without question, and become intentional about what we're willing to carry forward.

In my recent masterclass, I shared that reclaiming your identity isn't something you do once and then check off a list. It's an ongoing choice.

And I believe part of that choice is learning to recognize when the version of strength you've been performing no longer supports the life you're trying to create.

You don't have to stop being capable. You just have to stop believing your capability means you should have to do everything.

That's part of the work we're continuing through the Legacy Leadership Experience, where women can examine their inherited expectations, redefine success, and begin integrating their leadership with the fullness of who they are.

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Because your legacy shouldn't be measured by how much you managed to carry.

It should also reflect what you had the courage to change.