Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership

By Raquel Calvo Gómez

“Women who aspire to leadership face a maze with multiple paths, dead ends, and setbacks, rather than just a ceiling to break.” – Eagly & Carli, Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders (2007)

Fifteen years ago, I decided to dedicate my career to accompanying leaders and teams in their personal and professional development. Since then, I have taught hundreds of coaching and leadership programs, facilitated dynamics for management committees, trained managers and leaders in Co-Active Coaching skills and taught the 5 ways to lead of the Co-Active Leadership model around the world. In addition to all this, I have individually accompanied women in key positions: CEOs, members of management committees and executives in sectors as demanding as health, the pharmaceutical industry or technology.

Over the years, I’ve learned that for women, leadership isn’t just about skills. It is, above all, a matter of making one’s way: of overcoming visible and invisible obstacles and of learning to move in a generally hostile terrain. It is no coincidence that Alice Eagly and Linda Carli, in their article “Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership”, proposed replacing the metaphor of the “glass ceiling” with that of the labyrinth: a journey full of visible and invisible barriers that women face throughout their professional careers.

This means that female leadership is not reduced to breaking one last barrier: it involves learning to navigate a system marked by inequalities that persist in most of the testimonies of the women leaders I have accompanied:

• The overload of work and the weight of family responsibilities, which still fall unevenly and limit the availability of women to assume leadership positions or participate in decision-making spaces.
• The distrust or undervaluation of female authority, which forces many women to continuously demonstrate their competence, even in high-level positions.
• The difficulty of accessing networks of power and influence, still dominated by men and not very open to diversity.
• The invisibilization of emotions and care as legitimate leadership competencies, often underestimated in organizations guided by masculine logics.
• The absence of institutional policies sensitive to diversity, such as measures to support parenting, recognition of multiple working days or effective mechanisms against intersectional discrimination, based on gender, race, age, origin or sexual orientation.

As one of the participants in one of my workshops commented: “Being a woman and wanting to lead is still often seen as daring. We have to justify our presence, explain our tone of voice, control our emotions, and still hear that we are too sensitive or not assertive, or that we have a bad temper and are too harsh.”

Testimonies like this show that the labyrinth that Eagly and Carli talk about is not an abstract metaphor, but an everyday reality for many women. Acknowledging the existence of this labyrinth and its barriers is the first step in transforming the structures that sustain it.

The power to train, have references and have support

Faced with the complexity of this labyrinth, I have found in my practice that three factors are decisive for women to advance in their development as leaders: training, references and accompaniment.

Leadership training is essential. Not only to acquire tools, but to become aware of the gender norms that influence how authority is perceived and exercised. In many of the programs I teach, participants find that their tendency to minimize their achievements, avoid conflict, or overdemonstrate competence are responses learned in historically male contexts.

References are equally important. Having female role models in leadership is essential to break the silence that historically made women’s power invisible, multiply the possible narratives of being a woman and being a leader, and inspire others to believe in their right and ability to lead.

When a woman occupies a space of power with authenticity, empathy and courage, she not only conquers that place: she opens the way for others. The presence of these leaders works as a symbolic map, living proof that the labyrinth can be navigated, albeit with effort, strategies and support networks.

Finally, having a coach or mentor provides a safe space to explore fears, develop resources, define goals, and try new ways of leading. The women I work with especially value having someone who listens to them without judgment, with empathy, who accompanies them to look at the labyrinth from another perspective and to draw their own map.

Conclusions: Opening paths in the labyrinth

After these years accompanying women leaders, I know that there is no shortcut. The barriers are still there: gender stereotypes, unconscious biases, organizational structures designed with a masculine ideal in mind. But I also know that the labyrinth is not impassable. New and more human paths can be opened when women trust in their right to lead, when organizations invest in real change and when leadership ceases to be synonymous with sacrifice and dominance to become a relational, ethical and transformative practice.

As a coach and facilitator, I continue to believe in the importance of training, accompanying and networking. As Carol Gilligan wrote, “caring is also leading.” And in that mutual care, new ways of being in power are born: more authentic, inclusive and sustainable.

About Raquel Calvo:

Raquel Calvo Gómez is an international coach, art therapist and trainer specialising in creative, collaborative and conscious leadership. Since 2013 she has been part of the international faculty of the Co-Active Training Institute, where she accompanies coaches and leaders to unfold their potential from authenticity and care.

With more than fifteen years of experience in coaching, training and facilitation in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, her approach integrates body, art, philosophy and critical thinking as tools for transformation. She has a degree in Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Santiago de Compostela.