There comes a point in every Deep Cycle journey when rhythm is not enough.
Now comes the hard work: You can release ambition that exhausts you, cut old wires, and breathe in a new cadence — and still the question presses: What will carry me, when performance alone no longer does?
When you begin to notice the wires on the trellis you cling to — you can start loosening them. With every release, your own pulse comes back, bringing relief and a first taste of freedom.
Every cut wire will be tested in real life. Doubts may surface when the old wire is gone — when you can no longer lean on your old ways of performing.
For Hedwig, that question arrived one autumn morning, in the place most familiar to her: the boardroom, where she now sat as founder and CEO, leading the company day to day — the woman who had taken the company public and carried its future in her hands.
The decision
The agenda was heavy. The project had first been proposed by certain board members and developed by outside consultants. Support spread quickly, many eager to push it forward. The politics were thick, and everyone watched Hedwig, knowing that as majority shareholder, her word would set the course.
On the outside, she sat composed, pen in hand. On the inside, her body rebelled.
Her stomach tightened before the meeting even began. Her jaw locked as she scanned the briefing papers. She felt her pulse hammering in her throat, not as fear, but as insistence: This is wrong.
She knew the expectation: add her authority, lend her credibility, keep the momentum. She had done it a hundred times before. That was how you survived, how you climbed. That was how she had taken the company all the way to an IPO.
But as she looked around the table, something in her, long pressed flat, was no longer willing.
In our work
She had brought this dilemma to me the week before.
We looked at outcomes not only in logic, but in resonance — the way the body itself testifies when conviction is near.
What happens in your body if you comply?
Her breath shortened, her shoulders folded.
What happens if you say no?
Her eyes widened. Fear, yes. But her chest lifted. Her whole frame seemed to remember space.
We spread it out like a constellation exercise — mapping each player into the field to see their dynamics, with obvious desires and hidden agendas alike. This is part of my work as Trusted Advisor: reading the deeper field, seeing the invisible architecture behind choices. I sense where loyalties are tangled and where pressures are concealed. One by one we placed them on the map until the political landscape was visible.
For Hedwig, the map was clear. Compliance drained her. Resistance, though frightening, pointed to the road she needed to take.
The sovereign No
Back in the boardroom, the moment came.
All eyes turned to her — the founder whose voice would decide.
She felt the old wires scream:
Her mother’s law: Don’t upset them. Keep the peace.
Her father’s warning: Never outshine, never dominate.
The corporate mantra: Performance is everything. Stay in line.
And yet beneath the noise was a deeper rhythm, steady and alive.
She spoke with an even, steady voice — not apologetic, simply clear: „I cannot support this.“
Silence fell. Some faces stiffened. One person exhaled, almost relieved.
She braced for backlash — anger, resistance, counter‑moves and critique. But direct attack did not come.
What followed instead was the harder part: she had to present her own version of the project, secure buy-in and agreement, and, not least, make the case convincingly.
Because we had explored the entire scenario in depth, she knew the hidden agendas and was prepared for the counterarguments she already anticipated. One by one she met them, countered them effectively, and steered the decision in her direction.
When the discussion finally closed and the board moved with her, she noticed her own body: back upright, breathing calm, the migraine that had shadowed her all morning gone.
This is what sovereignty feels like. Not triumph. Not rebellion. Her refusal had drawn a line in the room — not a wall, but a clear edge of what she would and would not carry. The quiet strength of a boundary that carries power — not a wall to shut others out, but the edge that defines where you stand.
What Female Power is
For years, Hedwig’s power had come from performance and via her family’s social standing — the traditional kind of power tied to status and external results. It was the language of corporate life: endless hours poured into work, every gesture rehearsed, value measured in compliance with the codes. A power that rarely considered people or values, even when marketed as such. At its core it was always ‚power over‘ rather than power with or from within. That kind of power drains, devouring body and spirit alike.
What rose in her that day was different. It did not demand recognition or approval. It did not leave her hollow. It steadied her. It nourished her.
This is Female Power.
The kind of power I wrote about in my brand-new E-Book — Unapologetic Power — because one article could never hold it. Female Power is not borrowed or performed. It is remembered. It flows when the inner architecture aligns, when conviction rises from the body instead of collapsing into fear.
Aftermath
That No did not end the story.
Later that evening, Hedwig sat in her car in the dark parking garage, hands on the wheel, heart still racing. She replayed the silence of the room, the faces unreadable. Even with her version approved, a flicker of doubt rose — she knew she had crossed some powerful people. What would be the repercussions, the hidden cost to her? Had she risked too much, shifted the ground too far?
Yet when she drove home, she noticed something new. For the first time in years, she did not rehearse her words, did not berate herself for being too sharp or too soft. She felt strangely clean inside. She had not compromised.
The next morning, she looked in the mirror, half expecting regret. Instead, she saw her own eyes steady, unflinching.
This is the cost and the gift of sovereignty: you cannot hide from yourself anymore.
In her following session with me, we deep dived into these worries. We looked at the protagonists again — I read the energies of the field once more — and together we developed a strategy for how she could counter possible repercussions.
The trellis runs deep
And one big No certainly does not dismantle the trellis. A boundary protects the new space opened when wires are cut — it holds the ground, but it is the cutting itself that will eventually dismantle the trellis.
The wires are not only corporate codes or family rules. They run through a long line of female ancestry, through generations of women told they had no value, no voice, no rights, no claim to anything. Survival meant binding themselves to the trellis and remaining there — a lesson passed from mother to daughter, appearing as compliant trees, carrying the right fruit, staying silent and small, because that was the only way to endure. Some wires come through family rules, others are inherited laws older than memory. The entire female lineage is wired to never outshine men, to submit and be quiet — and often it is the women themselves who ensure this code is obeyed.
Getting off the trellis is a long road requiring patience and endurance. Women who have walked with me for over ten years still find new wires to cut. This is not failure. It is the nature of a system woven through centuries. To grow beyond it requires more than simple clarity. It requires the courage to return, again and again, to the wires that still hold, and to cut it with your own hands.
Not lost — covered
Someone implied recently that I work with women who are ‚lost.‘ None of the women I work with are ‚lost.‘
Hedwig was not lost. She had founded a company, taken it public, navigated politics, survived storms. That is not the work of someone lost.
What women discover are the layers— coverings of expectation, code, and inherited voices. Their essence was always there but lying deeply buried underneath the version they were shaped into on the trellis.
You have to commit to get off the trellis because once you become conscious of each individual wire, you can’t ignore them. Covering up becomes intolerable.
The work is to cut them, one by one, and peel back the layers of expectation and code until your true feminine essence can breathe again. To free what has always been whole, waiting beneath.
Practice: Training a boundary
Sovereignty grows in practice. One choice at a time:
• Say no to a demand that drains you.
• Mark an evening for rest, even when the calendar insists otherwise.
• Speak one truth without polishing it for applause.
Each act feels risky. Each tests the wires. But with practice, the body learns: this boundary does not isolate you — it carries you.
The Deep Cycle
The journey of Hedwig is part of the Deep Cycle — my one-year program for women ready to step beyond performance and redesign the inner architecture of their lives. In this work, female power becomes tangible: leadership that nourishes instead of draining, and a way of living that feels lighter, freer, more joyful, with identity and presence restored.
Now Hedwig is deeply motivated to do the work because she sees results emerging. Each time she cuts a wire, honours a boundary, her leadership shifts — from optics to essence, from performance to conviction.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in her story. If you do, remember you are already powerful and whole — you are just waiting to uncover what has been hidden. The orchard is full of women waking up to their long buried true feminine power. Not heavier. Not harder. But clearer. Steadier. Freer.
Practice for this week:
Train one boundary to carry power.
Choose where you will stand — not against others, but for yourself.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in high-stakes roles — from board seats to executive leadership to founder journeys. And with those whose influence takes other forms: in the arts, academia, or public life. Wherever the stakes are high, presence and integrity are non-negotiable.
There comes a moment after clarity when silence lingers.
The first pruning wires have been named, the cage has been seen, but the question remains: what now?
For Hedwig, that moment did not arrive as triumph. It arrived as unease.
Clarity had stripped away the illusions — the masks she wore, the roles she performed — and left her raw.
She was not yet free, but she was no longer blind.
The wire of “never disappoint”
Hedwig had grown up under the constant hum of a simple rule: a good girl does not disappoint.
Her mother carried it like gospel — not as cruelty, but as survival. “Don’t upset them. Keep the peace. Do what’s expected. That way, you remain safe.”
Her mother also taught her other survival codes: never let men see you are actually a bit cleverer; be super efficient and supportive, but never dominant. Above all, supportive — as her father had drilled into her. Become a good little man, but not better, never ever!
That wire ran through Hedwig’s body like steel.
It was why she stayed late polishing presentations no one would remember.
It was why she smiled politely when investors interrupted her mid-sentence.
It was why she offered more than was asked, and then resented the exhaustion that followed.
Each time she tried to loosen that wire, guilt and deep programming tightened its grip.
She feared becoming careless, selfish, exposed. How would she survive if she dared to break those rules?
The wire of “always visible”
Later came another strand — woven in during her rise through corporate ranks: Visibility is everything.
Speak up. Take the stage. Own the spotlight.
But over time, it became another form of bondage.
Every outfit chosen for optics, every word calculated for effect, every gesture rehearsed.
The performance never ended.
Hedwig sometimes wondered if there was any self left beneath the projection.
She could no longer tell where the show stopped and she began.
And beneath that confusion lay another battle. The new ideas of empowerment, suggested by previous coaches and learned from books, promised freedom, yet fought with the ancient law of conformity — the base code that whispered you must stay wired, cling to the trellis, never break free. This inner battle left Hedwig torn between the call to step out and the fear of losing the very structures that had once kept her alive. She also felt guilty, because she did not feel empowered at all — so she assumed something was wrong with her, that she was not good enough to “get it.” Nobody told her about the trellis and how every woman is connected to it in her own way.
All of this came at a cost. These wires had built her success, but they had also stolen her own rhythm, liveliness, joy – in a way her life.
Her body kept score: migraines, sleepless nights, blood pressure that hammered in her ears.
Her mind whispered of freedom, but her calendar spoke only of duty.
This was when she turned more fully toward our work together.
She had called me in the moment of her public triumph, desperate for clarity.
Now, clarity alone was not enough.
She needed something deeper: anchoring.
The slow work of rhythm
Anchoring does not arrive in a weekend retreat or a sudden epiphany.
It is the slow re-weaving of inner threads.
For Hedwig, it began in the smallest of choices.
One evening, she declined an invitation to yet another gala.
Instead of polished laughter and strategic conversations, she sat barefoot on her balcony, listening to the wind.
The world did not collapse.
Her absence went unnoticed by most.
But in her body, something shifted. A tiny pulse of relief. A new rhythm, fragile but alive.
Another time, she spoke her opinion in a meeting without calculating how it would land.
Her voice trembled, unused to such naked honesty.
But when she finished, the room was quiet — and then someone said softly: “Thank you. That’s exactly what needed to be said.”
In that moment she felt again the wire — never be too clever, never outshine, never dominate. Speaking her truth so openly went against everything her parents had pressed into her. And yet, here she was — the words landing, not breaking the world apart, but making it more whole.
She began to experiment.
A morning walk without her phone.
Speaking her opinion before weighing the politics in the room.
Letting her children see her tired, instead of pretending she could do everything.
These were not grand gestures.
They were daily steps, fragile experiments.
Each time she chose differently, she felt both terror and relief.
It was as if her heart, long pressed under borrowed rhythms, was beginning to beat in its own time.
The resonance of others
In sharing her struggles with me, Hedwig also began to hear echoes from others.
A colleague confessed that she, too, was tired of performing competence when all she wanted was space to breathe.
A friend admitted she had forgotten what joy felt like, caught in the grind of endless demands.
Together, their stories revealed a hidden truth: the trellis was not personal, it was systemic.
Women everywhere had been shaped by wires they did not choose.
To anchor differently was not indulgence. It was the first steps of defiance — a quiet kind of rebelling.
It was survival — not of the old trellis-program, but of her true self breaking through.
The work with me
Our sessions became her ground — and she began to understand that this would be a journey requiring steady investment of time and presence with me.
Sometimes she arrived with fire in her eyes, ready to cut a wire.
Other times, she collapsed in exhaustion, unsure she could take another step.
Anchoring, I reminded her, is not about perfection.
It is about practice.
About choosing presence over performance, even when the wires scream.
We mapped the invisible architecture together — tracing which voices belonged to her mother, which to the boardroom, which to fear itself.
We breathed into the moments her body wanted to collapse, teaching her nervous system that rest was not failure but foundation.
Bit by bit, she began to distinguish between the trellis pulling her back and the inner rhythm calling her forward.
The long road ahead
Anchoring is not a finish line.
It is a lifelong rhythm, a practice of returning — again and again — to the pulse inside.
Some days, Hedwig still finds herself back on the wires, caught in guilt or performance. The old teachings resurface too — don’t outshine, don’t be too clever, don’t dominate — whispering that she should retreat. But now she notices them for what they are: inherited voices, not her truth. She names them. And each time, she chooses a little differently.
Slowly, quietly, she begins to grow beyond the trellis — every day a bit, a step.
✨ Practice: Prune Ambition Notice where your ambition has overgrown into exhaustion. Choose one branch to prune this week:
Say no to one demand that serves only appearances.
Speak one truth without polishing it.
Allow one moment of visible imperfection. Small cuts, repeated patiently, free your rhythm to breathe.
The deeper cycle
She is beginning to realize this is the beginning of freedom. Not the glossy kind of freedom sold in lifestyle magazines — retire to Mallorca, meditate in Bali, drop out and start over. Only to find out that the wires follow everywhere. And most women cannot abandon their lives and careers even if they wanted to — so they stay, sink into resignation. Depression creeps in, silent but heavy.
No, the raw truth is harsher and more liberating: freedom is not about escape. It is about staying in your life, in your career, and ripping out the wires one by one, with your own hands if you must. It is bloody work, and it is daily work. But only this kind of work lets you live, step by step, from your own pulse, right where you are.
I know this truth in my own body. Years ago, I left my corporate role not out of courage, but because I had nothing left: sick, disillusioned, exhausted. And even now I carry the practice of anchoring — learning day by day to live more from my own rhythm. The collapse was also an opening, and the deeper rhythm keeps calling me forward. In my case, it meant letting go of my old world completely so I could heal and discover my true calling.
What Hedwig is discovering is not a quick fix.
Not a passing relief.
But the beginning of a deeper cycle — one that will carry her further than any trellis ever could.
The Deep Cycle is not about chasing another IPO, stock price spikes, or soaring valuations from the markets.
It is about learning to live from the steady pulse of your own female source of power — your real self, your identity, your truth.
Hedwig’s story is only one thread in this unfolding.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in her — the invisible wires, the exhaustion, the longing for a rhythm that is finally your own.
If you do, know this: you are not alone.
The orchard is full of women ready to step out of the trellis, one branch at a time. And even as old wires still whisper — don’t outshine, don’t be too clever, don’t dominate — more and more women are learning to recognize those voices, and to choose their own pulse instead.
PS: This is the second chapter of Hedwig’s journey. The next will unfold as she steps into sovereignty from inner conviction.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in key positions — board members, top executives, founders, supervisory board roles — and with women navigating transitions into new roles, phases, or new forms of power. She clarifies the inner architecture of their female power, enabling decisions grounded in meaning, presence, and integrity.
There are moments when the structures we thought were holding us up begin to press against our ribs.
When success, so carefully built, feels less like freedom and more like a cage.
For Hedwig, that moment came the night her company went public.
The façade of success
On the outside, it was everything she had dreamed of. Flashbulbs, handshakes, the sharp scent of champagne. She stood on the stage as the markets opened, her name splashed across the financial press. A woman in leadership, celebrated for what she had accomplished.
But inside her body, another reality was unfolding. Her temples pulsed with a headache that had shadowed her for weeks. Her stomach was a knot, pulled tighter by years of policing what she ate, how she looked, how much space she was allowed to take. Later that night, alone in her hotel room, she collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Her heart raced. Her blood pressure was so high she could hear it in her ears. The applause still echoed, but she felt hollow.
No one saw that part.
No one asked.
That was the time she called me; at the height of her success, she felt the lowest of lows. She had carried my contact for a little while with her, given by an acquaintance, but she never had time before — or so she thought. Everything went into preparing for going public.
The trellis
For generations, women have been trained like espaliered trees: planted with promise, then bound to invisible trellises of family duty, social approval, corporate codes. Each branch pruned when it reached too far. Each blossom measured against an external standard. From a distance, the orchard looks perfect — a clean wall of green, every fruit trimmed to the right size and shape. But the hidden cost is that the tree can no longer grow in its own direction. This image alone could fill an entire article — a deep dive into the trellis itself, how order disguises constraint. Here, it marks the beginning of Hedwig’s awareness, with the deeper exploration waiting for another chapter.
The hidden cost of the cage
Hedwig had been pruned since childhood. Told to watch her weight. Criticized for how she dressed. Complimented only when she looked thin, polished, compliant. The message was clear: her body was not hers, but a billboard for others’ approval. By the time she was thirty, she had perfected the routine: brutal workouts, skipped meals, nights ending in shame as she erased what she had eaten. Outwardly, she was slim, stylish, impeccable in her suits. Inwardly, she carried the secret wars of a body never allowed to simply be.
In the boardroom, the pruning continued. Male colleagues joked about her “killer heels.” Investors praised her “image” as much as her strategy. She learned to keep her voice even, never too sharp, never too soft. Always threading herself into the narrow space allowed: competent, attractive, unthreatening.
Why she came
By the time we met, Hedwig had everything society told her to want: power, recognition, wealth. Yet her body was breaking down. Migraines, insomnia, rising blood pressure — the same symptoms that had driven her to call me at the height of her success. The public triumph had left her privately hollow, and her nights were filled with staring into the dark, wondering why she felt more caged than ever.
She didn’t come to me because she wanted more success. She came because she knew she could not survive another year of living like this. She longed for clarity — yet that was not the real reason she reached out. Most women do not seek me because they crave clarity; they come because they are often on top of their career but also in pain, exhausted, or desperate to reclaim their lives. Hedwig was no different. She feared what clarity would reveal because it meant looking directly at the structures inside her: the rules she had inherited, the lies she had repeated, the cage she had not only been placed in but had also locked from the inside.
The painful beginning
The first steps of the Deep Cycle are rarely comfortable. Hedwig discovered that quickly. In our work together, she began to notice the subtle weave of her inner architecture — all the ways she had entangled herself in voices that were not hers. Her mother’s constant reminders about how she should present herself — always polished, always slim — as if her worth lived only in the surface image. Her father’s insistence that showing feelings was weakness. The invisible demand of the corporate world to stay polished, flawless, untouchable.
Seeing it hurt. Naming it hurt even more. But slowly, she began to realize: uncoupling meant breaking out of the trellis — and the beginning of self-discovery.
The uncoupling
One day she arrived to our session exhausted, after another sleepless night. She said, almost whispering: “I see now how much of my life has been borrowed. I’ve been carrying rules that were never mine. It feels like I’ve been living in someone else’s skin.”
That moment was clarity. Not the triumphant kind, but the raw, unvarnished kind. She was not wrong for feeling trapped. The trellis was real. The pruning had been relentless. But the tree inside her was still alive.
Uncoupling for Hedwig did not mean tearing her life apart overnight. It meant pausing long enough to see: this thought is not mine, this pressure does not belong to me. It meant learning to distinguish between the echo of old rules and the quiet truth of her own inner voice.
It was not easy. Some days she wanted to run back into the safety of the old structure, to shut the door of the cage again. But little by little, she began to let one branch move freely, to reclaim one small piece of space at the time for herself.
The courage to see
Clarity is never just intellectual. It is embodied. It is the courage to admit: I have been complicit in my own confinement. Hedwig discovered that part too — the uncomfortable realization that she had enforced the rules on herself, long after no one else was watching. That she had locked the door from the inside because she didn’t know another way.
Looking at that truth brought tears, sometimes rage. But it also brought the first taste of freedom. Because once you admit that you are holding the key, you also realize you can unlock the door.
A new beginning
The night her company went public will always be part of Hedwig’s story. But it is no longer the climax. It is the backdrop against which she began her real journey: the Deep Cycle. A journey not into more, but into who and what you really are.
Clarity & Uncoupling was only the first step. The beginning of a slow, fierce process of reclaiming the branches that had been forced into rigid lines, throwing off the pruning wires altogether and discovering how her tree truly wanted to grow.
This is the first chapter of Hedwig’s story.
The next step will unfold as she learns to anchor in her own rhythm — no longer performing for the expectations of others, but finding the pulse that has been hers all along. An extra article may later explore the trellis metaphor more deeply, as it is a vast story shared by all women.
If Hedwig’s journey speaks to you, share it with your friends and colleagues – many women in leadership are still trying hard to leave the trellis behind, to step out of the cage they never chose.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in key positions — board members, top executives, founders, supervisory board roles — and with women navigating transitions into new roles, new phases, or new forms of power. She clarifies the inner architecture of their female power, enabling decisions grounded in meaning, presence, and integrity.
Warum Spiritualität in Leadership kein Nice-to-have ist, sondern der Faktor, der den Unterschied macht.
Was lange als weicher Zusatz galt, zeigt sich zunehmend als Kernkompetenz: Spiritualität in Führungspositionen macht den Unterschied, wenn es darauf ankommt.
Spiritualität im Leadership-Kontext bedeutet nicht Religion oder Esoterik. Sie meint Sinn, Verbundenheit, Integrität und innere Klarheit. Gerade in Phasen hoher Unsicherheit suchen Führungskräfte – insbesondere Frauen – nach Orientierung, die über Methoden, Tools und KPI-Logiken hinausgeht.
Spiritualität adressiert diese Tiefe: Sie schafft Ausrichtung (Wofür?), Präsenz (Wie bin ich da?), Integrität (Womit stehe ich ein?) und Verbundenheit (Mit wem trage ich?).
Was die Forschung zeigt
Die Wirkung ist messbar: Studien finden robuste Zusammenhänge zwischen spirituell geprägter Führung und Leistung, Wissensaustausch sowie Innovationsverhalten. Eine Untersuchung in Frontiers in Psychology berichtet positive Effekte auf Aufgabenleistung, Wissensaustausch und Innovationsverhalten – konsistent mit früheren Befunden. Frontiers Neuere Arbeiten zeigen zudem, dass Spiritualität im Führungsstil kreative Serviceleistung und innovatives Verhalten fördert – u. a. vermittelt über Vertrauen und geteiltes Wissen. PMCResearchGate
Auch jenseits einzelner Studien ist der Mainstream-Anschluss sichtbar: An der Harvard Business School wurde ein Kurs zu den „spirituellen Leben von Führungskräften“ etabliert; die Programmsprache betont Integration, Sinn und die Verbindung zu anderen – klar abseits von Religionspraxis im engeren Sinn. Harvard Business SchoolHBS AlumniHarvard Dataverse Und in den LinkedIn Workplace Learning Reports ist der Trend hin zu wertegesteuerter Führung und „Human Skills“ (z. B. Resilienz, Selbstführung, Empathie) seit Jahren stabil – ein Umfeld, in dem Spiritualität als Kompetenzrahmen selbstverständlich andockt. LinkedIn Learning+1
Warum das gerade Frauen in Führung stärkt
Für Frauen in Macht- und Schlüsselrollen ist Spiritualität ein energetischer Unterbau, der drei kritische Spannungen trägt:
Leistung vs. Lebbarkeit – innere Architektur, die High Performance ohne Selbstverrat erlaubt.
Klarheit vs. Komplexität – Entscheidungen aus einem ruhigen Nervensystem, nicht aus Alarm.
Einfluss vs. Integrität – gestalten, ohne in alte Machtmuster zu kippen.
Konkret bietet Spiritualität:
Tiefe Ausrichtung (Purpose als gelebte Praxis, nicht als Slogan),
Resilienz (Regeneration unter Druck),
Zugang zu Intuition (erfahrungsbasierte Mustererkennung jenseits der Checkliste),
Authentizität & Mitgefühl (Psychologische Sicherheit, ohne Konsequenz zu verlieren). Diese Qualitäten sind keine „Soft Skills“, sondern Risikoreduzierer: Sie verbessern Entscheidungsgüte, Konfliktfähigkeit und die Qualität der Beziehungen im System – und damit Ertrag & Wirkung. Frontiers
Board-tauglich formulieren: Übersetzungshilfe
Damit niemand beim Wort „spirituell“ zusammenzuckt, hilft eine klare Übersetzung in Wirkungssprache:
Spiritualität → Sinn, Integrität, Wertekohärenz
Präsenz/Achtsamkeit → Entscheidungsqualität unter Druck
1) Sinn (Meaning): Wofür führen wir gerade? Quartalsweise 3–5 Sätze, die den Sinn der Arbeit in Kunden-/Gesellschaftswirkung übersetzen. 2) Präsenz (Presence): Wie treffen wir Entscheidungen? Ritual vor Entscheidungen: 90 Sek. Atem/Check-in, dann erst Zahlen, dann erst Meinungen. 3) Integrität (Integrity): Woran messen wir uns? 3 „Nicht verhandelbare“ Prinzipien schriftlich machen und retrospektiv prüfen. 4) Verbindung (Connection): Wer muss mit? Stakeholder-Karte: Wer wird betroffen/gestärkt? Wo fehlt Resonanz? Ein Gespräch ansetzen.
Mikroroutinen (alltagstauglich)
90-Sekunden-Reset vor kritischen Meetings (runterregulieren → klarer hören).
Ritual des ungesagten Satzes: Jede Person spricht einen Satz, der sonst ungesagt bliebe – senkt Rework & verdeckte Konflikte.
Weekly Meaning Minute: 60 Sek. im Team: „Was hat diese Woche Sinn gemacht?“ – stärkt Kohärenz und Engagement. (Studien zeigen Zusammenhänge zu Austausch/Innovation. ) Frontiers
Typische Einwände – und wie du sie adressierst
„Klingt esoterisch.“ – Wir sprechen nicht über Glaubenssysteme, sondern über Ausrichtung, Präsenz und Entscheidungsqualität. (Sprache wie oben übersetzen.) „Dafür haben wir keine Zeit.“ – 90 Sekunden vor Entscheidungen sparen Wochen an Rework. „Wie messen wir das?“ – Frühindikatoren: Konfliktdauer, Rework-Quote, Entscheidungs-Durchlaufzeit, Fluktuationsrisiko, Qualität von Retros/1:1s. „Passt das ins Top-Management?“ – HBS-Kurse und HBR-Diskurse signalisieren: Ja, es ist längst Teil professioneller Führungssprache. Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business Review
Für wen Spiritualität jetzt besonders relevant ist
Frauen in Schlüsselrollen (Vorstand/GF/Aufsichtsrat/Gründung), die Klarheit vor Tempo stellen.
Führung, die ohne Selbstoptimierungs-Hype mit innerer Stabilität Wirkung will.
Systeme, in denen Innovation & Wissensaustausch stocken (Vertrauen & Sinn als Katalysatoren). PMC
„Spiritual Power is the Future of Feminine Leadership.“ – Renate Hechenberger
Fazit
Spiritualität in der Führung ist kein Widerspruch zur Professionalität – sie ist ihre Rückgrat-Arbeit. Sie liefert die innere Architektur, aus der heraus Klarheit, Mut und Mitgefühl tragfähig werden. Für Frauen, die eine neue Form von Macht verkörpern wollen, ist das kein „Nice to have“, sondern eine strategische Ressource.
Über die Autorin:
Renate Hechenberger arbeitet mit Frauen in Schlüsselrollen (Vorstand, Geschäftsführung, Aufsichtsrat, Gründung, Besitzer, Aristokraten, Politik), um die innere Architektur ihrer Führung zu klären – für Entscheidungen mit Sinn, Präsenz und Integrität.
👉 Private Power Talk buchen.
I still remember the sound of silence in my hotel room in Gifu, Japan. It was 1997. No WhatsApp. No social media. No easy lifelines to reach across continents for support. Just a landline phone with a delay on the international line — and the full weight of a new leadership position resting on my shoulders.
I was one of only two women in a regional director role for a major hotel chain across the Asia-Pacific region. A white woman. Alone in boardrooms. This time in Japan. Alone in hotel suites. Alone in cultures where authority was expected to look very different from me.
And while the title looked powerful on paper, the experience felt anything but.
There was no roadmap for what I was navigating: auditing hotels that didn’t want to see me to begin with — it felt like I was the visiting IRS. Managing the cultural minefields of being seen as an outsider, and carrying the unspoken burden of representing not just myself, but all women in leadership. Every decision felt loaded. Every interaction carried the silent question:
Does she belong here?
Looking back, I now see how much energy went into shrinking what I knew, softening how I spoke, performing competence without appearing threatening. Not because I lacked vision, strength, or capacity — but because I, like so many women, had been conditioned to stay within the boundaries of what wouldn’t disrupt the comfort of others.
I was told by my boss to make sure the General Managers of the hotels “didn’t lose face”; to be diplomatic, not outspoken; to avoid being difficult or opinionated — because my reputation had preceded me.
And here’s the real cost of dialing down:
We silence our bolder truth.
We sand down our edges.
We edit our presence.
We convince ourselves that maybe we need just a bit more experience before we ask for what we really want. That maybe we should wait to be invited. That maybe being underestimated is safer than being fully seen.
That maybe — just maybe — magic will happen, and we’ll be recognized for who we truly are.
This is the invisible toll of playing small.
It doesn’t just affect our careers — it impacts our bodies, our nervous systems, our joy, our relationships. It fragments our sense of self and teaches us to seek safety in being less.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
No system, no industry, no world will ever grant you full permission to be powerful — especially as a woman.
That permission must come from within.
And that’s where the real shift begins.
II. Confidence Is Not the Cure
We’re told the problem is confidence.
That if women would just speak up more, lean in harder, ask louder — the playing field would somehow correct itself.
But I’ve mentored enough high-achieving women to know this: it’s not a lack of confidence that holds them back. It’s the internalized cost of being visible. Of being powerful. Of stepping outside the lines of what’s culturally comfortable.
The real barrier isn’t self-doubt — it’s the very real awareness of what power tends to provoke.
Because for women, showing up fully doesn’t always lead to reward. It can trigger backlash. Judgment. Isolation. We know this not just intellectually — we feel it viscerally. From boardrooms to classrooms, women who dare to want more (or even appear to) are often met with scrutiny instead of support — sometimes even from other women.
In this context, confidence becomes a brittle shield. It’s not enough to override the deeper scripts we’ve inherited:
“Don’t be too much.”
“Don’t be too loud.”
“Don’t make others uncomfortable.”
These aren’t mindset issues. These are survival strategies.
So what’s the real cure?
It’s not about getting louder.
It’s about getting rooted.
It’s about cultivating self-leadership so strong, so centered, so deeply embodied that we no longer need to be liked in order to stay in our truth.
Self-leadership means:
We stop outsourcing our worth.
We stop asking for permission.
We stop adjusting ourselves to fit into rooms never designed for our presence.
And we begin to lead — not from borrowed authority, but from the clarity of who we are and what we stand for.
That is the new power code.
It’s not just an upgrade. It’s a necessity.
III. The Discomfort of Visibility
To be seen is one thing.
To let yourself be seen — is another.
Visibility sounds empowering in theory. But for many women, it activates ancient fears: of being judged, rejected, misunderstood — or worst of all, punished for being too much.
This fear isn’t imagined.
It’s embedded in collective memory.
Women who took up too much space, too much voice, too much power — have historically paid a high price.
And that memory still lives in our bodies.
That’s why visibility can feel physically uncomfortable. The nervous system registers it as exposure. Risk. Vulnerability.
And yet:
Visibility is the price of impact.
You can’t influence from the shadows.
You can’t lead from behind the curtain.
You can’t claim your full potential while hiding parts of yourself.
This is the paradox of power:
To live fully expressed, you must build the capacity to sit with discomfort.
The discomfort of being misunderstood.
The discomfort of being too much.
The discomfort of knowing your truth may disrupt someone else’s narrative.
And let’s not forget the pressure around appearance:
Are we pretty enough? Slim enough? Polished enough? The right clothes, shoes, makeup?
Somewhere along the way, power got entangled with presentation.
From an early age, we’re told — explicitly or implicitly — that beauty is currency.
No beauty, no power. That’s the ironclad rule.
I remember a job interview for a senior role — not even the top job, just second in command.
I was slightly overweight due to a medical condition.
One interviewer looked at me and asked:
“How do you think you will manage an entire business when you can’t even manage your own body?”
It was brutal. Demeaning.
I didn’t just want to hide — I wanted to vanish.
This is what many women carry:
The shame of being visible in a body that doesn’t conform.
The grief of knowing your brilliance might be overshadowed by someone’s perception of your looks.
The exhaustion of constantly translating yourself into something more “acceptable.”
But here’s what I know:
The women who change the world are not the ones who play safe.
They are the ones who stand in the fire of visibility — not because it’s easy, but because it’s real.
IV. Self-Leadership: The Feminine Way
True self-leadership isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about remembering who you were before the world told you to shrink.
It’s not about striving harder.
It’s about returning deeper — to your essence, your rhythm, your truth.
The feminine way of leading doesn’t replicate patriarchal models with a softer tone.
It redefines the whole field.
It centers presence over performance, intuition over domination, resonance over noise.
Feminine self-leadership is not performative.
It’s embodied.
It’s the quiet power of knowing who you are — and refusing to betray that knowing, even when it would be easier to conform.
It’s the willingness to hold space for contradiction:
– To be ambitious and empathetic.
– Visionary and vulnerable.
– Strategic and soft.
This is not weakness.
This is range.
In my work with high-level women, I witness the moment a woman reclaims her sovereignty.
It’s not dramatic. It’s subtle.
A shift in posture.
A breath.
A refusal to apologize for clarity.
This is the power I teach — and walk with:
– To envision without apology
– To speak desires without shame
– To ask without shrinking
– To charge without guilt
– To hold space for power without self-censorship
This isn’t about becoming someone else.
It’s about returning to the most unedited version of you — and leading from there.
And that, in this time, is not just revolutionary.
It’s essential.
V. Redefining Power in Real Time
If feminine leadership is evolving, then our definition of power must evolve too.
For too long, power has been defined in masculine, extractive terms: control, dominance, invulnerability.
But that version is brittle.
It demands sacrifice without reciprocity.
It extracts obedience rather than cultivating allegiance.
Women are being called to create a new model:
One rooted in connection, clarity, and conscious choice.
To lead with feminine power is not to be less powerful — it is to be powerful in a way that transforms the room, not conquers it.
This kind of power:
– Listens before it speaks
– Acts from alignment, not urgency
– Sets boundaries that serve all, not just the system
– Honors intuition as much as intellect
It’s not about being liked — but being aligned.
Not about being feared — but being felt.
Not about owning the table — but redesigning the room.
This is what strength looks like now:
Not how much you can suppress or endure — but how fully you can lead without abandoning yourself.
We stop chasing credibility.
We anchor in our own authority.
We take up space — not to prove a point, but to embody a truth.
We stop waiting for systems to change — and we change how we show up.
We become the shift. In real time. In real rooms. In real leadership.
VI. The Practice
This kind of power isn’t gifted.
It’s grown.
And like anything that grows, it needs the right conditions:
Safety. Nourishment. Space. Attention.
Self-leadership begins when we stop performing — and start listening.
Inward, not outward.
Here are the practices I teach:
– Name the inner script. What’s the voice that keeps you small? Where did it come from?
– Anchor in your truth. What’s true about you, beyond roles and titles?
– Expand your capacity for visibility. Practice being seen. Watch your nervous system.
– Speak the unspeakable. Whisper it. Write it. Say it. It breaks the spell.
– Invest in power-affirming spaces. People who see the woman you’re becoming.
– Practice radical self-honoring. Rest. Say no. Celebrate loyalty to yourself.
These aren’t hacks. They’re holy acts.
Over time, they rewire your relationship to power — from something performed to something embodied.
Because real leadership?
It doesn’t start in the boardroom.
It starts in the mirror.
VII. The Cultural Ripple
When one woman rises, she lifts others with her.
Every time you:
– Say what you mean — without softening it
– Set a boundary — and hold it with grace
– Ask your worth — without apology
– Let yourself be seen — even trembling
You shift culture.
Because culture doesn’t only change through systems.
It changes through embodiment.
This is the work.
Not just for you — but for those who came before.
And for those who will follow.
As we redefine what power feels like — with presence, with voice, with truth —
we create a world where power no longer demands distortion…
but invites wholeness.
And that ripple begins with one choice:
To lead yourself — fully, fiercely, and unapologetically.
