Allison MaslanCEO & Business Scaling Expert | WSJ Bestselling Author

Your team needs you to show emotion, not panic.

11 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:09

Women leaders face pressure to seem unflappable, but Allison Maslan says the answer isn't fake positivity. Let yourself feel things privately, then show up steady for your team. Constant frustration tanks morale, but pretending everything's fine feels hollow.

Chapters

Everybody's waiting for you to buckle under pressure, especially for women, unfortunately. The expectation is that you won't be confident and you won't be able to withstand tremendous pressure. So when you have to go through all the pressure, act as if you're confident, you're absolutely in control. And if you really do need to scream or have a good cry, which I did now and then, I locked my room and I said to my secretary, don't let anybody in here for 15 minutes. Did you cry? Yeah, sure. You cried. Okay, I want to know that. Out of frustration. And then put the makeup back on. Back again.
I agree with what she's saying to a point. You as a leader, the way you show up, people are going to bounce off of you. So, if you're always walking around frustrated, angry, irritable, on the verge of tears, they're not going to feel a lot of stability. But if you're also walking around all the time like, you know, everything's great, when they know that there's a lot of stresses happening, then they're not going to feel that you're being truly authentic. So I think it's okay to be— I know it's okay to be real with your team. Hey, we're going through a hard time right now, but you know what? We're focused on the future and where we're going.