Hello, everyone. It is Tamu Petra Browne back with you for another episode of RARE Leadership. I am an organization transformation expert and ecosystem strategist, and I am the creator of the RARE Transformational Leadership Framework.

This week, I have been speaking about something that is very taboo in leadership spaces. Even as women break the glass ceiling, even as they sit on boards, there is a silent crisis in the suite. So, we discuss burnout, we talk about strategy, we talk about transformation, but we are very silent about a massive transition happening to some of our most experienced female leaders. I will say silence—I don’t even think we are whispering about it.

Welcome to today’s episode: “Adapting to Menopause and Menopause in Leadership and the Role of Male Allyship.” It matters now because it’s not just a women’s issue. No, it is an organizational issue and a resilience issue. Okay. So I just wanted to pause for that to sink in. Okay. Let me gather my notes.

I was gathering my research on the effects of menopause on leadership, productivity, and culture. What might the harms be when symptoms are severe and support is weak? So, I limited my research to publications no older than 2021. The research is coalescing around some specific themes.

So first, we look at the impact of menopause and peri-menopause on leadership and the careers of women. The research is clear; it speaks to the disruption of women’s performance at the career stage when many hold senior specialist or executive roles. That’s coming from Brent, 2025; O’Neil, 2023. Severe perimenopausal and menopause symptoms are associated with reduced hours, role changes, declining promotions, and early exit, which can narrow leadership pipelines—SAF, Juan, 2024; O’Neil again, 2023; and Scott, 2026. Those are some of the sources.

A 2025 study by Ebul cited that 69.1% of the managers—the female managers, of course, surveyed—indicated that they had symptoms. And 51.9% of the symptomatic managers or female leaders, of course, said that their performance was impaired. That is a startling statistic.

So two studies, Azueta and Malin, in 2024 and 2025, respectively, identified and found that symptoms can affect promotion and perceptions of competence by the leaders themselves and women in the C-suite and in leadership roles. 51.2% of them feared being seen as less capable. Women reported avoiding high-visibility activities like hosting meetings. Yeah, and in women doctors, their higher symptom burden was linked to fewer promotional opportunities even after adjustment.

So we’re seeing that whether you own your own business as a woman-led business or you lead someone else’s entity, menopause and perimenopausal symptoms have a significant impact on women’s self-efficacy, perception of self-efficacy, and their visibility in their leadership roles.

Now, another theme that came through in the research was the theme of productivity and businesses. The research says that productivity losses are a consistent finding. These productivity losses are from fatigue, sleep disruption, concentration problems, memory complaints.

Now, if you saw my slide deck on LinkedIn, I’ll link it here. Yeah, I’ll link it here as well. One of what I chose was honesty. In a subcommittee meeting, I shared that I was searching for words. My committee members—board committee subcommittee members—could obviously see that I was not as coherent and was searching for words to describe things that were occurring. I just couldn’t remember. I chose to simply say, “Listen, I am going through perimenopause and I am searching for the right words. My short-term memory is shot, and so if you see me struggling, just step in.” And they stepped in. No one seemed concerned or shocked that I had shared it. But I understand for some women, and women who might not be at the very apex of their organization, though they are experiencing these symptoms, mine was a memory complaint that they would be reluctant to share.

Now let’s talk about women-led businesses and senior decision-makers. These symptoms affect execution, relationship management, and continuity, especially for women-owned businesses. I must say that the evidence here, the research here, is sparse. There’s a dearth of research on that particular area of women-led businesses and the impact that menopause or peri-menopause has on those businesses. So this is an opportunity for some research.

What I found was that the studies focused most on the employees of women-led businesses and not the founders themselves. The employees’ findings are as follows by a number of researchers—a small number because, remember, I said that this is not a widely studied area specifically for women founders, women entrepreneurs, and the impact. So, their employees perceived productivity decline. They said, “Listen, my boss is going through menopause or peri-menopause, and I am perceiving as an employee that her productivity is declining by as high as 56.8%.” This is a United States survey, to be clear.

They cited that their female bosses were more exhausted and less engaged. For those who were working in senior management of women-led businesses and were women, there was more intention about leaving. So higher turnover and intention. This is significant.

Let’s look at culture and support as a theme. I want to insert that and really talk about the fact that this is something that is physiological, this is natural. Women cannot help but experience perimenopause and eventually menopause. As women shatter ceilings, there is no support. So they are walking on shards of glass, trying to hold it together throughout such difficult times.

The research says that a large support gap persists, which is really interesting, especially if women are at the top. The gap still persists. So this is a challenge for women leaders to stop being silent and help create a culture and policies around support for women, and for male employees who might be supporting their partners—their female partners—who are experiencing some of these undesirable symptoms during this menopausal and perimenopausal time.

Azueta 2024 cites 65.4% to 68% wanted policies or manager training around menopause support, but only 2% to 6.3% reported that these policies or training actually existed. The culture for women experiencing these symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause resulted in… the culture was one of bullying, teasing, performance pressure, and that when there were policies, they were still implemented unevenly.

All right. Some of the interventions were well-being sessions and manager skills training, but the evidence to correlate or for causality between well-being programs or manager skills development and an improved culture of support, that evidence remains very limited. So we have the context—a clear context, steeped in research around what the impacts are on the productivity of women, the perception of women about their own selves and self-efficacy, and the nature of the culture that is required to support women.

Now, supporting women leaders means invariably supporting organizational growth, productivity, and building a culture of inclusivity. When we speak about inclusive organizations, etc., we tend to focus on other things like other demographic factors—maybe age, gender, etc., maybe ethnicity, race. But this perimenopause and menopausal space is a diversity and inclusion issue as well. More inclusion than diversity, right? So we need to acknowledge the reality that there are some physical and cognitive impacts—the brain fog, the fatigue, etc. But we want to begin framing it as a transition and not a decline.

Now, in terms of the RARE Transformational Leadership Framework, my framework, this sits in the domain of emotional mastery. Female leaders need to be able to master their emotions and focus on championing or creating the policies that would be needed to support her own self and many of her other female colleagues and, like I said, male colleagues who might be supporting their female partners. It’s really about self-awareness as a woman, acknowledging the changes and not simply soldiering through in silence.

Another element of the RARE framework when we speak about female leaders’ adaptation is about resilient reengineering, but on the personal level first, then at the organizational level. So what about your own practical adaptations? Now, if you are a leader, you have much more flexibility. So it can be about adjusting your schedules, prioritizing specific types of self-care, or changing how you prepare for high-stakes meetings.

If you might feel pressured or unwell… I know at one time I was suffering from just anxiety for nothing. My heart would begin beating very rapidly before going into a meeting, a high-stakes meeting. If anyone knows me, I am the least afraid person. I am very unafraid and very confident. I couldn’t understand what was happening until my doctor shared, “This is a peri-menopause symptom, and so you need…” I have given myself more buffer time between execution and planning, right? So I no longer give myself 24 to 48 hours. I might give myself a week or two, five days, etc., to help calm that anxiety. I can say, though, that luckily, that symptom has disappeared.

So as a female leader, you need to create a personal operating system. Do not attempt to soldier on and operate in the same manner that you were always operating in because you are changing physiologically. So the way you operate or your personal operating system must change. You must be resilient and reengineer yourself at the personal level—your practices, etc.—in order to cope and be at the top of your game. Then, as discussed earlier, we would want as female leaders to begin championing real change that is system-wide, right? I discussed that earlier in terms of types of policies, systems, HR practices, wellness programming, maybe hybrid work and flex work, all those sorts of things, right?

I want to talk about male allyship. Okay. Male allyship. What is the role of the male leader in all of this? So yes, it’s not a women’s problem, but if you are a man at the apex of the organization and women are adapting their personal operating systems, it shouldn’t be done in a vacuum. So as a male leader, you can be an ally, yeah. So you can reimagine, right? One of the RARE principles is radical reimagination. You can reimagine a culture of a supportive workplace for women going through this season. That might look like educational programs, creating psychological safety in teams, and policy advocacy. Basically, the same radical reimagination and reengineering that a woman leader would want to engage in—so no different.

So supporting women through this transition retains your top talent. That support retains your top talent. It retains institutional knowledge, and so it creates a buffer around your strategic goals. So if women are opting out, if they are exiting—especially women in leadership roles—then the organization is clearly losing. Remember, it is a strategic move to support this transition.

Now why? How do we talk about it? That’s the agile articulation, right? How do we talk about it? When do we discuss it? So I’d like to challenge you, the listeners, especially male leaders: what might be one agile articulation—a concrete step that you can take this week to be a better ally in this specific area of perimenopause and menopause? Okay?

So I felt that as a female leader going through this transition myself, working with other female leaders who are struggling with this transition and contemplating what systems and processes need to be radically reimagined and resiliently reengineered to ensure that my top leaders don’t leave, right? Myself, to begin to opt out of the role that is required of someone at the top or apex of an organization. So all leadership, particularly transformational leadership, should be inclusive and should pave the way for your legacy, right?

So creating systems, operating systems, and operational systems, HR practices, and support systems in this area where it is like a vacuum—it’s just like silence. If you hollered, it would echo back because it’s not a conversation that anyone is really having in a public way. So that’s my final thought. I’ve issued you a challenge. I would love to hear the feedback that you will give.

Wherever this is shared, it should be on Spotify. It will be in my LinkedIn newsletter, and probably on a Substack—The Constrained Gazelle, which is the name of my Substack. So this is my episode for this week. Thank you for listening. Of course, if you desire to work with me, just contact me. I really want to work with teams who are desiring transformation in a sustainable way. Have a wonderful day. It’s Dr. Tamu Petra Browne, creator of the RARE Transformational Leadership Framework and owner of Innovative Education and Training. Bye.