Women can lead with both heart and mind. Here’s why compassionate leadership matters now

Women can lead with both heart and mind. Here’s why compassionate leadership matters now

When former New Zealand prime minister and activist Jacinda Ardern rejected the idea that empathy makes a leader weak, she named a contradiction many women know well. Women in leadership are often expected to be decisive but not too forceful, caring but not too soft, confident but never difficult. Yet in a world shaped by burnout, polarisation, inequality and institutional distrust, the old model of leadership as toughness without tenderness loo…