Sarah had always been the one people turned to. A steady hand in the middle of high-stakes launches, a voice of strength and reason in team meetings, someone who could always be counted on to deliver.
But lately, she was running on fumes.
The hours were long, there were plenty of fires to put out, and the pressure to keep performing — without missing a beat — had become relentless. She found herself losing sleep over things she used to handle without blinking. She skipped meals. Her mind raced constantly. She wasn’t sure when it had started, but she knew it wasn’t sustainable.
When someone invited her to join a mastermind group for women in leadership, her first instinct was to say no. She clearly didn’t have the time. But when a friend told her that was exactly why she needed to come, she gave it a shot — “just this once”, she thought.
She showed up, sceptical and exhausted. What she found was something she hadn’t realised she was missing.
The Hidden Weight of Leading Alone
There’s a myth most of us absorb over time: that if you’re truly capable, you won’t need help. That the best leaders know how to carry it all — the workload, the pressure, the expectations — with grace and without complaint.
And yet, behind our good-looking LinkedIn profiles and well-crafted emails, so many (women especially) are carrying a heavy weight.
We’re expected to be sharp thinkers and empathetic managers, strategic planners and emotional shock absorbers. We juggle back-to-back meetings while handling crises behind the scenes — on top of everything happening at home. And through it all, we’re supposed to appear calm and in control.
Leadership often feels isolating. It’s an endlessly growing load of pressure and responsibilities on a single person.
And there’s no reason for it to be this way.
What Happens in a Mastermind
Masterminds are small groups of peers who come together regularly to support one another through the real, often unspoken, challenges of their work and life.
What makes them powerful isn’t just the chance to talk. It’s what happens when you bring your hardest questions — the ones that have been keeping you up at night — into a room of people who understand.
They’re not your team. They’re not your boss. They’re not caught up in the emotional weeds of your situation. But they understand your reality, because they’re living something similar. And from that vantage point, they can offer something rare: clarity without pressure. Perspective without judgement. Strategy without ego.
You leave feeling lighter, not because your problems have disappeared, but because you finally have help untangling them — and support to find the next best steps forward.
You walk away with ideas that hadn’t occurred to you, connections you didn’t know existed, and often, a clear plan you actually believe in.
And maybe most important of all, you walk back into your week knowing you have a group that has your back — and a place where you don’t have to pretend everything’s fine.
What Changed for Sarah
Sarah didn’t expect one conversation to change things. But at her second mastermind session, she brought a team issue that had been weighing on her for weeks.
She laid it out with courage, being completely honest about where she was at and what was hard and worrying about her situation.
And in return, she got what she hadn’t found anywhere else:
People who listened with their full attention.
Peers who didn’t need background on what it feels like to lead a team under pressure.
And incredible group experience and wisdom that didn’t come wrapped in judgement or a hidden agenda.
Two people in the group shared similar experiences and what they’d tried. Another asked a simple question that shifted Sarah’s whole framing. Someone else made an introduction that led to a breakthrough conversation the following week.
Over time, the group became more than a sounding board. It became her anchor.
Her place to think clearly.
Her place to feel human again.
Her place to stop carrying it all alone.
What she didn’t expect was just how practical the benefits would be.
Rethinking the big picture of her workflow with her peers, she restructured team processes and started reclaiming hours of her week. She stopped spiralling over decisions. She began acting sooner, with more confidence and less second-guessing.
The pressure didn’t vanish — but she was no longer carrying all of it by herself.
This Kind of Support Shouldn’t Be Rare
There is a better way to lead — and it starts by coming together.
Masterminds are low-tech, low-barrier, and high-return. When done well, they change the experience of leadership. They make workplaces and professional communities more effective, more human, and far less isolating. They also help drive more impact by bringing to the forefront better strategies and a speed of execution with more clarity and accountability.
We should be encouraging organisations — companies, industry associations, leadership programmes — to offer these spaces as a core part of how they support their people.
The benefits are immense for both the organisation and its people. New leadership feels supported. People learn to lead with openness and strong listening skills. It builds a culture of collaboration and human depth within. There’s power and momentum that comes from any organisation where you know people have your back.
Leaders leave these rooms with more clarity, more momentum, and often, with less weight on their shoulders.
Now, that’s the real power of community.
A Better Investment in the Future
As technology accelerates, human connection is becoming the real bottleneck to progress — not tools, not knowledge, but our ability to think and move forward together.
That’s what masterminds offer. A simple, scalable way to make people more effective while preserving their mental health. They’re one of the best investments we can make in leadership today.
And ironically, they bring us back to something we’ve been missing:
Honest conversations.
True listening.
The strength of not doing it alone.
We were never meant to carry all of this by ourselves.
And we don’t have to anymore.
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