3 Reasons To Have #CourageToLead With Optimism in Chaotic Times
Issue 2852— July 15, 2025
When you are confronted with disruption or chaos, which of these is your reaction?
I ❤️ to create chaos & run away.
I embrace chaos to advance new ideas and achieve my goals 🏆.
It stresses me but I calm myself down 😌 and press on.
I hide under my desk until it passes.
I put my head in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening.
If you are already in a leadership role, the obligation to calm the waves for others, providing a unifying optimistic vision of where the organization needs to go next, weighs heavily on your shoulders.
If you are not already in a formal leadership role, this is your opportunity to show with your words and actions that you have leadership chops and you are willing to take that sort of responsibility.
Remember, you are a leader from wherever you sit, and a leader is someone who gets stuff done.
Inherently, that means you will be optimistic because you believe it is possible to make change or solve even the most seemingly intractable problems.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Sometimes you’re called to lead through something larger than you can do yourself. Natural disasters like the violent flooding in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas typically call out the best in people collaborating to help each other.
Sometimes leadership requires patience and persuasion to change hearts and minds in order to make progress on an issue you believe in passionately.
Sometimes leadership is about solving a problem with a new technology or process to lead through these tumultuous times with courage while remaining true to your values.
Here are three ways to boost your optimism and be an effective leader in challenging times.
1. Collaboration can leverage resources.
Don’t go it alone. Various search and rescue organizations work together in disasters because no one of them has all the resources needed to get the job done.
A virtuous circle happens when women collaborate. I met up with Paulina Lopez after founder of the National Women’s Collaborative, Sharon Jackson, introduced us. So what happened over iced drinks? We noted that:
👉🏽 Take The Lead’s Power Up Concert and Conference is coming in DC August 25/26
👉🏽 Sharon’s We Mean Business conference is in September in San Juan.
👉🏽 Paulina’s Annual Summit is in NYC 10/27.
So we made a plan to support each other’s events with social media posts, speaker and sponsor intros, and more. We are, simply, stronger together.
2. Minds can change.
The country lost a brilliant and incisive Pulitzer winning political cartoonist when Steve Benson died on July 8. His inquiring mind isa tribute to the human capacity to seek, to learn, to grow, to change.
His obituary gives clues to why he started out on the opposite side of women’s rights issues from me. And in fact he caricatured me several times in such hideous ways that at one point I demanded an editorial board meeting to explain why these cartoons were so inappropriate, at which he refused even to acknowledge me.
But I didn’t let up. I continued to provide information and even kidded him once in a radio interview that he was always one hairdo behind in his caricatures of me.
Eventually, as the realities of life changed his perspectives and his cartoons, I reached out to him when I noticed that change. I saved his kind response because it means so much to me.
On Tuesday, April 13, 2021, 10:12 AM, Steve Benson wrote:
Hi Gloria,—
To this day, I am so appreciative that you have helped me open my mind on important realities. I think that what you have done for me and others to be monumentally important as we progress forward as a society striving for equal rights and protections for women.
So I invited him to dinner and he did this caricature:
May Steve’s memory be forever a blessing to his widow Claire Ferguson Benson and his family, as it is to all of us who had the opportunity to meet him. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
3. Chaos and disruption are opportunities.
When I ask course participants which leadership tool had helped them the most, one of the most frequently cited of my 9 Leadership Power tools, is #5: Carpe the Chaos.
The COVID-19 pandemic created global chaos, disrupting daily life, work, and healthcare systems. Yet the crisis accelerated the development and adoption of technologies like telemedicine, remote work platforms (e.g., Zoom), and contactless delivery services. These were rapidly scaled to meet urgent needs for safety and continuity. These innovations have permanently changed how people access healthcare, collaborate professionally, and receive goods and services, making them more resilient when future disruptions occur.
Periods of chaos can act as catalysts for groundbreaking innovation, new business models, and transformative personal services if we have the courage to lead.
Since we don’t know what the next disruption will be, resilience is essential and the courage and creativity to take the energy of chaos and turn it into innovation is the leadership challenge.
This timely topic of how to manage our energy even in challenging situations is why I am so looking forward to Estela Barraza, MS’s presentation that will open the Power Up Conference August 26. I was so impressed with her and her wellness program that I immediately asked her to present it at the conference. I know it will help you too.
So I hope you’ll register to join Estela and me and other speakers and performers that will elevate your optimism while you connect with 300 other outstanding women and men for an incredibly energizing day August 26, Women’s Equality Day in Washington DC.
While it is often tempting to hide under my desk, my experience leading complex organizations is that being able to focus energy in positive ways regardless of the chaos and disruptions is essential to the conference theme of “Courage to Lead.”
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, and a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.