What 3 Leadership Qualities Are Essential in These Times?
Issue 2865— November 4, 2025
I’m super excited to share the Highlight reel of Take The Lead’s 2025 Power Up Concert and Conference.
Power Up Conference 2025 highlights.
If you were there, enjoy reliving moments that were most special, insightful, or inspirational to you. If you weren’t there, you’ll get an idea of what you missed. If you feel FOMO—well, there’s a remedy for that. Make a plan now to be in Washington DC on August 25 and 26, 2026.
The 2025 theme “Courage to Lead” was chosen with the belief that when the world around us is disrupted and we are dealing with political, social and economic chaos, the leadership quality most needed is courage.
But what’s the next most important quality?
Jane Goodall told Forbes Woman editor Maggie McGrath, “If they really feel that it’s important to do the right thing, they need to have courage. This particular time we’re living through, there’s too much lack of courage.”
Then the next question is the courage to what? Read more here.
For me, the next essential leadership quality is action.
For one thing, action is always the antidote to despair, whether about personal setbacks, work problems, or a roiling political environment. Courage has to be activated to be meaningful. Sometimes you have to be the disrupter.
Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis was famous for his counsel to make “good trouble.” Despite being beaten many times for his participation in nonviolent action, he said, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
And the third quality of leadership?
Sneak peek: It’s the theme of the 2026 Power Up Concert and Conference: Audacity.
Specifically, “Audacity: Leadership in Action.”
As Taylor Swift would say, “Are you ready for it?” I know you are. I know I am.
Audacity is propelling Melinda French Gates’s Pivotal Ventures and the Aspen Digital to issue the WIN Challenge, for example. With the bold goal of awarding $60 million to support and scale innovative ideas that can transform the workplace into one where women can thrive while making it a better place for all.
As the stakes for all women and Black women in particular, have never been higher, with close to a half million women either pushed out of the workforce or leaving due to pressure such as caregiving responsibilities, the lost economic value of women’s work has never been more painfully evident. It affects entire families and by extension entire communities.
Take The Lead’s audacious mission, which I believe is the solution to those problems, is to ensure women have equal leadership positions, which includes equal power and pay. We’re changing the power paradigm so women have both the mindset and tools to embrace their phenomenal power with confidence, authenticity, and joy.
Together, with the courage to lead, the willingness to take action, and the audacity to break through musty old systems, we can transform not only the workplace, but the world.
It’s your moment to make bold and audacious moves to build the career, the life, and the community that you want. What will they be?
And remember: be sure you’ve blocked off August 25 and 26, 2026 on your calendar so we can celebrate your audacity together.
GLORIA FELDT is the Co-founder 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.