When I started my university career, I was already an outlier. I had decided to study mechanical engineering when, at the time, women made up only about 5 percent of the program. I went into this hypercompetitive, masculine-dominated environment knowing I would face challenges, including overcoming the old boy’s network. Some professors blatantly told us we couldn’t or shouldn’t become engineers. But we embedded ourselves in the system, trying to fit in. We kept our heads down, did the work, and graduated. It wasn’t until years later that I recognized the system’s biases and how it was a very unhealthy environment. 

After working as an engineer for a few years, I realized I wanted more of a social component in my work. I made the jump to sales, which allowed me to connect and build relationships with clients. While climbing the corporate ranks, I realized I was passionate about business and leadership, so I decided to get my MBA. I co-founded and launched my first company during this period, which became Canada’s largest telehealth organization. After seven years, we decided to sell. Being a CEO sparked my interest in leadership and the female perspective, which eventually led to me launching my current business, Imaginal Ventures, a women-led business advisory firm to help high-growth company founders transition into leaders and to fully realize their business’s potential.  

Over the past four years, we realigned to open our focus to all founders looking to scale, and recently launched an online platform called The Imaginal School, which provides the resources, training, tools and networking opportunities needed to focus on growing and scaling businesses. We’ve built a successful ecosystem of business acceleration based on “feminine” qualities that would historically have been ignored: nurturing, collaborative, noncompetitive and human-centric. 

What I’ve learned over this time is that women need to keep pushing for change. While we’ve made remarkable strides, there’s still a wide gender pay gap that we must overcome. However, women leaders have significant advantages because things are changing rapidly, especially for organizational structures. 

We’ve lived in a male-dominated society with rigid command and control structures throughout history, especially in business. These structures are inflexible, don’t allow much creativity, and don’t appeal to younger generations like millennials or Gen Z. These groups are demanding a different way to do business, which promotes a better work-life balance and where they’re paid for performance rather than micromanaged based on time. The pandemic has accelerated the pace of this change. 

While the younger generation might want to be self-managed with independent teams, that system cannot work under the old model. It requires trust throughout the organization to ensure work is done correctly and on time. This is where we need to rethink things. We should incorporate a feminine approach or energy to pair with the masculine. Women must co-lead to help develop a hybrid system that will take the best of both systems and provide the flexibility people are craving. Only then can we create hypercollaborative businesses that don’t destroy the environment or burn out workers along the way.  

My advice for upcoming women leaders is two-fold. First, make sure you take care of yourself. Being a leader comes with a lot of pressure and stress, leading to burnout scenarios. Women need to ensure they’re nurturing themselves while recognizing they have a natural rhythm and pace. It’s essential to harmonize these cycles.  

The second piece of advice? Don’t be afraid to be different. Many women leaders have tried to be the hard-charging type we see in many male executives. I consistently see women leaders who lack confidence because their views are not traditional. However, this different outlook is necessary to create these new models. The emphasis should be on human-centric design and collaboration — i.e., human dynamics. It will take leaders with confidence to develop this hybrid co-leading system.  

Throughout our history, challenging times have led to the creation of new systems. The black plague helped bring about the end of feudalism and develop the Renaissance. New ways of doing things were discovered from this enlightenment, which led us to our modern world. The current corporate structure has been around for more than 150 years; it’s ready for its next evolution.