Leverage Trust as Your Edge

There’s a moment in every woman’s leadership journey where confidence isn’t enough.

The spotlight’s on. The stakes are high. Even with a track record of results, the room feels colder, the scrutiny sharper, the runway shorter.

What gets you through that moment isn’t louder confidence or sharper performance — it’s trust. In your process. In your pace. In your ability to walk into a room that wasn’t built for you and hold your ground without losing yourself.

We don’t talk enough about trust as a leadership edge, especially for women navigating systems not designed for them. But trust is what sustains you when external validation goes quiet. It’s what anchors your decisions when the metrics don’t tell the whole story.

And it’s what keeps you bold enough to speak up… even when your voice shakes.

The McKinsey study on women CEOs said it clearly: “They were not necessarily the most confident candidates. But they had built a deeply rooted sense of self and a belief in their own ability to grow.”

That’s not just inspiring — it’s instructive.

Confidence tells you, “I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it again.”Trust says, “Even if I haven’t done it yet, I know I’ll figure it out.”

That difference is everything.

Many of the women I coach are seen as high-performing, poised, and prepared. But behind the scenes, they’re still second-guessing every decision, replaying every word in meetings, and bracing for impact every time they assert a boundary.

Not because they aren’t confident — but because they’ve been conditioned to perform strength instead of trusting their own internal compass.

Trust doesn’t need applause. It doesn’t wait for consensus. It knows the room might never fully understand, and still chooses to lead.

When you trust yourself, you don’t have to dominate the room. You shape it.

That means knowing when to pause before speaking. When to walk away from a culture of urgency. When to say “no” without a PowerPoint of justifications.

It also means not outsourcing your value to others' reactions. That board member who cuts you off mid-sentence? That peer who takes credit for your work? That’s noise. And trust lets you stay grounded in the signal.

For multicultural women and Latinas especially, this is critical. When we’ve been raised to navigate multiple cultural codes, we often build the skill of reading the room… at the expense of trusting ourselves in it.

But trust reclaims that skill. It helps us read the room and decide how we want to show up—not just how to be accepted.

Let’s be real: trusting yourself isn’t a switch you flip. It’s a discipline you build.

It looks like naming your wins, even when no one claps, deciding without checking it against three mentors. Saying “I need time to think,” instead of rushing to respond. Choosing your boundaries before burnout forces them.

These aren’t performance tricks. They’re trust-building rituals.

And yes, some days you’ll still wobble. That’s not failure. That’s the practice.

One pattern McKinsey found among women CEOs is that they bring emotional depth, relational clarity, and empathy to the table and leverage them strategically.

But many of the women I work with were told early on that their emotional intelligence made them “too soft” or “too much.” So they dialed it down.

Here’s what I tell them: Your sensitivity is not a liability. It’s an edge.

Your ability to read energy, anticipate conflict, and sense misalignment before it escalates is part of your leadership intelligence — if you trust it.

That’s why trust is foundational. Because without it, you keep deferring to systems that weren’t designed with you in mind. And eventually, you forget how to hear yourself over the noise.

You can set clear goals, build high-performing teams, master your metrics — but if you don’t trust yourself, you’ll always look outside for confirmation before you move.

That hesitation costs you power. And over time, it costs your vision.

Here’s the truth: every bold move you’re craving — changing roles, renegotiating your schedule, launching something new — requires trust before it will ever feel like confidence.

You don’t have to feel ready. You have to be willing to trust yourself enough to begin.

If this resonates, here’s a place to begin: Name one decision this week you’ll make without crowdsourcing it. Track how often you override your intuition in meetings — and why. Celebrate a moment where you stayed grounded, even if the outcome wasn’t perfect.

These are micro-movements. But they’re powerful. Because over time, trust isn’t just something you feel — it’s something you become known for. Not flashy. Not loud. But unmistakably clear.

You didn’t get here by chance. And you don’t need to lead like someone else to stay here.

Trust is your edge. And when you build from that place — not fear, not performance, not pressure your leadership becomes deeply rooted, boldly expressed, and entirely yours.

Let’s make that your default.