Latest news with #MeghanFrenchDunbar
Forbes
02-08-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Working Women's Well-Being Is Declining Faster Than Men's, A New Book Argues. Here's What We Can Do About It—and How 'It Makes Better Business Sense'
There are research-backed, proven systemic reasons that women are struggling more in the workplace, according to leadership expert Meghan French Dunbar. She has now written the book about it—what those reasons are, and what can be done about it. In This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt and Overload to Find True Success—which is out August 5—French Dunbar argues that, by improving workplaces for women, it will not only boost performance for them but also everyone; that burnout isn't a badge of honor anymore; and that, right from the book's dedication page, women 'no longer have to abide by the status quo but can, instead, redefine it.' It's a problem that many women find themselves in: by any measure, French Dunbar was successful, but behind the scenes, she was struggling. Though she was 'doing everything right,' she didn't feel right. The pressure was too much; she had burned out. She resigned as CEO of the organization she founded on February 1, 2020. Her last day was March 13—and then COVID-19 struck. 'I was such a high achiever and had been so conditioned to 'This is what success is, and that's what worth is,'' she tells me over Zoom. 'And COVID just stripped me of that.' She adds, 'I mean, COVID was the worst of times for many of us, and there was also a lot of beauty in the forced pause in a lot of people's lives.' At the time, she had a 9-month-old son and was about to launch an in-person events company. Like so many women, French Dunbar knew busyness intimately. 'The traditional success track was just forced to be put on hold, and I had to stop, and it was a very long process, but I had this moment where I realized that I had no identity or sense of self-worth in the absence of professional accomplishment,' she says. This isn't working. She realized 'I don't want to completely destroy myself in the name of success and work nights and weekends and sacrifice all my relationships,' she says. And that's where the origin of her new book begins. 'The process of writing the book was just such a gift, because I got to interview extraordinary women who are also thriving,' French Dunbar says. 'And so many of them talked about setting boundaries and not tying every sense of worth to your achievement and all of the elements that just got reinforced over and over and over again.' French Dunbar writes in the book that there are a disproportionate amount of women experiencing burnout and stress. 'Working women's well-being is declining faster than men's, regardless of whether they have children,' she notes in the book. An estimated 43 percent of women report feeling burned out, compared to 31 percent of men at the same level. Women's symptoms of depression significantly increase as their authority increases, she further points out, while symptoms of depression in men tend to decrease. On Zoom, she further accentuates the statistic that 75 percent of high-performing women receive negative feedback, as opposed to 2 percent of men. This isn't working. 'I desperately wanted to understand why working women were disproportionately struggling and if there was a better way,' French Dunbar writes in the book. She wanted to replace the traditional leadership playbook with a new leadership playbook. 'The way that you show up at work every single day impacts everybody around you,' she tells me. 'And this is why you need to build healthy, thriving organizations so that everyone is healthy and thriving and that people aren't making each other miserable as a result of coming to work.' It was comforting for French Dunbar to learn that it was the system, not her, that was deficient: 'For me, it felt so validating because, of course, we're women and we're always blaming ourselves and 'I'm not good enough,'' she tells me. When it comes to women, 'we're struggling,' she adds. 'We're struggling in a system that harms the majority of the people, the majority of the labor force—nearly 4 billion people worldwide. Most people are dealing with chronic stress, burnout, some sort of mental or physical health issue as a result of work-related stress in that system. Women, then, are contending with all of these additional barriers, and that is why we have increased risks of chronic stress, anxiety, burnout, all of the other issues. When I understood that, I was like, 'Oh, that means that when we succeed in this system, we're actually extraordinary.'' 'When you look at the data of the odds that you're going to succeed within the system, there's a reason that you're feeling the way you're feeling if you're stressed and overwhelmed and all the things,' French Dunbar says to a very relieved me. 'And you're absolutely incredible that you've been succeeding in this system, because everything is ripping against you.' French Dunbar had been in what she calls 'the hamster wheel of achievement addiction' for a very long time, and the walls eventually crumbled down around her. 'I was so burned out and so miserable that I had to walk away from my own company that I loved,' she says. 'And that is a very common story that I hear, is pushing yourself so far until people are hospitalized or having breakdowns, having panic attacks and then going to work the next day being like, 'That's totally normal. Everyone around me is having panic attacks. It's totally fine.'' Spoiler alert: it's not totally fine. The book teaches readers a new way forward, one that, when everyone—including and especially women—in the workplace feels better, it actually improves the company's performance. This is good not just for employees' quality of life, but 'it makes better business sense,' French Dunbar says. One of many examples of a mindset shift from the book? It's one that French Dunbar says she's 'having the hardest time practicing what I preach'—the 'relentless pursuit of achievement and tying your self-worth to that and getting so busy that you don't even know who you are anymore,' she says. (Yep. Been there.) 'We are so busy that we don't even have the time to check in on how we are actually doing.' The reframe? A tool from Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who delineates the difference between performance goals and learning goals, with an emphasis on the latter. 'A performance goal is like, 'I want an A in French,' and a learning goal is 'I want to learn French,'' French Dunbar says. 'And so, with something like a book or your career, not everything has to be about your next title or the salary or The New York Times bestseller list. It is like, 'I'm doing this for the experience of gaining knowledge, having experiences and enriching who I am as a human,' instead of, 'I will only consider this to be a successful thing if it hits these certain milestones.'' Releasing the relentless pursuit of achievement 'has been a big one for me,' she says, and learning that 'you matter and you are worthy just as you are'—regardless of achievement. The first step, she tells me, is admitting there's a problem and that the current work culture that society has isn't okay. Check. The book takes readers through what to do next. 'Your stress, your overwhelm, your exhaustion, your burnout—that is not on you,' French Dunbar says. 'That's not a you problem. It's a cultural problem of the way that we're doing business.' But, she adds, 'It can be done in such a better way. There are extraordinary humans who have already done this and have already written the blueprint.' That blueprint makes up the pages of This Isn't Working. Above all else, Dunbar says? When readers close the book, no matter how burned out or exhausted or overwhelmed they are, she wants this to be made clear: 'There is hope,' she says.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
From I To We: The Collective Shift Women Leaders Are Making—And Why It's Working
Leadership is often framed as an individual pursuit. But at the recent WeTheChange gathering of women and nonbinary leaders of B Corps and values-aligned businesses, one truth resonated across every session, conversation, and shared moment: real change is collective. As I sat among founders, CEOs, creatives, and community builders, I felt a rare mix of affirmation and relief. It was a room filled with people who had already 'made it'—and still knew that doing it alone wasn't the answer. The prevailing energy wasn't hustle or competition. It was we. Collaborative. Curious. Connected. A powerful group of women leaders doing business in a way that's good for the world - and ... More themselves! This shift from 'I' to 'we' isn't just a feel-good sentiment. It's an urgently needed evolution in how we think about power, progress, and performance. And it aligns beautifully with the Lead in 3D framework I've spent years learning, teaching, and living. Lead in 3D is a simple but powerful framework that guides leaders to align their investments of time, energy, and attention across three essential dimensions: When we get stuck in a single dimension—sacrificing 'Me' for the sake of 'World,' or neglecting 'We' in pursuit of 'Me'—we lose energy, perspective, and momentum. But when we lead in all three dimensions, we unlock sustainability and satisfaction. The shift from 'I' to 'we' doesn't erase the self. It integrates it into a broader ecosystem of change. As Meghan French Dunbar, leadership expert and author of the forthcoming This Isn't Working, reminded us: women are more burned out, more stressed, and more likely to leave the workplace—not because we're less capable, but because we're navigating systems that were never designed for us. Her call was clear: stop contorting ourselves to fit broken norms. Start reshaping the norms to reflect who we are—and what we need to thrive. Her words echoed the foundational insight of 3D leadership: performance doesn't have to require sacrifice. In fact, the data shows that when we center empathy, belonging, and shared wellbeing, results improve. Systems change starts with inner change. And that change becomes collective when we model it together. Jessica Lau offered a metaphor that landed deeply: we need to move like geese flying in formation. In nature, each goose takes a turn leading—and rests in the slipstream when it's not their moment. No one flies alone. The formation creates efficiency, resilience, and shared direction. In nature, each goose takes a turn leading—and rests when it's not their moment. No one flies alone. It's the opposite of the solo-hero myth. And it's what I felt in that room: the ease and power of distributed leadership, of letting someone else carry the wind for a bit while you catch your breath—and then doing the same for them. Leilani Raashida Henry's story brought us back to roots—literally. The daughter of the first person of African descent to set foot on Antarctica, she shared her own journey to that same continent, decades later. Her reflections reminded us that our presence in leadership is never just about us. It carries echoes of those who came before—and ripples into the lives of those who will come next. Our presence in leadership is never just about us. It carries echoes of those who came before, as ... More Leilani Raashida Henry reminded us. It was a moving reminder that our individual stories matter. Not to make us exceptional, but to make us connected. Our personal truths, our ancestral threads, our inner shifts—they're all part of collective change. The event closed with a rousing moment led by Kate Dixon. One by one, each person stood and declared one action they would take. The range was stunning: That last one got a loving nudge from across the room: 'Playing big a little is an oxymoron.' With a laugh, the speaker corrected herself: 'Okay, okay—play big a lot.' It was a perfect metaphor for what we'd experienced: individual voices, strengthened by a collective container. Action made braver through shared witness. It wasn't about becoming someone new. It was about showing up as who we already are—together. Like-hearted accountability is a powerful tool for action, in a way that serves our businesses, but ... More also our communities and ourselves! As spiritual teacher Reverend angel Kyodo williams puts it: 'Without inner change there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.' That's what we saw at WeTheChange: inner work becoming outer strategy. Personal insight becoming confidence to reimagine our systems. It's what we mean when we talk about 'leading in 3D.' Some of us start with Me—recovering from burnout, reclaiming joy. Others begin with We—healing teams, reshaping culture. Still others begin with World—justice, equity, sustainability. There's no wrong place to start. The key is to move, and to move together. The old models of leadership told us to grind harder, do more, win alone. The new model invites us to align, collaborate, and rise—together. We don't need to play by the old rules. We must write new ones. We can build workplaces—and systems—where thriving isn't the exception. Indeed, French Dunbar shared recent research by Stanford psychologist, Jamil Zaki, that demonstrated the return on investment of empathy as a superpower, leading private equity firm KKR to invest in empathy training programs for its portfolio companies' leaders. This is the path to sustainable success, wellbeing, and shared prosperity. And that change starts with We.
