Leadership & your period. What does your menstrual cycle have to do with being a leader?

A lot actually. However it is not just your period, but rather your whole menstrual cycle and the art of being in relationship with it through practicing menstrual cycle awareness*.

Leadership starts with you, it starts with you knowing yourself. We hear it all the time, right? Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are key qualities of modern leadership and developing these are integral to your leadership journey. Menstrual Cycle Awareness is your direct line to cultivating these two leadership qualities.

Menstrual Cycle Awareness is paying attention to where you are on any given day of your cycle. What cycle day am I on? What is around for me? Where is my energy at? What needs tending to? How does this fit with my external world and demands? What is going on for me in this situation? It is this attention and practice that connects you to yourself and is your doorway to understanding yourself. That is self-awareness and a self-awareness practice.

Emotional Intelligence is the second leadership quality you will continue to foster as you practice MCA. By tuning in to yourself and your emotional state each day you develop a greater capacity for compassion, empathy, and emotional regulation. Menstrual Cycle Awareness teaches us to be curious, to notice and to acknowledge our changing emotional landscape, day in, day out, and therefore learn how to show up for ourselves. Developing this with yourself is what cultivates your ability to be curious about others, understand them and their experience, show compassion, and employ empathetic leadership.

Need a little more convincing on how it can help with your leadership with a wild card? Change management… your ability to switch gears and manage change, another vital skill for leaders in the modern-day climate. If the menstrual cycle is not the most constant teacher of change management, I honestly don’t know what is. You are bumbling along in your follicular phase (first half of your cycle) and ovulation, being superwoman, patient, nurturing, hitting those goals…and then your luteal phase comes… and then a few days later your truth speaker has arrived, you want to burn it all down & start again, your inner critic is on a roll… and every month when this happens, you have to meet yourself, manage your changing needs, SLOW DOWN and shift gear (slightly… or not so slightly). Menstrual Cycle Awareness teaches us not to run or avoid ourselves, (or burn it all down), but rather to meet ourselves, hold that tension, manage change accordingly, and see ourselves through to our bleed, a playground for master change management.

Your menstrual cycle is a blueprint for your leadership training, full of knowledge and lessons. Your attention to it and more importantly your attention to yourself is your source to building self-awareness and emotional intelligence AND is your direct line to cultivating your leadership.

*Menstrual Cycle Awareness is a term and psycho-spiritual practice developed by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, founders of Red School.