Editor’s note
Over the past couple of months, I have been writing about a wide range of topics. Leadership, belonging, trust, performance, identity, and the systems we work within.
On the surface, they might not all appear connected.
But when I stepped back, a pattern became clear.
Much of what we experience at work, how we show up, how we are seen, and how we are assessed, does not begin in the workplace at all. It arrives there already shaped.
This edition explores what we were taught, often without realising it, and how those lessons continue to influence us long after they were first learned.
1. What girls are taught, without being told
There is a particular kind of learning that happens quietly.
Not through formal instruction, but through observation, correction, approval, and consequence.
Be agreeable.
Don’t make a fuss.
Don’t take up too much space.
Don’t say no.
Don’t rock the boat.
And, perhaps most quietly of all, don’t trust yourself too much.
Over time, these are not experienced as external expectations. They become internal standards.
By the time many women arrive in the workplace, these behaviours are no longer choices. They feel like instinct. Like professionalism. Like being “good”.
And so when hesitation appears, when boundaries are softened, when confidence is questioned, we often mislabel it as a personal gap.
A confidence issue.
An imposter problem.
A leadership development need.
But many of these behaviours were learned long before they were named.
This reflection draws on recent writing including Good Girls Don’t Take Up Space, Good Girls Don’t Say No, Good Girls Don’t Make a Fuss, Good Girls Don’t Rock the Boat, and Good Girls Don’t Trust Themselves.
2. What boys are not taught, and why that matters
While some behaviours are actively shaped, others are shaped by absence.
What is not taught can be just as influential as what is.
Emotional fluency.
Relational awareness.
Understanding difference without needing to dominate it.
How to engage with discomfort without withdrawing or reacting.
When these lessons are missing, they do not simply disappear. They show up later in different forms.
In how conflict is handled.
In how difference is interpreted.
In how belonging is extended, or withheld.
We often speak about men in terms of behaviour, but less often about learning.
Yet the question is not only “how are men showing up?”, but “what were they never given the opportunity to learn?”
Because if we do not answer those questions intentionally, something else will.
This theme draws on The Lessons Boys Were Never Taught About Girls, and related reflections on belonging, misogyny, and the absence of guidance in shaping relational understanding.
3. How these lessons are misread as leadership capability
By the time we reach the workplace, these early patterns are rarely recognised for what they are.
Instead, they are interpreted as indicators of capability.
Confidence is read as competence.
Restraint is read as lack of readiness.
Directness is rewarded in some, penalised in others.
Emotional distance is mistaken for objectivity.
What began as learned behaviour becomes professional identity.
And so we build systems, frameworks, and assessments around what we see, without always questioning how it was formed.
This is where inclusion conversations often stall. Not because the intent is missing, but because the interpretation is incomplete.
We try to fix individuals, without examining the patterns that shaped them.
This perspective draws on recent writing including The Capability Gap in AI Leadership, Is Inclusion a Cost Centre or Performance Infrastructure?, Micro-Adjustments: Rebalancing Influence Without Redesign, and Belonging Is Built by Leaders Who Choose.
4. When systems reinforce what was learned
These patterns do not exist in isolation. They are reinforced, often unintentionally, by the systems we operate within.
What we reward.
What we measure.
What we recognise as leadership.
What we overlook as “just the way things are”.
Even moments that appear unrelated, a tribunal case, a public theme, a cultural decision in a downturn, reveal how quickly systems can default to familiar patterns.
Not because people are malicious.
But because systems are designed to recognise what they already understand.
And what they understand has been shaped by the same lessons we all carry.
This section draws on reflections including What This Endometriosis Tribunal Case May Mean, The International Women’s Day Theme “Give to Gain”, What Culture Costs in a Downturn, and Beyond Cost and Culture.
A closing reflection
Gender does not begin at work.
It arrives there, shaped by years of learning, expectation, permission, and absence.
By the time we are assessing performance, potential, or leadership, we are rarely starting from a neutral place.
The question is not only how people are showing up.
It is:
What were they taught, long before they ever arrived?
And just as importantly,
what are we still reinforcing, without realising it?