Maike Stolte

Leadership Coach

Maike Stolte

Maike Stolte’s coaching is shaped by a simple conviction: leadership begins on the inside long before it shows up in a room. As an MCC-certified coach with over 15 years of experience, she has partnered with leaders and organisations across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, helping them develop clarity, presence, and emotional resilience. Her approach blends positive psychology, somatic awareness, and practical leadership insight. Fluent in English, German, and Spanish, Maike supports leaders who want to grow not just in role, but in self: leading with confidence that feels earned, not performed.

Stop Fixing Your Confidence: Why Women Lead Big but Play Small

The Confidence Myth We Keep Carrying

Women are often told they “should be more confident.” Sometimes we don’t even wait for others to say it, we whisper it to ourselves. There’s so much noise around confidence in leadership that it’s worth pausing and asking: Do we really need to fix our confidence?

My honest answer, after coaching leaders for more than 15 years, is no. Most women I work with don’t suffer from a confidence deficit. What they struggle with is far more subtle, and far more draining. It comes from old internal belief systems that keep them “in their lane,” from invisible bias that still shapes workplace dynamics, and from a quiet but persistent absence of permission. Permission from others, yes – but often permission from themselves.

I don’t call myself a “women’s leadership coach.” I coach leaders. Full stop. But I am a woman, and I’ve coached many extraordinary women, and certain patterns are impossible to ignore.

One moment that still sits with me happened in a finance company. My colleague and I had a meeting room booked. When we found it occupied, I stepped in politely and asked the senior director inside if he could wrap up. “Of course,” he said. “Give us five minutes.”

Five minutes later, he walked out, headed toward the two of us – and spoke only to my male colleague. He didn’t look at me once. No acknowledgement. Not even eye contact. I might as well have been part of the furniture.

I felt more baffled than angry. Everyone involved was relatively young. In my optimistic moments, I assumed this behaviour had disappeared sometime in the 90s.

Apparently not everywhere. Later, when I mentioned it to my colleague, he said, genuinely surprised: “I didn’t notice.”

And that’s the point. The dismissal was unpleasant, but what struck me most was how easily it went unnoticed by everyone else. No amount of “working on my confidence” would have changed that moment. Visibility isn’t only something we cultivate internally. It is also something the environment chooses to grant – or not.

The Two Patterns Women Fall Into

When women experience moments like this, they usually don’t decide to mount a calm confrontation of systemic inequity. More often, they adapt. They question themselves. They wonder if they imagined it. And then, quietly, they adjust how they show up.

Over the years, I’ve noticed two patterns many women slip into when navigating environments that don’t fully recognise them.

Some start overdoing: preparing more than necessary, taking on too much, carrying the emotional load of the team, collecting credentials “just in case.” Beneath the effort lies an unspoken belief that if they give enough, eventually they will be seen.

Others start overprotecting: holding back ideas, softening opinions, avoiding conflict, staying strategically small so they don’t risk being dismissed or judged. That belief sounds more like, “If I stay within the lines, I won’t be humiliated or misinterpreted.”

Most women I coach move between these two states depending on the room they’re in. And to be fair, not all women are caught in this loop. Many lead with clarity, grounded presence, and courage. But even they will admit that certain dynamics still activate old patterns.

Men experience overdoing and overprotecting too. This isn’t exclusively a women’s issue. But ignoring the cultural shaping that influences women’s experiences would be overly optimistic. When women make up 43% of the workforce but only around 30% of leadership roles – and when only 81 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men – it’s not a personality problem. It’s structural.

The Silent Weight Women Carry

And yes, I’ve played small myself. Even with all my training and ample experience, the question still appears from time to time: Am I playing too small? I recognise the answer when it shows up in specific moments: when I lower my rates even though I know my value, or when I hesitate to share something bold on LinkedIn because it might “land too strongly.” Growth rarely happens where our pride feels fully comfortable.

Looking closely, I realised the issue wasn’t competence. It was permission. Not permission from the market, not from colleagues, but permission from myself. Many women know this feeling well. The moment they accept a smaller role than they could have stepped into. The moment they soften their opinion to avoid being labelled. The moment they step aside because the costs of being fully themselves feel ambiguous or high.

There’s also a layer many women carry that rarely appears in leadership job descriptions: pregnancy and postpartum recovery, lactation, sleep deprivation, caregiving, and the mental load of “remembering everything.” These things shape how they show up. Yet leadership norms were created in environments that didn’t account for these realities. In healthcare, for example, women make up nearly 70% of the workforce but hold only 25% of senior leadership roles (The Guardian). Something clearly isn’t aligned.

If there were Olympic medals for multitasking while sleep-deprived, most mothers I know would still be on the podium. And yet the standards for “resilience” and “presence” stay largely unchanged.

None of this means we should label every uncomfortable experience a gender issue. That’s not helpful. But pretending bias is gone because it’s quieter now isn’t helpful either. Much of today’s bias is subtle, socially awkward to address, and easily dismissed as a misunderstanding. Because of that subtlety, women often swallow the moment and move on (while something in them quietly folds inward).

When that folding becomes habitual, women begin to overdo to compensate or overprotect to avoid being diminished again. Both responses drain confidence and energy – ironically, the very qualities women are told to “just work on.”

A New Approach: Permission, Energy & Presence

If something in this resonates, take a moment. Think of one recent situation where you felt small, hesitant, overlooked, or overwhelmed. Ask yourself gently: Was I overdoing it to be seen? Or overprotecting to belong? And what permission did I need at that moment? That question alone can shift something.

If confidence isn’t the real issue, what actually helps?

The first is claiming your authority even when you feel wobbly. Many women wait to feel ready before stepping up, but readiness often comes after the step. Authority isn’t a title; it’s the inner statement: “This is my call. I’m allowed to be here.”

The second is treating your energy as a strategic resource. Influence requires presence, and presence requires energy. You cannot be constantly over-functioning and expect to feel grounded. Protecting your energy isn’t selfish – it’s necessary.

The final piece is knowing your default. Do you tend to overdo, or do you tend to overprotect? Neither is a flaw. Both were intelligent strategies given the context. But once you notice them, you gain a choice, and choice is where agency begins.

So no, I don’t believe the answer for women leaders is to “fix their confidence.” Women don’t need more confidence. They need space to use the confidence they already have: space created by protected energy, by self-permission, and by environments that acknowledge their presence rather than overlook it.

If I’ve learned anything after years of coaching, it’s this:
Confidence grows where energy is protected and permission is claimed – not granted.

If this conversation resonates and you want to explore your own leadership patterns more deeply, you’re welcome to reach out. Sometimes a single conversation can open a door you didn’t realise was there.

References

HIGH5 Strengths Test – Women in leadership statistics: https://high5test.com/women-leadership-statistics/
The Guardian – Women in global healthcare leadership: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/08/women-do-70-of-healthcare-jobs-but-hold-only-25-of-senior-positions-study-finds

Contact Links

Website: https://www.inbody.es
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mslinked/
Free Consultation (Calendly): https://calendly.com/maikestolte/free-consultation-with-maike
Email: [email protected]