208 | Your Confidence Isn’t the Problem. Build Power Literacy So You Know When to Push, Wait, or Walk Away | Leadership, Delegation & Systems with AI Frameworks

"I need us to stop telling women to take up space." Not because women should take up less of it. Because "take up space" was never a strategy. It's a vibe we've been calling advice for years, and nobody questions it anymore.

Speak up. 
Ask for what you deserve. 
Take your seat at the table. 

None of it means anything without an answer to the questions underneath it: who actually makes the decision, what do they care about, and what happens if they say no?

In this quick, kick-in-the-pants Thursday episode, Dawn takes apart the leadership advice women get handed on repeat and explains why confidence was never the missing piece. What's actually missing is power literacy, knowing how to read the room you're standing in before you decide whether to push, wait, ask, tell, or walk away. If you've ever known exactly what you wanted to say and stopped yourself because you weren't sure how it would land, this one's for you.

If your organization is ready for a bigger conversation about women, leadership, and power, this is work Dawn does with companies every day, through leadership development, speaking, and custom programs. Find her at dawnandrews.com.

Key Takeaways

• Why "take up space," "speak up," and "be more confident" are incomplete leadership advice without a strategy for navigating power.
• How power literacy helps you identify who actually makes decisions, who influences them, what matters to them, and where resistance is likely to come from.
• Why bravery without strategy can get you hurt, while strategy without bravery can keep you small.
• How to tell fear-driven shrinking apart from strategic restraint, so you know when to push, wait, ask, tell, or walk away.
• Why getting into the room and understanding how decisions get made in it are two completely different skills.

Resources & Links

• Work With Dawn: Leadership Development, Speaking & Custom Programs 

Related Episode

• Episode 182 — REPLAY: I Almost Deleted This. What Every Female Founder Must Stop Doing in 2026 To Lead Like They Mean It 
• Episode 183 — REPLAY: The #1 Skill You Need to Give Clear Feedback Without Worrying About Hurting Your Team Members Feelings 
• Episode 159 — The Bottleneck Isn't Your Team. It's What You Haven't Been Willing to Say Out Loud 

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Transcript

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She’s That Founder
208 | Stop Telling Women to Take Up Space (Say This Instead)

I need us to stop telling women to take up space. Not because I want women taking up less space, obviously not. I want us taking up the whole fucking building if that's where we belong. I just want us to stop saying it because I have no idea what the hell we're actually telling women to do.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to She's That Founder, Thursday Edition. These are the quick rants, kick in the pants, velvet boot in your booty moments that represent me standing in the future, pulling you towards the even stronger, better, more powerful version of yourself, with AI as your co-pilot. Okay. Get ready, 'cause I'm about to go off.

Take up space. Lean in. Say it louder. Interrupt more. Say something at every meeting. Act more confident. Take the seat at the table. Ask for the promotion. Challenge your boss. Disagree publicly. Be vulnerable. No, wait, be less vulnerable. Oof. Girl, that is not advice. That is a vibe, and we've been handing it to each other and calling it a strategy for so long that nobody even questions it anymore.

And here's what I actually hear when I'm sitting across from a client. She's not thinking, "I need to take up more space." She's thinking, "I know what I wanna say, but I don't know how it's gonna land." Or, "I disagree with this decision and the person making it has a lot more power than I do." Or, "I've got a bigger idea, and I'm not sure this is the moment to push it.

I'm worried I'll look difficult. I'm worried I'll look weak. I genuinely don't know which one this is." That is not a confidence problem. That is a woman doing actual strategic thinking in real time with almost no information about how to discern which move to make, because nobody ever taught her how power moves through a room.

And then, when just be more confident doesn't fix it, because it was never going to, she assumes that the problem is her. So let's take a couple of these apart, because I cannot let them go unchallenged one more time. Speak up. Okay. When? About what? In front of whom? With what evidence? And what exactly are you supposed to do when the most powerful person in the room disagrees with you 30 seconds after you spoke up?

Ask for what you deserve. Great. What leverage do I have? Who actually makes that decision? What do they care about? What happens if they say no? Nobody's answering any of that. They're just telling us to ask.

Would someone please explain how? Because confidence is not a switch sitting behind our left ears that we flip on before a meeting. Most of the time, the confidence comes after we take the swing, not before it. And take your seat at the table. This one gets me the most, because getting into the room is not the same thing as understanding how decisions actually get made in that room.

Those are two completely different skills, and we've been treating them like the same one I wanna be honest with you about something. I'm almost 60 years old. I've been doing this work for decades, and I am still right now figuring out and negotiating my own relationship to power. I've hesitated when I shouldn't have.

I've worried about how something would land instead of just saying it. I've wanted someone to like me more than I wanted to be right or maybe do what's right. I've confused fear with intuition more than once, and I did not always know which one it was until much later.

I've pushed when I should have waited, and I've waited when I should have pushed. I have a phrase that I keep coming back to, and I really am frustrated that I do. Power isn't given, it's taken, and I really wish that wasn't the case. We can be empowered or try to empower someone, but the empowerment part is the handoff, but unless that person picks it up and runs with it, they don't have power.

Power isn't given, it's taken. So here's what I actually think underneath all of this, I don't think that we need to be teaching each other how to take up space. I think we need to be teaching each other how to understand power. And here's what I feel most of us were taught, whether anyone said it out loud or not.

Be brave, be bold, be visible, and the rest will sort itself out. But here's what I know now after watching hundreds of women navigate rooms I was in and rooms I wasn't. Bravery without strategy can get you hurt. Strategy without bravery can keep you small. You need both, and nobody's giving you a way to build both at the same time.

Power literacy means being able to see the actual system that you're standing inside. Who really makes the decisions? Who influences the person making it? What does that person care about? What outcome do you actually want specifically, not vaguely? What credibility do you already have, and maybe you don't realize it?

Which relationships need strengthening before you need them? And where is the resistance probably going to come from? What risks are real, and what risks are just the story your nervous system is telling you at 3:00 AM? When to push, when to wait, when to ask, when to tell, when to walk away entirely.

I mean, it's overwhelming. I get it. It's a lot, especially when we pull this apart and think about it consciously as opposed to just living through it unconsciously. And thinking about all these questions is not manipulation, and I need to say that clearly because someone's gonna hear this and think that I'm telling you to play office politics, and I'm not.

That is too small a read on what I'm saying. This is understanding the system you're already participating in, whether you understand it or not. It's taking the time to really understand it, because you're in it either way. The only choice is whether you're navigating it purposefully and intentionally or getting knocked around by it.

And I wanna be really clear about something else. Sometimes you are judged differently for being direct. Sometimes vulnerability gets punished instead of rewarded. That risk is real. I'm not gonna sit here and gaslight you about it, and when you take the licks for those things, it is really hard to want to be direct and vulnerable again.

But there is a massive difference between fear-driven shrinking and strategic restraint, and there's an equally massive difference between performative boldness and actual power. One is theater, and the other actually moves things. 

So here's what I want you to remember from today.

Confidence is not a strategy. It's not enough on its own to get you through the complicated room that you're likely standing in. What you need is power literacy. Learn to read the rooms, the systems, the relationships, then make deliberate choices every time.

If your organization is having bigger conversations about women, leadership, and power, this is work I do with companies every day. You can find me at dawnandrews.com if that's you and you wanna have another conversation.

I don't want you smaller. I don't want you stepping away from the table. I want exactly the opposite. I want you walking into that room knowing what you want, who has the power to move it, what you're actually willing to risk, and what you're gonna do next.

Don't just take up space. Know how to use it

Okay, Lovey. I'll see you Tuesday, and until then, stop asking for a confidence switch that doesn't exist, and start learning more about the room that you're standing in and the power in it.

Take care, babe