Women Leadership Development: How to Build Your Own System When Nobody's Building It For You

51% of CHROs say leadership development is their top priority in 2026 — and most organizations are still handing women a generic webinar and calling it done.

In this episode, Lemon Price breaks down a five-pillar framework for women who are done waiting to be developed and are ready to build their own system. From knowing what you're actually building toward, to finding the right community, to stewarding your whole self — this is leadership development as a whole-life practice, not just a work thing.

If you're ready to stop waiting and start building, this one's for you.

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Transcript

Why Youre Not Getting Developed

SPEAKER_00 0:00

51% of CHROs, that's chief human resource officers, say that leadership development is their top priority in 2026. And yet, somehow we're still waiting on a budget code that never comes and a manager who doesn't have time for your growth plan. So we're gonna talk about what you do when the investment in you isn't coming from the outside, because women who build their own systems are the ones who end up in the rooms where decisions get made. Welcome back to the Well Lived Society. I'm your host, Lemon Price, and I'm excited to have you here today. We talk about leadership development, especially for women, because as you may have heard in our code switching episode that we did a few weeks ago, leadership development for women is few and far between, and it is becoming increasingly difficult. So I want to talk about why leadership development is top priority and what we do when nobody is coming to help you. Because let's be honest, they're not doing it. Most organizations are not really giving you good leadership development. A lot of them, and I've seen them, it's a webinar. They're like, I care about you as a leader. I want you to grow. And they talk a big game, but then they literally give you a generic webinar. Right. And so women who are kind of waiting around to be developed are losing ground to the women who are deciding to develop themselves. And I don't want to, I don't want you to hear this episode and think that I am putting you down or or saying anything, you know, negative about you. The truth of the matter is if you're not actively pursuing growth on your own, you are going to get left behind. And I don't want you, I don't want you to feel bitter, right? And don't feel bitter about your organization that you're a part of. Don't feel bitter about your job. Don't feel bitter about any of those things. I want you to know, like, this is a strategy and you cannot outsource your own ascent. You can't outsource your own growth. You can't outsource your skill set, not to ChatGPT. I did a whole episode on that. Like it really is something that you have to invest in for yourself. And so, leadership development to me is not an HR function. It would be great. It would be so great if organizations all over the world care deeply about leadership development and really put the time, the energy, the resources. They gave you the space, they, you know, they reimburse you for leadership development. And the truth of, like, they're not doing

Leadership Is Whole Life

SPEAKER_00 2:32

it. And so, to me, leadership development is a personal practice. And I say this all the time: leadership development is a whole life practice. It is not something that you just do at work. It is not just something you do on an organization that you volunteer in. Like that is, it is a personal whole life practice. It is again, it is how you show up at dinner. It is how you show up at the store. I just did a podcast interview with another show, and they were asking me about whole life leadership. And I said, you know, this is even in how I show up at my home goods. I have run into faculty at home goods. You know, we just happen to bump each other in the aisle. Imagine if I had been screaming at my spouse or the kids or something, and then he saw this side of me. That would have changed his perception of me in the classroom. And when they're thinking about award nominations, if he had seen that side of me, leadership development is a whole life practice. And so your growth plan is a leadership act. Figuring out the type of leader you want to be and how you want to show up is a leadership act. And so you have to build it yourself way too often. You have to build it yourself. And so if you're waiting to feel ready, I want you to know you've already missed like three opportunities, but we can do them this month. We can do them in June together. Okay. So I want to literally create a personal leadership development system for you. Okay. So this literally, it's going to be five pillars. And I want you to take some notes on these pillars because this is

Pillar One Get Clear

SPEAKER_00 4:08

what we're doing. So pillar one is to know what you're actually building toward. Vague goals produce vague results. So I talked about this on the podcast that I did on child free life. I was talking about volunteering with intention, knowing what the end result is that you want. And I don't want you to, here's what I want to say. I don't want you to feel married to a passion or an organization or anything like that. Who do you want to be? What are the results that you're trying to have? What kind of rooms are you trying to be in? That's what I want to know. I want to know what kind of seat you want to have at the table. Do you want to be a nominating? Do you want to be in treasury? Do you want to be the trainer? Like, do you want to be the member at large? Like, what do you want to do? I want you to write it down. I want you to name it and write it down. And then I want you to tell somebody else. I don't care if you send me a LinkedIn message. I don't care. Send me a message. Shoot me an email. I don't care. You have to tell somebody. And why do you have to tell somebody? Because when you say it out loud, it then becomes real. When you say it out loud, it then becomes something you have to do, something people will expect, something people will check on you for. And I promise they will. And so it is a way to hold yourself accountable to the thing that you said that you want. But again, you have to know what you actually want first. Know what you want first. And then again, I want you to write it down and tell somebody about it. You never know what happens when you tell somebody. When you tell somebody, hey, I'm interested in XYZ topic, or hey, I bring XYZ skill to the table, you never know who they know, right? We've all heard, what is it, six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon or something, right? You are six people away, six connections away from Kevin Bacon at all times, even though I don't know that I believe that. But you never know who the person that you tell knows. You don't know the connections they have. You don't know what they can produce for you by telling them. And so you have to be clear. Again, vague goals produce vague results. So be clear about what it is that

Pillar Two Learn Deeply

SPEAKER_00 6:25

you want. Pillar two, okay. Again, write this down. Learn like you mean it. That's not mean I want you to listen to this podcast while you just fold laundry. Folding laundry is important. If you're folding laundry right now, that's okay. But I want you to do some intentional study. I want you to learn about governance. I talked about this on a podcast earlier that I was a guest on. Being on the board is not sexy. Okay? It is not sexy. It is about governance. It that's all it is. I went to Small Leagues Big Impact in St. Louis in September of 25 and we had a meeting on governance. It was one of the trainings that the Association of Junior Leagues International was putting on. That session ran an hour too long because people had so many questions about governance. Okay. The role of the board is good governance. So learn governance. It is not sexy. It's not cute. It's not adorable when you put it, you're not getting a million clicks when you post on your Instagram that you updated bylaws. Nobody is super interested. It's not, it's not the Instagrammable moment. But governance is what ensures the organization is running long term. You need to know good governance. You need to learn the industry. What's happening? What are people saying about your industry? I just had a conversation with a friend who was putting in a community garden, and we started talking about green gentrification. And she's like, I've never even heard of that. Have these conversations, like learn the industry, learn what is going on. And again, she this was a brand new project for her. And the only reason I knew about it is because I literally just done a presentation on exactly what she was doing, which is why she asked for my help in the first place. But know what's going on in the industry, know what resources are available. What are people saying? What are changes in your industry? Like, you have to know those. You need to learn finance. I'm in graduate school right now. Everybody's like, I hate budgeting. I hate it. They hate the budgeting class, not because there's anything wrong with Dr. Christian, but because budgeting is not sexy. Finances are not sexy. Guess what? I love it. I love, I love it. I have a spreadsheet that I use. I've got apps I use. Like, I am the queen of staying on top of finances. But like, learn what is going on? Do you does your organization have an endowment? What's the investment look like? What, how much are you pulling? Is it the normal 4%? Or what are we pulling from that? Learn finance and then learn good communication skills. And this is not just you going out and posting on social media or writing an email newsletter. No, no, no. I mean you need to have good intrapersonal communication skills as well. Because I'm telling you right now, if you don't have those skills, if you have not developed that soft skill of having good interpersonal relationships and communication, you will never end up in a leadership spot. And if you do end up in a leadership spot and you are not very skilled at communicating, right? If your tone comes across wrong or your body language, that's communication. If your body language is off, if all those things are off, guess what? You're gonna have dissent in your organization and not because of what you said, but how you said it. So I want you to learn good communication skills. And I'm telling you right now, your ADH brain, and like I can tell you that because I have an ADHD brain, can do this in sprints. So like 45 focus minutes beats three distracted hours. So like set some time every week to learn a skill you need to be in the leadership. I promise that if you take the time to learn these skills, it will make a difference. It will make a huge difference. Okay,

Pillar Three Build Visibility

SPEAKER_00 10:25

are you ready? Pillar number three. I want you to build your visibility before you need it. And again, I did an episode on visibility versus credibility, but I do want you to build some visibility because the truth of the matter is that your name is probably being spoken or not spoken right now without you in the room. I want you to create a reputation. And I did an episode on reputation building. You need to build a reputation that when people are looking for leadership, they are thinking of you, that you are top of mind, right? So this is thought leadership. And this does not mean, and I just did an episode on this again. Do not outsource the fact that you are smart to ChatGPT. Stop it. You are smart. So stop outsourcing it to them. Bring your own original thoughts and ideas to the table. Get involved in civic boards, volunteer to speak on a panel, do some podcast appearances. Okay. These are not vanity metrics. Sometimes they can be if all you're looking for is clicks and likes. But if you're if you know what you're actually building toward, then you can build visibility with intention. If you are learning these skills that you need, you can build with attention.

Pillar Four Find Your People

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Okay. Pillar four. I want you to find people. Find your people. The women who have a room of people rooting for them and are honest enough to tell them the truth, those are the women who get leadership roles. Okay. It it just is what it is. Until I had friends who and cl like physically, proximity, close friends who were rowing in the same direction that I was. It was a struggle. It was a struggle. My husband love him dearly. He's in the he's in a blue-collar industry. So a lot of his friends are also blue-collar. There is nothing wrong with being blue-collar. I want to make that perfectly clear. There's nothing wrong with being blue-collar. Actually, love that my husband has a blue-collar job. I love it. He loves it. It's great. The problem is, and again, this could be because I'm in a rural community in Georgia. A lot of people can get by on one income or a blue-collar, you know, income. Because listen, if anybody tells you that being blue-collar is not the way to make money, they're lying to you. A lot of people in blue-collar industries are making a very good living for themselves. And their spouse works at a daycare. They work at, you know, a small, just above minimum wage type of a job. And again, nothing wrong with that. That is a skill that is needed. We need people to fill those jobs. So don't listen to this and think I am talking down on them at all. Because that's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is a lot of them were very content with where they are. They are content with, you know, their like 1500 square foot home, three bed, two bath, you know, they're like, they're just content. And again, there's nothing wrong with being content. There's nothing wrong with being content. I personally don't live like that. And I know you don't either because you listen to this podcast. My best friend in New Jersey is in luxury real estate. She is talking about multi-million dollar deals on a daily basis with people who have multiple millions of dollars in cash sitting in their checking account. Guess but our conversations are different. We motivate each other, we encourage each other, we're pushing each other. And so I want you to have, I want you to have people around you who get it and are pushing you and encouraging you in the same way. Again, I love all of my husband's friends and their wives. And they are great to hang out with, but they are not necessarily the same people who are pushing me to be better. They're not the people pushing me to take on a leadership role, to join another board, to volunteer a little bit more. That's not the role they fulfill in my life, and that is okay. But I want you to have a strategic community around you. And again, you have to build them on purpose. You have to find them on purpose. I found a lot of those women in the junior league, to be honest. Women who were on other boards, who running their own nonprofits, who are doing really incredible work. And that motivates me. And guess what? Our conversations are different. And we are talking about how we're impacting the community and what project we're working on and where we're traveling and what we're doing. The conversations are just different. And you need that. You need that when

Pillar Five Steward Yourself

SPEAKER_00 15:09

you are trying to grow and develop and become a leader. Okay, pillar five, this is the last one. I want you to steward your whole self. You cannot lead well from a depleted body, a chaotic home, a social life that's been on hold for two years, or in my case, it was closer to six. My social life was on hold. I had a really hard time making friends. I had a really hard time finding my people. There was people that I was an acquaintance with, but I didn't have my people, right? Goes back to the pillar you just said, pillar four, find your people. I didn't have my people. And so my social life was very much on hold. And now it is thriving. And I go, there's pictures of me with friends and people I go out with that we hang out with, and it's different. And because of that, you know, my home is a place that I love being, right? I love stewarding my home. I am hosting a mahjong party at my home to teach people how to play mahjong. And I'm so excited about that. I have people who I talk to about being philanthropists, and like that's their goal, is they want to make a ridiculous amount of money so they can give it away. Those are the type of people I'm surrounding myself with, which encourages me to do the same. Right? Or again, a depleted body. Like you drink water. We can't just live on coffee. I I know. I love, I love a nice coffee. I love my matcha, but we can't function like that. We have to have good nourishment. We have to have electrolytes and be hydrated and take the vitamins that our body needs to support itself. Leadership to me is a whole person experience. Your sleep habits, that's a huge one. Are you getting enough sleep? That is major. Major. Now that the school year is out, I found myself the last week or two sleeping until like 8, 8:30. And I'm shocked. I'm like, oh my gosh, am I okay? No, I'm my body feels good. I can sleep. I'm not, I'm not stressed. Before when I wasn't taking care of myself, I was up at 5 45 in the morning without an alarm. Just up, wired, and not falling asleep until midnight. That wasn't healthy. But now that I've been caring for my body, guess what? I'm getting adequate sleep too. My sleep score is up. Movement feels better. My friendships feel better. My Saturday morning feels better. I love a Saturday morning. So I deep clean my house on Fridays. That's because I'm home. I deep clean on Fridays. I love to deep clean my house on Fridays. Cause I don't like to clean on the weekends. I grew up where like Saturday morning, because my mom worked, we cleaned on Saturday mornings. And I'm like, that I don't want to do that. I want to do that to the family. You know, like obviously Glenn's not working on the weekends and things. So I don't want to wake him up early by cleaning. So I clean Friday mornings when I'm home alone. And so then Saturday morning, I wake up and it is the most peaceful thing in the entire world. I literally wake up and I open all my blinds so I can look at my birds. I make my coffee. And usually like I'll just read or I will put on like a girly movie that I want to watch by myself. And I just sit there in peace and quiet. And I get to just enjoy my Saturday morning. I just get to enjoy it. To me, that is how we steward our whole selves. To me, that's how we steward our leadership because these habits, your sleep, your movement, your friendships, you know, my Saturday morning, which I literally I love my Saturday morning so deeply. Like it's either gonna feed your leadership or it's gonna starve it. If your house is chaotic, it's gonna be really hard to show up and lead well. If you're not connecting with human beings, guess what? You may end up word vomiting all over a human connection, and then you've almost blown an opportunity you could have had. So you need to have these things in place in order to lead well. Okay. So I'm gonna go through these again, right? Pillar

Recap And Join Community

SPEAKER_00 19:13

one is you have to know what you're actually building toward. Know what you want. Take some time, sit with yourself, and figure out what you want. I want you to learn like you mean it. That's pillar two. Learn with intention. You already know what you want, you know what you're building toward. So learn with intention. And then pillar three, I want you to build visibility before you need it so that people are talking about you for opportunities that you don't even know exist yet. Number four, I want you to find your people. I want you to find women who are equally ambitious. You don't have to think and feel the same things, but I want you to be equally ambitious. And then number five is to steward your whole self. I want you to really like pour into you, especially as a woman. Okay. So if you're thinking about this and you're like, okay, I need to develop a leadership plan for myself because my job's not going to do it. And again, 51%, 51% of chief human resource officers said leadership development is their top priority for 2026. It is the top priority in 2026, is leadership development. And so if you're like, okay, I need, I need some help in leadership development, then the well-lived society is going to be for you. It's what it's created for. I got tired, honestly, of watching really smart and capable women just wait or read a book and not implement it. And so inside of this community, what we're building is the system together. So we'll build the strategy, the community, the accountability, and this whole life framework that actually supports you as a woman who is trying to lead in more than one room. And so if you're ready for this next stage, if you're ready to develop as a leader, then I want you to go to lemonprice.co or go in the show notes, send me a message on LinkedIn or send me an email. I'm not on Instagram anymore. If you check my social on Instagram, it says I'm not posting here anymore. So come find me on like LinkedIn or shoot me an email. It's just hello at lemonprice.co dot com. And just come have a conversation about what this could look like for you. So right now I'm recording this the end of May. So the founding member rate is open through June and July. And then it's going up, you know, in August when the community is like officially, officially open. But you join as a founding member, you get to hold on to that rate forever. So come reach out to me. Let's develop you as a leader together. We'll have book clubs on leadership development and we're gonna read fiction. And I'm I you'll hear Me talk about this more in a minute, but we're gonna read fiction because guess what? You need to actually enjoy reading something, you need to enjoy yourself as a woman, and it's okay to read something that is not quote unquote productive. Okay. It doesn't always have to be pushing you towards something. Sometimes you can just read or watch something for pure enjoyment, and that is just as important. Sometimes a nap is just as important as you listening to this podcast. It's what you need in the moment, and that's what we're gonna build together. So I hope I will see you there. I look forward to hearing from you, and I will see you next week. I'm excited. My friend Monica

Next Week Perfectionism

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Packer is coming on, and we're talking about perfectionist habits and how the habit industry does not actually serve women. And if you want to develop as a leader and you've been reading a lot of these books and listening to a lot of masculine energy, that advice isn't built for you. And I don't just mean men. I mean I know habit influencers who operate from a very masculine place and are teaching habits that are not sustainable to you as a wife or a mother. And so I am really looking forward to that conversation. It was such a good conversation. I think you're really gonna enjoy it. So I will see you next week. Tootoloo, friend.