The Untold Pressure Behind Women’s Leadership

Janice sits down with Limor Bergman Gross to talk about the guilt so many women leaders carry, at work, at home, and in the pressure to do it all well. They get into how guilt shows up in leadership, why so many women set unrealistic expectations for themselves, and how prioritizing, asking for help, and letting go of perfection can make a real difference. This conversation is honest, practical, and especially relevant for high-performing women navigating leadership, motherhood, mental health, and the constant pull of competing priorities.

This conversation is especially powerful for high-performing women who are carrying pressure, responsibility, and the weight of always being the strong one. Limor shares insight on leadership, guilt, and what it looks like to lead with more honesty and self-awareness.

Guest:
Limor Bergman Gross
Owner and Executive Leadership Coach, LBG Consulting Services Ltd.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/limorbergman/

Podcast: https://limorbergman.com/podcast/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LimorBergman

Substack: https://limorbergman.substack.com/

Connect with Janice Becker:

Beacons: https://beacons.ai/janicebecker

Retreat: http://www.rebelrisingretreat.com

Book: http://www.rebelrisingwithin.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

On this episode of Media Rebel Unplugged. But you need to kind of catch yourself when when you you feel that and start kind of asking yourself, is it really true? I mean is it really realistic? Am I expecting too much of myself? Be compassionate.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

What would you say are like your top tip for prioritizing our daily life?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

First of all, let's just change it. If you can start also in the workplace in a form like, oh no, maybe I haven't done it enough. Maybe I haven't given enough of myself to whatever. Or maybe, oh, my manager I need to do that, they may finish it feeling guilty.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Welcome to Media Rebel on publicity. Today we're talking about what women leaders don't say out loud about ambition, guilt, motherhood, and mental health. Joining me is Lamore Bergman Rose, owner and executive leadership coach at LBG Consulting Services. She's a former director of engineering who helps high-performing women stop performing, reclaim their voice, and lead on their own terms. Lamore, I'm so happy to have you on today. Welcome. Thank you, Janice.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I'm so happy to be here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Would you please introduce yourself and let us know what led you here?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sure. Hi everyone. My name is Lemoore. So uh first of all, under married, I'm a mother of four. And my career up until six years ago has been in tech. I worked in engineering, so I started my career as a software engineer and eventually grew into leadership roles. Moved countries, so I used to live in the US for nine years, and then we got back here. All of that while still raising kids. And six years ago, when we got back here, here I mean in Israel, where I live right now, I decided that I wanted a change and I left everything I knew. I started a business. I didn't really know what the business is gonna look like, but I knew that I wanted to support other women because of you know how difficult it was for me. And I guess that's the motivation also for me to be here today, Janice, because I want more women to hear our stories, not just mine, yours, and other women. That yeah, it's not easy. You have children, you have life, and you have a lot of things going on, but you still can do all the things that you want to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

So I love and appreciate that because that's why I started this platform was to help open up that door for other women like yourself and myself to come on, tell our stories so that other women out there who don't have that opportunity can hear and relate to and understand that they are not alone in the space.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

We talked briefly about how much I can identify with this. I think there's a lot of guilt that comes with trying to carry all these different titles that we as women carry. How do you yourself and while you're coaching other women help them go through that and address the guilt we have to deal with so we don't feel guilty? Because I think that's a lie oftentimes that we tell ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah. I don't think we can eliminate the guilt altogether and it comes and goes. And as moms, we always have mom guilt. I mean, I can share. I I always have this. Again, it goes and goes in waves. But what I tell my clients and also like the self-talk I do, like if I want to be fully present for my family, for my children, for my husband, I need to be fulfilled. I need to take care of myself. And you know, for many years, Janice, especially when my kids were very young, I put myself last. I was juggling like crazy between work and home. I was commuting a lot, I was doing everything, and I was depleted. And and it affects us eventually when when when we take so much on ourselves and we put ourselves last, we get agitated, sometimes we lose our temper, and it all happens because we don't take care of ourselves. So I always say like, if you feel guilty, think about how are you gonna be better as a mom, as a spouse, you know, as an employee, if you are fulfilled, if you are taking care of yourself. So it's not a selfish thing to do. It's actually for the better good, not just of yourself, but for those around you.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Right. I mean, it's impossible to take care of other people if we ourselves are falling apart, whether it's by internalizing it too much and not structuring those boundaries for us to sit down and have our our time, our self-care. And and that's something that I know we often do speak about is like, how do we how do we create that space to focus on ourselves when we have so many demanding things coming our way, demanding work, demanding kids, demanding, you know, husband. So how do we do that?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I will say it's not easy. I mean, especially when uh so nowadays my kids are between the ages of almost 16, 19, and 22. I have twins. That's the kind of way. And no, when they were younger, it was definitely much more difficult. What I did, first of all, I hired a lot of help. And there is no shame of that. Hired someone to do the laundry, and we tried a living nanny. I didn't like it, but we try different things, right? Nannies, some people that live in, but also those who just pick up the kids and uh, you know, spend time with them. So I try different things that really give me a little bit of free time to just relax, to do things for myself. And as the kids got older and more like you don't have to like watch them constantly, right? I started taking more time to myself. And what helps is really scheduling things that you have to be there. Like, for example, I remember, you know, there was a time that uh I started Pilaris, and I was scheduling that on my like I was signing up for it, was classes that you had to sign up in advance. And if you don't come, you pay, right? You lose you lose the the money you paid. And it was kind of you know accountability for me that oh, I actually sign up, so I have to go. And I organize everything around like my family, like, yeah, those are the days that they go. So sometimes, you know, you have to force yourself to do those things and find a ways that helps you force yourself to take care of yourself. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but sometimes you need to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, I I even will say this to my daughter. I'm like, could you please take better care of my daughter? You know, because as a mom, I'm like, you need to eat better, you need to exercise more, you need to do your schoolwork so you can do better. And it's funny because I mean it's the same thing for ourselves. Maybe it's like we live by an example of like, okay, yeah, I need to take better care of myself in different areas to be a better example to my kids.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

We all kind of struggle with that, especially especially when we're taking care of whether it's our employees and then our children and trying to balance that. I think that's oftentimes our biggest struggle.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Sure. And and another thing is that you need to prioritize and compromise. Like you cannot be perfect at everything, right? So compromise can look like uh, I don't know, maybe you buy some uh store-made food, you take some shortcuts, right? And yeah, so one I remember, you know, we had pizza nights, we don't do that much because now I have more time and and my kids also cook. So teach your kids to do this stuff too. Yeah, the older they get, just keep teach them, offload some stuff. But back when when they were like very young, like dinner was like, oh my god, I have to cook dinner again. And I was like, okay, we'll do a pizza night. Yeah, it's not the healthiest thing, but at least you know I know one night a week, I don't have to take care of dinner. And sometimes we did takeouts, like we did Indian food or whatever. It's like it's okay, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, I mean those little little bitty things, they they add up to being so important, like you said, whether it's hiring somebody to do the drop-off and pick up for your children, or just having those those little windows where you can breathe a little bit more and take some pressure off of you, I think is very smart.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

So, where do you often see guilt show up for women in leadership, aside from motherhood? Where do I see what? Sorry, I didn't hear you. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt show up in leadership.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Well, we s we tend to be very um self-criticizing as women. So so guilt can show up also in in the workplace in a form of like, oh, maybe I haven't done enough, maybe I I haven't given enough of myself to, you know, whatever. If you're in leadership, maybe it's for your team, or maybe my manager asked me to do that and I couldn't finish it. So you you start feeling guilty for not being able to accomplish. Like I have a client that actually, you know, she told me, Limore, I have to be more efficient. I'm not, I feel like I'm not doing enough at work. And and when we start kind of uh going diving deep, we figure out she was trying to take so much on ourselves. So so it's like, are the expectations you put on yourself realistic? And a lot of times, you know, we we set the bar so high, and that's why we feel guilt because we cannot meet the bar that we set. It's impossible for us to get there, and then we feel guilty that we haven't been able to accomplish everything that we set ourselves to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Did you ever see yourself doing that back when you were in your role? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, all the time. Yeah, I I wouldn't lie and say guilt goes away. There it always comes and goes, but but you need to kind of catch yourself when when you you feel that and start kind of asking yourself, is it really true? I mean, is it really realistic? Am I expecting too much of myself? Be compassionate. I mean, this is something that I I tell a lot of my clients to practice compassion because our inner voice tends to be so critical. And we need to practice compassion as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yes, I that's a very valid point. Uh compassion to ourselves, especially, and I think that's a a perfect kind of segue into mental health and and what that's like, you know, for us as we're leading and as we're being mothers, and and you know, how does that look behind the scenes for women when they're handling it all, especially when they feel like they're handling it all alone?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, uh, I would say that some of the symptoms that maybe you know you need to you're not in an ideal place is that when you're either very stressed out, or maybe you don't sleep well, you don't eat well, maybe you're even short-tempered. So there are some some symptoms that can point to a fact that you are not uh taking better care of yourself, and you're trying to do too much. And when that happens, you need to figure out okay, how can I take better care of myself? What can I maybe compromise? What can I remove from the list? Also, sometimes we take too much, we have to prioritize.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

How do we prioritize? Because I feel like, again, if everything feels like the priority, that can be a struggle in itself.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Definitely, and that happens both in personal life and in the workplace, right? Everything is important, everything is critical. So ask yourself like if you have too many things that like, oh, I have to do everything, but you know that it's not possible for you and you're stressing out uh over it. So ask yourself, you can go one by one and say, okay, what's gonna be what's gonna happen if I don't do that? And sometimes, you know, you said, okay, actually the world is not gonna stop if I if I don't do that. So uh like I gave the meals example because I know that a lot of moms feel like, oh, I have to prepare home cooked meals for my kids so they eat good nutritious food. And it's okay, what happens if I don't do that? You know, I had a time, I didn't really like the food in the cafeteria in the schools, right? Most of them, depending on the school district, you know, don't offer very healthy alternatives. And I remember that uh for several years I was like really, really strict on okay, I have to prepare all the meals for my kids. And that was taking a lot of energy for me. It was very draining. And at some point, you know, I said, the hell with it. I'm just go and buy go buy food from the cafeteria. Yeah. And that was a compromise I took and say, you know what? What's gonna happen if I don't cook? Yeah, they're gonna eat some maybe things that are not the best for them. But that's what I have to do to keep myself sane.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yes, that's uh that's a good point. And you're right. I mean, there are those things that we we strive to be so perfect at, or we want the best for our kids, and then at the end of the day, it's like you're kind of sacrificing your well-being, just trying to keep up with it all. What would you say are like your top tips for prioritizing our daily lives?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

That's a tough one, right? I mean, first of all, I mean, you always have to prioritization changes. That I would say it changes because you know, life is very dynamic. Um and you can ask yourself every day, every week, every month, you know, whatever the time frame for you, like, what are the most important things for me right now? What do I really need to spend my energy on? And it can be sometimes you put more weight on work, right? Maybe you're starting a new job and you really need to be very focused and uh and invest time in onboarding and making sure that you got up to speed quickly. So during that period of time, maybe you will deprioritize other things. So it could be that temporarily you will yeah, spend less time with your kids. You will have to work harder. Sometimes it can be something else, like maybe you experience some challenges. One of your kids, maybe they have whatever challenges at school, maybe their struggle with it, could be something you know, academic or it could be friendships at school, whatever. So you say, okay, this time I really have to help my child. So I have to make sure I allocate time for that. So maybe during that time I will have to compromise. So maybe I will work less, maybe I will I don't know, as I said, cooking, maybe I will spend less time in the kitchen. So it's it's you have to really keep asking yourself like what are the most important things for me right now? What I really have to put my focus on and try to minimize that list. So it will not be more than three to five three things even.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

That makes that makes total sense. Because I feel like if you had a really long list, you would feel even more overwhelmed and it'd be more difficult to prioritize those things. So do you normally coach people to maybe start because, like you said, every day our priorities they change. Do you recommend that they start in the mornings of okay, what are my what are my top three priorities today? Or should they be doing that the night before in preparation for the next I think it's personal.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Whatever I like to do it in the morning, but you know, if if you like to have everything prepared the night before, do it the night before. I don't have like a I think it really you need to figure out what works for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that because um I think that again, if we look at the time that we have available to also sit and do those things, that can change as well. You know, so there might be some evenings it's easier to do it than in the day. And I think just that helps with productivity if we can sit and set aside those top priorities.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah. And I would say you mentioned productivity. I would say the number one productivity killer, I feel for me at least, is all the distractions and all the notifications. And we are constantly our mind constantly, you know, context switch between multiple things, right? Because we get all those notifications from our phone in the computer. So if you see that you're not really spending the time efficiently trying- You know, I put my phone on do not disturb. And sometimes my husband is like, I send you a text, you don't why don't you respond? Well, I'm concentrating right now on something, and I don't look at my phone during that time. And I put the do not disturb. So if something urgent comes, call me. We have this tendency. I mean, I don't know about you, Dennis, but yeah, we're expected to be always on.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Oh, yes. Yeah. I I paused this morning as I was getting ready, you know, for our conversation, and I thought about that. I went, oh my goodness, it's like notification after notification and emails, and just, you know, I'm like, I have to just turn this off for my mental health. I need to turn it off and I need to walk away. Like you said, either put it on do not disturb, but even then, I'm tempted to like grab it and look at it. So just shut it off and just step away and do grounding work. So for me, that's you know, I put my feet on the floor and just spend some time with the deep breaths and name a few objects in the room to kind of get myself back because my mental health is extremely important to me, is I I suffer from PTSD. And so it can be even harder to prioritize my days and to not feel like every single alert is urgent on my phone.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, definitely. I think this is one of the biggest challenges nowadays, and it didn't exist, right? Yeah, I don't know, 15 years ago, whatever. I mean, now that we all the apps, all the apps and notifications, just turn off all the notifications.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Turn them off, set some time aside for yourself. And they even say it's more healthy for us to do that, to do like actually put on your calendar, you know, 15 minutes a day on your calendar and say, okay, I'm gonna dedicate that time aside from your like usual lunch scheduling to have that refocus and relaxation time.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah, and I would say every every person uh have different um times that are ideal for them to concentrate. So I like to allocate the mornings. So usually what I do, so I don't book meetings before 11 a.m. Because I really like to have the morning times for myself. Either going to work out or just you know, sometimes I have to do some work, some work that requires concentration. So once like the house, the house empty, like everyone goes to school to whatever, I I can just concentrate. And those are like the best hours for me. So find the best hours for you and block that time.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Thank you so much for being on today because I feel like you've really brought some things up to limit the guilt and the self-criticizing that we're all so guilty of doing as women leaders and moms. Could you please tell the audience where they can learn more about you and connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Sure. So, what I'm focused on right now is supporting women. So I do that by coaching, I do that by speaking, I uh host, you know, ERG groups invite me, or I speak at companies. And I have my own podcast from a woman to a leader, so I want to invite you all to check it out as well. I interview, you know, different leaders in tech, so check it out as well, and uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Thank you for everybody listening today to Media Rebel Unplugged. If you enjoyed our episode, please subscribe or share it with someone, and we will see you next time.