Are you ready to transform traditional leadership styles and reclaim your power from societal norms? A new leadership movement is emerging—one that embraces a more conscious, heart-centered leadership and entrepreneurship approach, balancing feminine and masculine qualities while fostering inclusivity and togerthiness. One that invites to step into your own softening first!
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I personally believe that “The Soft Power Way” is the most radiant, transformative and powerful leadership way paving the way for the new business paradigm that speaks louder then the thousands words.
In this episode I challenge a lot and maybe everything you’ve been taught about authority and confidence. I invite you to explore with me the concept of what I call “Soft Power,” a leadership way that prioritizes self-connection, integrity, and body-led entrepreneurship. I dive deep into how embracing sensitivity, self-awareness, and compassion can help you lead with authenticity and ease, creating a business culture that’s rich in trust and respect.
I share why I believe the soft power is the future of the most impactful leadership and dive into foundational importance of “heart softening” versus “heart hardening” concept in our business eco-system and its effects on our nervous systems.
I talk about the new gentle leadership movement and how it emphasizes BEING over MORE DOING, a value increasingly cherished by the younger & awakening generations.
Learn how to maintain grace and softness in the face of life’s inevitable challenges, and connect with your own soft power to anchor this transformative energy within your body.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone eager to lead a more authentic, compassionate, conscious, aligned and impactful life and business.
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Read the juicy-ness below
Today I want to talk about a topic deep in my heart: the way of soft power.
I feel there’s a new leadership movement emerging on Earth, in our new business paradigm landscape. It’s all about being soft and gentle, and I believe soft power is far more powerful than what I call the “controlling business paradigm.” I’m introducing this concept because I believe we’re invited to revisit how we show up through our identities, our definitions of how we lead ourselves, our vision, our movement, our businesses, our people, our careers, our communities, and our beliefs about the world. What if leadership isn’t about being louder, bigger, stronger, or more? What if we don’t need to wear power suits to be truly impactful change-makers, influencers, and leaders of this world?
What comes up when you hear word “leadership”?
So I want to ask you: what comes to mind when I say the words “power” and “leadership”? What are the first words that describe them? Don’t overthink it—just let your body and gut respond intuitively, as if you’re brainstorming. When I ask you to fill in the blank: “To be perceived as powerful, you have to be ___,” what do you say? In my own experience and line of work, I’ve observed that we often have collective associations about being powerful. You have to be confident, strong, tough, hard-working, resilient, authoritative, or maybe even have titles and money representing your influential success.
Now, don’t get me wrong—there are many versions, flavors, and expressions of power and leadership. They’re all valid, different, and have a right to exist in the world, and we all have our preferences. But what I’m talking about today goes deeper. It transcends your leadership style or preferred approach, and it goes beyond your personality. You might naturally have a softer, more feminine approach to leadership—more empathic, gentle, and perhaps introverted. Or you might be fiercely ambitious, wanting to show up in big, bold ways on grand stages with significant impact. Maybe you’re a combination of both. The point is, it’s not about style.
The difference of “Soft Power Ledarship”
I believe soft power goes beyond all of that. We all have access to and the ability for soft power, because to me, soft power is more about your way of being with yourself. It comes from a very deep connection, awareness, and self-leadership, recognizing that we’re all sensitive and soft at heart. Embracing that inner softness comes from the ability to look at all parts of yourself. We are multifaceted beings, not single versions of ourselves. It’s about our ability to acknowledge all those parts we like about ourselves, claim our greatness and beauty, but also look at and hold those parts we’re ashamed of, disconnected from, avoiding, or uncomfortable with. It’s about compassion and the ability to love even the most unlovable parts of ourselves and our experiences.
“Your own soft power comes from collecting your power”.
You gave away from all those places that it shouldn’t be there. If you deeply embrace yourself, if you know who you are, your values, who you’re not, what you stand for, what you don’t, what is true to you and what is not, how you want to see the world and what is not alignment for you, claim that you don’t need to prove anything to anyone, though very often talking about that leaking power and giving power away to others to decide your worthiness, to decide who you are, what you allowed, how you have to be in this world, is where your heart starts to tighten. For example, I encountered often the predicament that I look too young. I have a really young face and despite my age, I was told I can speak up or I can change the world the way I want only if I sit at the top tables with the top management, if I have big titles, if I’m this and that. And I will share my personal journey towards soft power and embracing that in a different episode.
But what I mean here when you allow other people to tell who you are or who you’re supposed to be, you give power away to them instead of connecting that with yourself. And if you deeply know yourself, if someone would tell you you are blue monster, you wouldn’t even have any reaction because you know you’re not. You don’t have to prove, to respond, to negotiate or to defend anything here, anything because you know you’re not. You just see neutrally. It is what it is, it’s what they think, it’s how they see it. I know who I am and where I stand and who I’m not and I can still stay in my softness. Looking in all those leakages where you give your power away brings the deep congruency with yourself, with whole version of yourself, and if there is a dissonance it takes immense amount of energy for your nervous system to maintain the defenses, to defame your coping strategies, to stay alert.
The roots to step into “Soft Power” way!
Unconsciously and fundamentally soft power comes from healing your nervous system, from deep embodiment of yourself, instead of running from trauma response and relating with the world and others and the business and your team and your people from the triggered controlling trauma response. What I observed? A lot of old business paradigm. What I call old business paradigm is built from a lot of nervous system dysregulation, a lot of trauma response, a lot of unhealed wounds and coping strategies. And I feel this is where that concept of you have to toughen up. You have to not show your emotions, you can’t be vulnerable, you have to be strong comes from originally from deep protection fight, flight, freeze or foreign response and more deepening this work and the movement I’m pioneering here more I start to see layers and layers and layers, how all business infrastructure, like business world, is built from that unhealthy, traumatized way of being and doing and building.
Soft power is a fundamentally different way of being with yourself, the world, and others. It emanates from a place of safety and a “nothing to prove” energy. This power comes with ease, deep presence, and heightened awareness of yourself and those around you. When you know yourself deeply and trust in your ability to weather any external storm, you no longer need to armor yourself. Soft power springs from an open heart and an expanded way of being in your body, rather than a contracted version of yourself.
Through observing my clients and reflecting on my own life story, I’ve noticed a pattern: we tend to fiercely protect our most vulnerable, soft, pure, and sensitive parts because that’s often where our magic resides. If these parts are taken away, it feels as if our very soul is crushed. So we instinctively guard our softness.
Soft power is about nurturing and trusting your own resourcefulness.
We often give too much power to external forces. If a single comment, rejection, or opinion can shut you down, you’re giving away too much of your power. When we embrace our inner softness, our nervous system relaxes. We can maintain an open heart even in turbulent times, rather than guarding ourselves. Ironically, soft power fosters immense resilience because it allows you to stay connected to the big picture and possibilities. You can weather turbulence without losing your center, and your softness becomes a beacon for others. By remaining soft, empathetic, regulated, and open-hearted during challenging times, you invite others to do the same.
We often underestimate how constantly and deeply we resonate with each other’s nervous systems. We’re highly attuned to whether someone is in a regulated or dysregulated state. When you embrace your softness, your nervous system feels safe to hold your greatness—your impact, depth, immense potential, and fullness. This embrace of softness expands your capacity to hold more, receive more, process more, and manage more. It even allows you to access more of what’s possible for you because you’re more present with what is, rather than busy controlling or resisting situations.
When you courageously examine all facets of yourself and your life, holding yourself through it all with softness, you unlock immense power. This soft power is unique; it taps into your core essence and transforms how you relate to the world. You relate not from a place of defense, proof, or control, but from curiosity and intimacy. The way you share yourself speaks volumes, rippling out with powerful impact through aligned, congruent self-leadership.
The core question: “is your heart hardening or softening?”
In my experience and observation, we rarely ask whether our hearts are hardening and our nervous systems contracting, or if our hearts are softening and our nervous systems expanding. I invite you to examine your business ecosystem through this lens. Look at your body of work, products, services, clients, finances, offerings, business model, structures, team, and support systems. Ask yourself: Is your heart softening? Do you feel connected to that soft power within? Or is your heart hardening, your defenses rising, your body contracting as you go into fight, flight, or freeze? Notice where and when you tend to control more, to be harder or stricter. These moments can be invitations to listen, surrender, change, embrace, and love that part of yourself or situation more deeply and differently.
When it comes to the louder, more controlling approach to power in the world, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. However, I’ve often observed its shadow side emerging when we lose our inner softness. We tend to disconnect from this softness, which represents parts of ourselves, as we try to exert more external control. This external control often indicates that we’ve already lost some internal control. If we try to portray a certain personality or authority that isn’t natural to us—attempting to be perceived as a leader, change-maker, influencer, or authority—it suggests we’ve disconnected from our authenticity and the deep trust that who we are in the moment is enough.
Soft power in business
I’ve seen numerous examples of this. People with big titles and C-level positions often struggle to gain their team’s trust. On the other hand, those who are driven by their beliefs and deeply include themselves and others tend to have more impact and respect. They embody true leadership and self-leadership more effectively than many high-level managers.
I’ve had conversations with managers who complain about their teams not respecting them or following their rules. They ask what’s wrong and why their teams aren’t listening. Often, their response is to exert even more control. However, I believe that in the new business paradigm, people are becoming more sensitive, awakening, and conscious. For me, the answer lies in inner work.
Leadership versus self-leadership concept
That’s why in my eight capacities framework, I don’t call it leadership capacity—I call it self-leadership capacity. If we all tap into that internal leadership, internal power, and deep awareness of ourselves, if we all lead ourselves powerfully with an open heart and soft power, what is left to lead? Team and business structures then become very different frameworks, which is evident in how the world is deeply changing. Because when people can lead themselves—when you stop repressing them and taking their power away—they know what to do, what to say, how to stand up, and how to care.
I feel this new gentle and soft power movement comes from a deep connection with and embodiment of yourself. It’s about having the capacity to look at all aspects of yourself and being able to hold the deepest contractions and expansions without losing your power and softness.
I truly believe the new business paradigm is much more about your way of being with yourself, the world, and others than about doing.
If you look at the new generation, they don’t care about titles or achievements. I’m not saying these don’t matter, but fundamentally, people look up to others because of their way of being, their embodiment. At the core of it all, I feel it’s that soft power within—the ability to hold all the cycles, experiences, death and rebirth of your identities, careers, jobs, and reinventions. It’s also the ability to hold rejection, shame, humiliation, and failure with grace and softness. It’s about feeling all the feels, riding the roller coaster of your emotions and the most intense, extreme, and contrasting experiences of your life without shutting down your heart.
And that, for me, is the most atomic, impactful, contagious, and inspiring power there is. So, what is your connection with soft power? Do you know the feeling of it? Can you access it? Can you allow and connect with that softness within your body right now? Can you notice where it is? Now, give yourself a moment and feel your body. Close your eyes and let this information, this episode, go through your body, anchoring itself. Feel how it touches you and what sensations it brings up.
