31. The Great Wealth Transfer: The Visionary Leader’s Advantage
Have you ever considered how $30 trillion could reshape the business landscape? That's the amount of wealth women in the United States are expected to control by 2030, marking the largest wealth transfer by gender in history. This isn't just a financial statistic—it's a leadership opportunity that demands attention from every woman in a senior position.
As a female leader, especially in male-dominated industries, this economic shift presents a unique chance to elevate your influence and strategic value. The Great Wealth Transfer isn't merely about money changing hands; it's about power dynamics evolving, stakeholder expectations transforming, and businesses needing to adapt quickly to survive and thrive.
Join me this week as I invite you to see this moment as your catalyst for stepping beyond functional expertise into true business leadership. This episode will equip you with the strategic trends and communication approaches to position yourself as an indispensable voice in future-proofing your organization.
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. I'm creating this show just for you, so I want to know what you would like to hear about in the coming episodes.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to reframe business cases around women as the emerging economic power base controlling $30 trillion by 2030.
5 strategic trends to spark influence around the Great Wealth Transfer.
The ways relational capital is outperforming transactional tactics in attracting the next generation of wealth holders.
Why representation is a business imperative rather than a DEI sidebar,
How to introduce these concepts to senior male leaders by leading with context rather than critique.
Practical first steps to start influencing your organization's approach to the Great Wealth Transfer.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. Find complete instructions here!
24. Navigating DEI Backlash: A Balanced Approach for Women Leaders
28. Own the Shift: How Women Leaders Will Shape the Great Wealth Transfer
Full Episode Transcript:
By 2030, women are expected to control up to $30 trillion in wealth in the United States alone. This isn't just a financial shift, it's a leadership moment. If you're a high-achieving woman in a senior leadership role, this episode is your invitation to step fully into your power.
The Great Wealth Transfer is more than economics, it's your opportunity to shape the future of business, influence key decisions, and position yourself as a credible, indispensable voice inside and outside the boardroom. Let's talk about how to turn this moment into momentum for your career, your confidence, and your legacy.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey, podcast listeners, welcome to episode 31. We are talking about the Great Wealth Transfer today and what women leaders need to know and say to influence the future of business. So if you've been a long-time podcast listener of The Balanced Leader, you've probably heard me talk about the Great Wealth Transfer and how excited I am about the impacts that it will have on women, women leaders, and the world in general.
Today's episode is really focused on if you're a female leader, especially if you're a female leader in a male-dominated space, how to use this concept and this topic to elevate your own leadership and to talk about the trends that could really future-proof your business. So we're going to dive in, and for those of you who are new to the show, welcome. Don't worry, I'm going to tell you all about the Great Wealth Transfer as well.
The Great Wealth Transfer refers to the massive shift of wealth that's over $84 trillion expected to pass down from baby boomers to Gen Xs and millennials over the next two decades, with nearly $30 trillion of that expected to go to women. This is gonna have a profound impact on women as they're set to inherit a significant portion of the wealth being passed down.
Studies estimate that women will control the majority of the transferred wealth, which is gonna go to surviving spouses and younger generations of women. This shift is empowering women economically as we gain greater financial independence and influence so that by 2030, women are projected to hold two-thirds of private wealth in the U.S., marking the largest wealth transfer by gender in history. This newfound financial power is expected to drive economic growth and reshape industries, with increased spending on services, products, and experiences tailored to and for women.
Alright, so this has a profound impact on our world. But, more specifically, I want you to think about the Great Wealth Transfer as having a profound impact on your career and how you present yourself as a leader. This isn't just about money. It's about power, positioning, and long-term strategic influence. So whether you work for a profit or non-for-profit sector or organization, this Great Wealth Transfer is going to change how organizations must engage with stakeholders, frame value, and think about future-proofing their businesses.
And what I want for the women that are listening to this show who are feeling inspired by the Great Wealth Transfer, I want you to think about it as an invitation to step into higher levels of leadership and responsibility. And for you to elevate out of, right, because a lot of the women that I coach end up being very good in their functional area and sometimes head down with their approach of how to answer questions and how to be reactive to problems that are coming up.
Well, the Great Wealth Transfer is your invitation to become more proactive, to elevate yourself beyond your functional leadership level and think about yourself as a leader of the business for the business, future-proofing it for the future. And as you introduce the Great Wealth Transfer, I want you to see yourself as a business leader who is leading from this perspective, who is bringing this greater level of awareness and understanding to support your organization to have it grow.
So what we're gonna cover in this episode is twofold. One, the five strategic trends to spark influence around the Great Wealth Transfer. This is really the what, how you want to think about the Great Wealth Transfer, how it impacts your organization, how these trends particularly show up in your company, in your competitors, where you're at, because that's going to be the uniqueness that you bring to this perspective for your senior leaders and stakeholders.
And then secondly, I'm going to talk to you about how to introduce these topics in a way that builds trust and rapport and helps you to be this trusted guide for senior male leaders who want to know what your thoughts are, want to know your perspective, and you're leading them. You're really their trusted partner to guide them to this next level of growth for their organization as they think about it in terms of the Great Wealth Transfer.
Alright, so those are the two things that we're going to cover. And of course, at the end of the episode, I'll share with you a few simple actions that you can already start looking at doing right away to start influencing and crafting your narrative around the Great Wealth Transfer.
Okay, well let's start with the strategic trends. And these are just high-level trends, but I, again, like I said, want you to think about this in a way with the lens of all of the experience that you have in your industry, what you know about your organization, and how you might take the next step to get clearer and clearer on this and how to make this actionable for yourself.
So the first one is women are the emerging economic power base, right? So I already said this, but by 2030, women in the U.S. will control up to $30 trillion in assets, a generational wealth transfer that rivals the size of the entire U.S. GDP. So this is huge. Meanwhile, 96% of women will be the primary financial decision makers at some point in their lives. This comes from research by Prudential.
So, for you, as you're thinking and you're reframing your business cases around lifetime value, loyalty, and long-term outcomes, you want to think about women wealth holders, they’re not just buying. They're influencing what's being built, who it serves, how it sustains. Help your organization understand how these shifts will shape demand, loyalty and brand trust.
You want to know already, potentially, you might want to dive into who are your women customers already? Why do they buy from you? And in five years, how can you guarantee that more women will buy from you as they have more and more economic wealth? This again is a ninja move for you as a woman leader to really be pushing this conversation, engaging with people in this conversation. And you might say to yourself, well, I'm not the head of marketing or I'm not the head of sales, but you are a business leader.
And if you are a business leader, then it is not only your responsibility, it is also your right to share your ideas. But this is where we shake it up a little bit. This is where we get a little bit more risky by sharing these thoughts and ideas, again, not from a reactive perspective, but from a proactive perspective, bringing this idea to your leadership team or to certain leaders and testing it out and sharing what you're seeing and what you think is most important as women are the emerging economic power base.
Alright, the next trend is that stakeholder capitalism is the new bottom line. So what does this mean? Investors, consumers, and donors are demanding that organizations prove how they serve people, planet, and profits. Yes, we love our profits, but we also love people and planets. It's not saying that one of these is better than the other, but it is saying that all of these things are held as important, especially to women investors.
So missions, sustainability, transparency, and governance, these aren't just nice-to-haves. They're starting to really influence funding, stock performance, and long-term trust. So your strategic move here would be the translator between value-based strategies and commercial outcomes. So again, you're the one that is speaking up, speaking with the language that bridges investors ROI with social return. And to also demonstrate how both can be measured, aligned, and scaled. So it is really about holding these value-based strategies with those commercial outcomes. How do you do that where you are right now? And how does that need to change in the future to attract even more female investors and consumers and donors.
Okay, the next one, this is number three. The power of relational capital is outperforming transactional tactics. So what does this mean? The next generation of donors and wealth holders, many of them women, are more relationship-driven, impact-focused, and wary of superficial urgency or top-down pitches. So this is going to have the ability to really influence how your company is coming to marketing, the relational storytelling and authentic communication to deepen stakeholder engagement.
When women lead with clarity and conviction around impact, they set the tone for trust and trust converts. We've seen a lot of studies on this that when people trust an organization, when they trust a company, they want to put their money there because it aligns with them overall and it aligns with how they want to feel. And it's like that storytelling is really more about the emotions, the relational storytelling. So the better you get at that, the better you help your company get at that, the more money you'll make by creating this trust factor with other folks and other stakeholders and donors.
The next thing is about legacy thinking is shaping investor behavior. So whether it's women inheriting or building wealth, they're not just looking for a financial return. They are also looking at prioritized alignment with their personal values, family missions, and the kind of world they want to shape for future generations. So having an understanding this, you want to ask yourself, where are we doing this now? Or where are we not doing this? What are some blind spots that your organization might not even be aware of?
So a strategic move for you could be lead conversations that connect your organization's strategy to legacy, continuity, and long-term societal values. This is your opportunity to show that your leadership isn't just tactical, it's visionary and sustainable. And these are the things that are going to be attracting wealthy female investors in the future.
And then lastly, the fifth trend is that representation is a business imperative, not a DEI sidebar. A lot of conversations are around this, and I just did an episode about DEI and the debate about it, right? But companies with gender diverse executive teams are 25% more likely to outperform on profitability. That comes from McKinsey. But beyond financials, inclusive leadership ensures your organization can see, respond, and shape a rapidly diversifying marketplace.
So your strategic move here is to champion inclusion as infrastructure for innovation. Frame your leadership, not as just supporting DEI, but actively building systems that harness diversity for smart decision-making, broader influence, and stronger resilience, right? Especially as the Great Wealth Transfer is happening. You want to position yourself and your company to attract the very best talent. And you want to position yourself to also get the female clients, the female investors.
And you want to notice what gets them to buy, what gets them to trust people, what is that? Oftentimes it is this inclusion piece. You know it, I know it, we're all female leaders here. Part of this is wanting to see a track record where women are being promoted, where there is a pathway, where there is pipelines for women and other diverse minority groups.
This is all about having that representation and having it being part of the business imperative, not just a DEI thing, right? But if you think about it, the women that are in control of money, the women that are making these decisions, they're going to be looking at leadership teams for representation. They're going to be looking for that track record. So again, this is super important, especially with this lens of the great wealth transfer. There is the $30 trillion going to women, and this is what they're gonna be looking for.
So those are the five trends. I'm going to repeat them, but it's important for you as a female leader in your industry to listen to them and see how it impacts your industry, your company, and how you can frame up the conversation in a way that brings value and also elevates yourself as an expert and a trusted leader in this area.
So the first is women are the emerging economic power base. This is just about education. This is sharing this part of the education and how it can actually influence some of the outcomes and some of the marketing that you might do. The next one is stakeholder capitalism is the new bottom line. really thinking about the values that these stakeholders care about, which are sustainability, transparency, and governance.
And then the third one, of course, is about the power of relational capital, which is outperforming transactional tactics, creating a relationship with buyers, donors, wealth holders. The fourth, legacy thinking is shaping investment behavior. And so that's the legacy of your own organization, and that's the legacy that that other people want to create and have for themselves in the future. So number five is representation is a business imperative, not just a DEI sidebar. So thinking about that for yourself and your organization.
All right, so that was the what. That's like the what to say, the trends to be thinking about, the trends you want to introduce, the trends that you want to position yourself as an expert in. The next part is what to say to senior male leaders. You want to be leading with context, not critique. You don't want male leaders to get scared. You don't want to share this information with urgency and excitement, which sound great, but actually scare people, especially if they don't have any idea what you're talking about.
So I have a lot of women leaders who come to me and are like, I'm super excited and juiced up about sharing this idea with a male leader and then he just freaked out and froze on me and doesn't want to make any changes. And so I typically tell them, listen, you are just 10 steps ahead of them and they're scared. They don't know what you're talking about. They feel scared. They just want to shut you down because they can feel your anxious energy, your excitement, and they don't know what to do with it because it might be a lot of high energy and they're not used to that.
So first of all, you want to check yourself. You want to ground yourself. But this exciting conversation can be led in a way that is with them, for them, for you at the same time. And so that is slowing down, grounding yourself, being in your body, and getting the context right, right? Leading with context. Remember that you are opening up new insight, new perspectives, a new way of looking at things. So you need to lead with context and not critique. So you can't say we've been doing it all wrong, we've got to change everything because women are now going to have $30 trillion. That's not the way.
This is how I want you approaching it. Here's an example. “There's a shift happening in who holds economic power. And it's critical we understand how this changes the game for us and our business.” So you just want to notice how I said that in a very matter of fact way. And then I'm using we and I'm talking about our business. So you want to position yourself as a partner in future proofing the business and highlight alignment with business imperatives.
So again, for example, “If we want to grow our market share, donor base, stakeholder trust, we have to understand what's changing about who holds influence.” Again, use evidence and outcomes. You want to be able to not just talk about what this idea is, you wanna ground it with what your thoughts are, what evidence you have found, and what your thoughts are in terms of the commercial outcomes of shifting to this way of thinking and why it's important.
So, women-driven wealth plus inclusive leadership, right? Why does this equal higher retention, impact, performance, all of those things? You want to kind of get it out there and to share it with people, but to also be open to hearing what people have to say. And noticing for yourself that you are trying to build partnership, trust, and rapport, and you're wanting to show up as a partner in future-proofing the business and for the business. So again, lead with context, not critique, bring the men along with you.
All right, so I know that this was an episode where we introduced a lot of topics for you to think about, but as a woman leader, this is where you got to elevate yourself. Take yourself out of being reactive to problems in the business and get yourself to, and your organization and your leadership team to be proactive about what's happening with this Great Wealth Transfer and what it could mean for your business and how to future-proof your business.
All right, so here are some steps you can start with. Do some small steps, see how it goes, and then plan for bigger and bigger steps as you grow your confidence in talking about this subject matter. The first is start the conversation. Pick one senior leader, probably one that you have trust and rapport with, and talk about what your thoughts are. The second is framing up one upcoming project in terms of the Great Wealth Transfer trends.
So maybe there's a business case coming up and just on the side, you can start thinking about how this business case would be changed if we saw that the consumers of this product or of this business case are gonna be more and more women. How would that influence things, impact things? And then third, ask yourself, am I leading from the future or reacting to the past? Again, this is super powerful to elevate yourself, elevate your thinking and to be proactive and take control of what you know, the knowledge you have, and this great generational shift that's about to happen.
My final thought here is that this isn't about getting louder, it's about getting clearer. When you speak from strategy, vision, and economic intelligence, you become impossible to ignore. All right, women, go out there and take what I've shared and use it and influence and elevate yourself.
And I'd love to hear what you take away from this episode and how it's changing how you're seeing yourself as leader in your business and how you are reshaping the way your business is seeing the world. So feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, share all about it, and then of course review this episode if you haven't already done so yet. I will see you next week. Take good care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
The Great Wealth Transfer is more than economics, it's your opportunity to shape the future of business, influence key decisions, and position yourself as a credible, indispensable voice inside and outside the boardroom. Let's talk about how to turn this moment into momentum for your career, your confidence, and your legacy.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey, podcast listeners, welcome to episode 31. We are talking about the Great Wealth Transfer today and what women leaders need to know and say to influence the future of business. So if you've been a long-time podcast listener of The Balanced Leader, you've probably heard me talk about the Great Wealth Transfer and how excited I am about the impacts that it will have on women, women leaders, and the world in general.
Today's episode is really focused on if you're a female leader, especially if you're a female leader in a male-dominated space, how to use this concept and this topic to elevate your own leadership and to talk about the trends that could really future-proof your business. So we're going to dive in, and for those of you who are new to the show, welcome. Don't worry, I'm going to tell you all about the Great Wealth Transfer as well.
The Great Wealth Transfer refers to the massive shift of wealth that's over $84 trillion expected to pass down from baby boomers to Gen Xs and millennials over the next two decades, with nearly $30 trillion of that expected to go to women. This is gonna have a profound impact on women as they're set to inherit a significant portion of the wealth being passed down.
Studies estimate that women will control the majority of the transferred wealth, which is gonna go to surviving spouses and younger generations of women. This shift is empowering women economically as we gain greater financial independence and influence so that by 2030, women are projected to hold two-thirds of private wealth in the U.S., marking the largest wealth transfer by gender in history. This newfound financial power is expected to drive economic growth and reshape industries, with increased spending on services, products, and experiences tailored to and for women.
Alright, so this has a profound impact on our world. But, more specifically, I want you to think about the Great Wealth Transfer as having a profound impact on your career and how you present yourself as a leader. This isn't just about money. It's about power, positioning, and long-term strategic influence. So whether you work for a profit or non-for-profit sector or organization, this Great Wealth Transfer is going to change how organizations must engage with stakeholders, frame value, and think about future-proofing their businesses.
And what I want for the women that are listening to this show who are feeling inspired by the Great Wealth Transfer, I want you to think about it as an invitation to step into higher levels of leadership and responsibility. And for you to elevate out of, right, because a lot of the women that I coach end up being very good in their functional area and sometimes head down with their approach of how to answer questions and how to be reactive to problems that are coming up.
Well, the Great Wealth Transfer is your invitation to become more proactive, to elevate yourself beyond your functional leadership level and think about yourself as a leader of the business for the business, future-proofing it for the future. And as you introduce the Great Wealth Transfer, I want you to see yourself as a business leader who is leading from this perspective, who is bringing this greater level of awareness and understanding to support your organization to have it grow.
So what we're gonna cover in this episode is twofold. One, the five strategic trends to spark influence around the Great Wealth Transfer. This is really the what, how you want to think about the Great Wealth Transfer, how it impacts your organization, how these trends particularly show up in your company, in your competitors, where you're at, because that's going to be the uniqueness that you bring to this perspective for your senior leaders and stakeholders.
And then secondly, I'm going to talk to you about how to introduce these topics in a way that builds trust and rapport and helps you to be this trusted guide for senior male leaders who want to know what your thoughts are, want to know your perspective, and you're leading them. You're really their trusted partner to guide them to this next level of growth for their organization as they think about it in terms of the Great Wealth Transfer.
Alright, so those are the two things that we're going to cover. And of course, at the end of the episode, I'll share with you a few simple actions that you can already start looking at doing right away to start influencing and crafting your narrative around the Great Wealth Transfer.
Okay, well let's start with the strategic trends. And these are just high-level trends, but I, again, like I said, want you to think about this in a way with the lens of all of the experience that you have in your industry, what you know about your organization, and how you might take the next step to get clearer and clearer on this and how to make this actionable for yourself.
So the first one is women are the emerging economic power base, right? So I already said this, but by 2030, women in the U.S. will control up to $30 trillion in assets, a generational wealth transfer that rivals the size of the entire U.S. GDP. So this is huge. Meanwhile, 96% of women will be the primary financial decision makers at some point in their lives. This comes from research by Prudential.
So, for you, as you're thinking and you're reframing your business cases around lifetime value, loyalty, and long-term outcomes, you want to think about women wealth holders, they’re not just buying. They're influencing what's being built, who it serves, how it sustains. Help your organization understand how these shifts will shape demand, loyalty and brand trust.
You want to know already, potentially, you might want to dive into who are your women customers already? Why do they buy from you? And in five years, how can you guarantee that more women will buy from you as they have more and more economic wealth? This again is a ninja move for you as a woman leader to really be pushing this conversation, engaging with people in this conversation. And you might say to yourself, well, I'm not the head of marketing or I'm not the head of sales, but you are a business leader.
And if you are a business leader, then it is not only your responsibility, it is also your right to share your ideas. But this is where we shake it up a little bit. This is where we get a little bit more risky by sharing these thoughts and ideas, again, not from a reactive perspective, but from a proactive perspective, bringing this idea to your leadership team or to certain leaders and testing it out and sharing what you're seeing and what you think is most important as women are the emerging economic power base.
Alright, the next trend is that stakeholder capitalism is the new bottom line. So what does this mean? Investors, consumers, and donors are demanding that organizations prove how they serve people, planet, and profits. Yes, we love our profits, but we also love people and planets. It's not saying that one of these is better than the other, but it is saying that all of these things are held as important, especially to women investors.
So missions, sustainability, transparency, and governance, these aren't just nice-to-haves. They're starting to really influence funding, stock performance, and long-term trust. So your strategic move here would be the translator between value-based strategies and commercial outcomes. So again, you're the one that is speaking up, speaking with the language that bridges investors ROI with social return. And to also demonstrate how both can be measured, aligned, and scaled. So it is really about holding these value-based strategies with those commercial outcomes. How do you do that where you are right now? And how does that need to change in the future to attract even more female investors and consumers and donors.
Okay, the next one, this is number three. The power of relational capital is outperforming transactional tactics. So what does this mean? The next generation of donors and wealth holders, many of them women, are more relationship-driven, impact-focused, and wary of superficial urgency or top-down pitches. So this is going to have the ability to really influence how your company is coming to marketing, the relational storytelling and authentic communication to deepen stakeholder engagement.
When women lead with clarity and conviction around impact, they set the tone for trust and trust converts. We've seen a lot of studies on this that when people trust an organization, when they trust a company, they want to put their money there because it aligns with them overall and it aligns with how they want to feel. And it's like that storytelling is really more about the emotions, the relational storytelling. So the better you get at that, the better you help your company get at that, the more money you'll make by creating this trust factor with other folks and other stakeholders and donors.
The next thing is about legacy thinking is shaping investor behavior. So whether it's women inheriting or building wealth, they're not just looking for a financial return. They are also looking at prioritized alignment with their personal values, family missions, and the kind of world they want to shape for future generations. So having an understanding this, you want to ask yourself, where are we doing this now? Or where are we not doing this? What are some blind spots that your organization might not even be aware of?
So a strategic move for you could be lead conversations that connect your organization's strategy to legacy, continuity, and long-term societal values. This is your opportunity to show that your leadership isn't just tactical, it's visionary and sustainable. And these are the things that are going to be attracting wealthy female investors in the future.
And then lastly, the fifth trend is that representation is a business imperative, not a DEI sidebar. A lot of conversations are around this, and I just did an episode about DEI and the debate about it, right? But companies with gender diverse executive teams are 25% more likely to outperform on profitability. That comes from McKinsey. But beyond financials, inclusive leadership ensures your organization can see, respond, and shape a rapidly diversifying marketplace.
So your strategic move here is to champion inclusion as infrastructure for innovation. Frame your leadership, not as just supporting DEI, but actively building systems that harness diversity for smart decision-making, broader influence, and stronger resilience, right? Especially as the Great Wealth Transfer is happening. You want to position yourself and your company to attract the very best talent. And you want to position yourself to also get the female clients, the female investors.
And you want to notice what gets them to buy, what gets them to trust people, what is that? Oftentimes it is this inclusion piece. You know it, I know it, we're all female leaders here. Part of this is wanting to see a track record where women are being promoted, where there is a pathway, where there is pipelines for women and other diverse minority groups.
This is all about having that representation and having it being part of the business imperative, not just a DEI thing, right? But if you think about it, the women that are in control of money, the women that are making these decisions, they're going to be looking at leadership teams for representation. They're going to be looking for that track record. So again, this is super important, especially with this lens of the great wealth transfer. There is the $30 trillion going to women, and this is what they're gonna be looking for.
So those are the five trends. I'm going to repeat them, but it's important for you as a female leader in your industry to listen to them and see how it impacts your industry, your company, and how you can frame up the conversation in a way that brings value and also elevates yourself as an expert and a trusted leader in this area.
So the first is women are the emerging economic power base. This is just about education. This is sharing this part of the education and how it can actually influence some of the outcomes and some of the marketing that you might do. The next one is stakeholder capitalism is the new bottom line. really thinking about the values that these stakeholders care about, which are sustainability, transparency, and governance.
And then the third one, of course, is about the power of relational capital, which is outperforming transactional tactics, creating a relationship with buyers, donors, wealth holders. The fourth, legacy thinking is shaping investment behavior. And so that's the legacy of your own organization, and that's the legacy that that other people want to create and have for themselves in the future. So number five is representation is a business imperative, not just a DEI sidebar. So thinking about that for yourself and your organization.
All right, so that was the what. That's like the what to say, the trends to be thinking about, the trends you want to introduce, the trends that you want to position yourself as an expert in. The next part is what to say to senior male leaders. You want to be leading with context, not critique. You don't want male leaders to get scared. You don't want to share this information with urgency and excitement, which sound great, but actually scare people, especially if they don't have any idea what you're talking about.
So I have a lot of women leaders who come to me and are like, I'm super excited and juiced up about sharing this idea with a male leader and then he just freaked out and froze on me and doesn't want to make any changes. And so I typically tell them, listen, you are just 10 steps ahead of them and they're scared. They don't know what you're talking about. They feel scared. They just want to shut you down because they can feel your anxious energy, your excitement, and they don't know what to do with it because it might be a lot of high energy and they're not used to that.
So first of all, you want to check yourself. You want to ground yourself. But this exciting conversation can be led in a way that is with them, for them, for you at the same time. And so that is slowing down, grounding yourself, being in your body, and getting the context right, right? Leading with context. Remember that you are opening up new insight, new perspectives, a new way of looking at things. So you need to lead with context and not critique. So you can't say we've been doing it all wrong, we've got to change everything because women are now going to have $30 trillion. That's not the way.
This is how I want you approaching it. Here's an example. “There's a shift happening in who holds economic power. And it's critical we understand how this changes the game for us and our business.” So you just want to notice how I said that in a very matter of fact way. And then I'm using we and I'm talking about our business. So you want to position yourself as a partner in future proofing the business and highlight alignment with business imperatives.
So again, for example, “If we want to grow our market share, donor base, stakeholder trust, we have to understand what's changing about who holds influence.” Again, use evidence and outcomes. You want to be able to not just talk about what this idea is, you wanna ground it with what your thoughts are, what evidence you have found, and what your thoughts are in terms of the commercial outcomes of shifting to this way of thinking and why it's important.
So, women-driven wealth plus inclusive leadership, right? Why does this equal higher retention, impact, performance, all of those things? You want to kind of get it out there and to share it with people, but to also be open to hearing what people have to say. And noticing for yourself that you are trying to build partnership, trust, and rapport, and you're wanting to show up as a partner in future-proofing the business and for the business. So again, lead with context, not critique, bring the men along with you.
All right, so I know that this was an episode where we introduced a lot of topics for you to think about, but as a woman leader, this is where you got to elevate yourself. Take yourself out of being reactive to problems in the business and get yourself to, and your organization and your leadership team to be proactive about what's happening with this Great Wealth Transfer and what it could mean for your business and how to future-proof your business.
All right, so here are some steps you can start with. Do some small steps, see how it goes, and then plan for bigger and bigger steps as you grow your confidence in talking about this subject matter. The first is start the conversation. Pick one senior leader, probably one that you have trust and rapport with, and talk about what your thoughts are. The second is framing up one upcoming project in terms of the Great Wealth Transfer trends.
So maybe there's a business case coming up and just on the side, you can start thinking about how this business case would be changed if we saw that the consumers of this product or of this business case are gonna be more and more women. How would that influence things, impact things? And then third, ask yourself, am I leading from the future or reacting to the past? Again, this is super powerful to elevate yourself, elevate your thinking and to be proactive and take control of what you know, the knowledge you have, and this great generational shift that's about to happen.
My final thought here is that this isn't about getting louder, it's about getting clearer. When you speak from strategy, vision, and economic intelligence, you become impossible to ignore. All right, women, go out there and take what I've shared and use it and influence and elevate yourself.
And I'd love to hear what you take away from this episode and how it's changing how you're seeing yourself as leader in your business and how you are reshaping the way your business is seeing the world. So feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, share all about it, and then of course review this episode if you haven't already done so yet. I will see you next week. Take good care.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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