End of the year Reflections with Julia Middleton, Founder Women Emerging

As the year draws to a close, we caught up with Women Emerging founder, Julia Middleton, to reflect on 2024 and explore what’s next for Women Emerging. Let’s see what she had to say:

What are your reflections on how women lead, from what you may have observed from expeditions in 2024, speaking to podcast guests this year, speaking at events or speaking with other women in your life?

One reflection is confirming. Many of us are indeed tired of leading the way we see it done around us. We want to find our own way to lead, that resonates for us. It really is ‘our own’ way, there is no one size to fit all. For sure we want to share and explore together but we each want to pull together the insights in our own way that works for us individually. Let us not reject one model and then create another one!

The other reflection is that more and more of us believe deeply that we are ‘better together’. It’s a myth that we don’t work well together. Many of us know that there is something that naturally bonds us together. And I think we recognise that today the world badly needs our ability to bring people together, more than ever. 

Maybe you have been asked this a lot, but asking this again for our subscribers: Why did the first expedition explorers choose to redefine leading instead of being a leader?

Leading is hard and wonderful and it’s a verb. It’s something you choose to do, daily. It’s not a noun, a title to simply acquire. Many of us stand back from the word ‘leader’. ‘I’m not a leader’ I have heard over and over again from women who associate ‘leaders’ with ego, authority and hierarchy. But then they often then continue and say ‘yes I do lead’, the verb.

I often then ask ‘why then do you lead?’ and they reply that they want to see change and bring forth the talents of the people they lead. It’s really difficult to avoid using the word ‘leader’, it’s so common, but I’m getting better and better at sticking with the verb.

It's been 2 years since the first expedition ended. Can you share a few reflections on how it has impacted how you lead?

It is a very long list of big and small things, here are just a few:

• I am better at recognising that other people do things differently and often get better results.
  On the podcast I interviewed a Conductor who invites the orchestra to play not by using her voice but with her hands, I often reflect on the simplicity, elegance and effectiveness of this.

• I hope that I am getting better at spotting and avoiding trigger words and expressions that confuse or divert people from what they are trying to say or do.
  I recently used the word ‘different’ and couldn’t figure out why it had taken the conversation in an unpredictable direction. Then the disabled women explained what the word triggered in her and I understood.

• Recognising when I am the right person to lead and when I am not.
  I was picking the brains of an explorer from the first expedition and she said ‘you can’t lead that expedition julia’. She was right, it’s an expedition that needs gentle leading, it should not be lead by a disruptor. So I have now found the right person to do it.

• Calibrating my Energy.

  I know that I generate a lot of Energy. Some people are drawn to it. But I am better now at recognising that it’s not always about regenerating Energy, it’s also about releasing it in others. I sometimes get this right but not always. It feels so easy to just rely on my own Energy, but it doesn’t always work and it’s also exhausting.

 How has 2024 been for Women Emerging? Can you highlight the milestones that we have crossed?

For me doing the weekly podcast, has been an expedition in itself. I learn a huge amount from every episode. And for us as a team it has been a year of putting the foundational pieces in place so that we can build and scale in 2025.
We have built the team, sorted the systems and processes, designed and tested the expeditions, learnt, relearnt, adapted, pivoted, adjusted, forgiven ourselves for mistakes, listened to the successes and coped with that start up sense of one minute being on top of things and the next thinking everything is a mess.

We end the year ready for 2025.

What is in store for Women Emerging in 2025?

More expeditions in more places, with more women, doing different things. And a hub to capture all that we all are learning for all of us. It’s really as simple as this.

Some group expeditions will be run and lead by the Women Emerging team and some will be DIY as we train and support women to run their own group expeditions.

Doing it alone will also be an option, with a solo online expedition available. And we will create variants of the solo expeditions for specific groups developed by explorers on group expeditions so that they share their learnings with their colleagues and communities. We are looking for 500 women to help us finalise and test the solo expedition ready for an open launch in the spring.

The Hub will also launch in the spring, it too will be a first iteration so that women can tell us what they think and what they want. By using AI we will be able make the insights gathered on expeditions freely open to all, and not just in English.

As an expedition leader, has there been an instance or a reflection from an explorer that has stayed with you?

A young teacher in Nigeria sent me a photograph last week of herself in a classroom full of 16 year old girls. She was drawing the 4Es on the chalk board and the word Essence jumped out. The teacher herself had been on an expedition, along with 24 fellow teachers, she was now taking all that she discovered into her own classroom. We have named this girls expedition WE16.

Scaling WE16 will be a joy over the next few years.

Explorers create WhatsApp groups to share their insights and they let me join them. I watch their chat, see them ask each other questions and offer each other answers. They are glorious answers that I would never have thought of. My delight was a few weeks ago when Shruti, from the GBSN expedition, explained the flow from Essence to Expression and then from Expression back into Essence. It was utterly beautifully. We are going to do a podcast episode with Shruti.

As we end this interview, tell us your top 3 AHA moments from 2024, of building the Women Emerging movement

• Young women are building their friendships with other women who are leading much more effectively than even women ten years older. They believe firmly in ‘better together’. This will make them a far more effective generation.

• Motherness is a central piece of women’s Essence and has a deep impact on how they lead. This has been the consistent message on every 2024 expedition in whatever sector, whichever generation and wherever they are from. It plays out in in their nurturing, their lack of ego, their firmness and in their ingenuity when leading. Explorers have also loved the invented term ‘motherness’ which recognises that these instincts are not restricted to women who have birthed children.

• Many cities want to host expeditions. Because the women across them want to break away from approaches to leading that fail to resonate with them. I can see these city based expeditions growing in 2025, for many there is the sense that cities are fracturing and that women bringing their legendary convening skills may help to counterbalance this.

We look forward to redefining and reframing leading with more of you in 2025!