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Episode Description

In this episode of the Cultural Intelligence series, Julia speaks with Francesca Cavallo, an author and co-creator of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls to explore what it truly means to lead in a world where boys and girls are raised on radically different emotional blueprints.

From childhood the stories we’re told, girls are invited to understand emotions, their own and others’. Boys, on the other hand, are often cast in roles of action and control, with little space given to their emotional lives. This absence, Francesca felt in her own personal sphere and further states that it comes with consequences. When boys grow up into men, many bring into workplaces and relationships a deeply ingrained sense that masculinity must be earned and it can easily be lost.

What happens, then, when a woman is leading men raised on this narrow model of masculinity?

Francesca brings sharp insight and practical wisdom to this question. She shares how women can navigate moments of resistance, projection, or even emotional overwhelm in male-dominated teams without surrendering authority or compassion. She also challenges the common understanding of misogyny, reframing it not as hatred of women, but as hatred of the feminine qualities men have been taught to reject in themselves.

“You don’t need to dominate to lead men. But you do need to remember you’re in charge,” said Francesca.

Listen to this conversation to gain a new lens on cultural intelligence: one that includes gendered storytelling, emotional safety, and the quiet, often invisible pressures shaping how men show up and how women can lead them with clarity, empathy, and strength.

About the Guests

Francesca Cavallo

Francesca Cavallo is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series, which sold over 8 million copies worldwide and was translated into 49 languages. In 2019, she founded Undercats to radically boost diversity in children’s media. A year later, she released Doctor Li and the Crown-wearing Virus (translated into 38 languages) to fight Anti-Asian racism. In 2022, she launched Paralympians!, celebrating extraordinary Paralympic champions. A sought-after public speaker, Cavallo champions women’s and minorities’ rights at conferences around the globe. Her newest project is about masculinity, and it’s called Boys of the Future..

About the Host

Julia Middleton

Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading.

In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.

Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.
Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan.

Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and lots of grandchildren.