WE Explorer Nayonika Roy on What She Discovered About her Essence 

When Nayonika first encountered the word motherness, she wasn’t sure it belonged to her. She had grown up believing that strong leaders relied on masculine leadership traits; firmness, distance, authority and control. Care was something separate. Softness was something to outgrow. And yet, as she reflected, she realised that the way she already moved through the world told a different story. 

“I kept coming back to it,” she said. “Leading with care. Leading with sensitivity. Being aware of other people’s emotions.” 

In her conversation with Julia Middleton on the Women Emerging Podcast, India expedition explorer –  Nayonika Roy who is a development sector professional working across girl-child education, social justice, gender equality, and women leading –  explores what happens when you stop rejecting what you are and start practising authentic leadership rooted in feminine energy and purpose. 

From Rejection to Recognition 

At first, during the early days of her expedition, motherness felt like a limit. To her, it sounded like something small, something that might diminish authority. Something domestic. She had watched women around her held back by this label, softened by it, reduced by it. 

These are the invisible gender differences in leadership she had witnessed for years. Care was seen as weakness. Sensitivity was seen as distraction. Authority belonged to distance. But slowly, her understanding shifted.

She began to see motherness not as weakness, but as attentiveness. Not as softness that shrinks you, but strength that holds others steady. The kind of feminine leadership that makes people feel safe without losing structure or direction. She realized that she was already doing this, noticing when someone was struggling, reading the room, holding emotional undercurrents without being overwhelmed by them. And instead of resisting it, she began to embrace it. This was her first real step into purposeful leadership. 

Jettisoning the Authoritarian Model 

Having grown up within patriarchal systems and later deepening her understanding of the Indian caste System during her time at the University, Nayonika had absorbed a narrow idea of authority. 

“The real leader is someone who controls,” she knew she had been taught. Firm voice. Final answers. No room for uncertainty. A very rigid form of masculine leadership. But this model never sat well with her. She didn’t want to rule people. She didn’t want to dominate conversations. She wanted something quieter, but not weaker. She wanted to lead without silencing. 

Through the India expedition, she began to trust that instinct and build her own influence, not through force, but through trust, redefining traditional leadership tactics into something far more human. 

Asking Better Questions Instead of Giving Orders 

One of the most important shifts in Nayonika’s practice was letting go of having to be the one with all the answers. “I don’t want to be the person holding all the answers,” she said. Now, when her team comes to her, she resists the urge to fix everything. She doesn’t deliver solutions first. She asks questions. What do you think? Where do you see this going? At first, it unsettled people. They were used to a boss who told them what to do. Over time, it did something more powerful, it made them think. Leadership stopped being top-down. It became shared. This was her way of practising influencing in leadership through trust rather than control. 

Learning From the Women Around Her 

When Julia asked about “ancestors”, Nayonika didn’t immediately think of family. She thought of women. Women she had watched quietly. Women whose tone, timing, patience, and presence had taught her more than formal leadership training ever could. “I’m a dancer,” she said. “And most of what I learned was by watching other people.” 

She brought that same instinct to her work; observing how women held space, de-escalated conflict, nurtured teams, and still stayed firm. These women shaped her long before she had language for it. These women embodied a form of feminine leadership long before Nayonika had language for it. 

Staying in Difficult Conversations 

Earlier in her career, Nayonika often avoided conflict. “I used to walk away,” she said. But she began to see the cost of that avoidance. Silence didn’t protect people. It postponed harm. It left misunderstandings unresolved.  Now, she tries to stay. To ask questions. To practise truly having difficult conversations, instead of escaping them. To understand before correcting. 

She shared a moment that stayed with her; a young boy challenging her beliefs about dowry, not as defence, but from lived fear for his sisters. That moment changed how she listens. It changed how she responds. It changed how she leads. 

Reframing, Jettisoning and Creating Space 

Nayonika doesn’t believe growth comes only from adding more. Sometimes it comes from letting go. “There are things I need to reframe,” she said. “There are things I need to jettison.” She spoke openly about wanting to create a space where her team could release discomfort, frustration, or confusion instead of swallowing it. And then she named something deeply personal. She wanted to let go of the good girl syndrome. 
“I don’t want to live by expectations anymore,” she said. 
“I want to live by the expectations I set for myself.” 
This is what it meant for her to begin breaking free from the good girl syndrome and stepping into her own way of leading. 

What Nayonika Leaves You Thinking About 

1. Motherness can be a form of power. 
Care doesn’t dilute authority. It deepens it. 

2. You don’t need to dominate to be strong. 
Strength can be steady, calm, and emotionally intelligent. 

3. Better questions build better leadership. 
You don’t have to hold all the answers. 

4. Growth requires letting go. 
Some parts of yourself don’t need to be improved — they need to be released. 

5. You get to define who you are. 
You don’t owe the world “good girl” behaviour. You owe yourself honesty and freedom. 

🎧 Listen to the full conversation between Julia Middleton and Nayonika Roy on the Women Emerging Podcast.