Last issue, we talked about the rooms.

The ones built without women's voices. The ones where budgets were written and policies were set by people who came home to someone else managing everything. The kitchen table has been absorbing the consequences for generations.

This issue is about what happens when you decide to take your seat anyway.

By the way, nobody puts this in the campaign brochure.

Many women who lead at this level end up divorced.

Not because they loved their families less.
Not because they chose wrong.
Because the rooms of public leadership were designed for someone who had a wife at home.

When a woman walks into those rooms, no one automatically fills that role. The structure does not shift. And the weight of both worlds has to land somewhere.

More times than not, it lands at home.

The Catalyst Perspective

According to Vote Mama Foundation, only 5.3% of all state legislators across the country are women with children under 18 at home. Only 7% of members of Congress are mothers of minor children. Nearly 18% of the United States population are mothers with children under 18.

That gap is not a coincidence. That is policy failure made visible.

The question worth asking is not whether women face barriers in public leadership. That documentation is extensive. The question is what those barriers cost women once they are already in the room. The Under Pressure report, published in September 2025 by the Mayors Innovation Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, answers that question with data that demands sustained attention. POLITICO cited its findings in October 2025.

I served as a contributing researcher on this report alongside former Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, facilitating the interviews with women in executive public office whose experiences shaped these findings. The report states directly that the roadblocks women face in public leadership may not be flaws in the system, but features of it, designed to uphold the status quo.

One woman named it plainly: "The system has been set up for retirees and ultra privileged individuals to serve."

Photo Credit: Mayors Innovation Project

Nearly 18% of women interviewed were questioned about whether they could simultaneously raise children and hold office (Midthun & Spear, Mayors Innovation Project, September 2025).

No one directed those questions at their male counterparts. ​
For men in the same roles, capability was the standing assumption. Someone at home was handling it.

The barriers cost women time with their families, personal privacy, security, and their mental and physical health. Only 32% said they would personally seek the role a second time (Midthun & Spear, Mayors Innovation Project, September 2025). Only 17% would definitively pursue higher office (Midthun & Spear, Mayors Innovation Project, September 2025).

That is not a failure of the women. That is the cost of entering a room that was not built to receive them.

That is not a bug in the design.
That is the design. And it was never built with any of us in mind.

The SCALE™ Framework for Public Sector Leadership™

Every issue of The Leadership Catalyst™ is built on the SCALE™ Framework for Public Sector Leadership™. Here is how it speaks directly to where you are right now.

S — Strengths-Based Leadership™ Your strength is not solitary endurance. It is collaborative leadership. What changes in public office is the pressure it places on the people closest to you.

C — Confidence and Cognitive Reframing™ The cost of public leadership does not have to be your marriage. Preventing that outcome requires preparation before the announcement, not repair after the first crisis. You are not entering this without forewarning. You are reading this with time to prepare.

A — Aligned Values and Boundary Negotiation™ Whether you are married, partnered, or navigating this alongside family in any form, one conversation belongs in the calm before the pressure. What will the role cost, and what sustaining it requires from the people in your home? Boundaries negotiated in a season of calm are decisions. Boundaries discovered under pressure are fractures.

L — Leadership Longevity™ The leaders who sustain meaningful public careers build support before a crisis makes it urgent. Family will carry you as far as love and loyalty can reach. But there is a ceiling to what someone who has never held the seat can fully understand. The leaders who go the distance build a second layer. People who have sat where they are sitting. Who know what the room actually costs. That is not a luxury. That is infrastructure.

E — Emboldened Ecosystem Building™ Your ecosystem begins at home. Your partner, your children, your closest family are the foundation of your leadership. An ecosystem built around your public role but not through your closest relationships is built on shaky ground.

Take Action Today

Have the conversation you have been postponing.

Not the announcement.
The real one.

The one where you say what you are carrying, what you are considering, and what you need from the person sitting across from you.

If you are already in office and that conversation never happened, it is not too late. It is just harder.
Every week without it is a week the weight lands somewhere it was not prepared to hold.
Harder is not the same as impossible.

Reply and tell me what this brought up for you. I read every reply and I respond to every one.

Considering.
Already in office.
Standing at the edge of the decision.
​
All of it belongs in this space.

Seventy-nine percent of women in the Under Pressure study said they would still encourage another woman to pursue public leadership.

Despite everything the report documents.
Despite what it cost them.

Because women understand the assignment.

When we are not in the seats, our families and communities pay the price. The kitchen table keeps absorbing what the room refuses to address.

That is not a statistic about resilience. That is a statement about what becomes possible when a woman leads prepared rather than blindsided.

If this issue found you at the right moment, forward it to one woman who needs to read it.
​She can subscribe and confirm her subscription at the link below so the next issue lands directly in her inbox.

​http://bit.ly/4fMSOBI​

The room was not built for you.

Build it on your own terms. But first, talk to the people who will be waiting for you when you come home.

The full Under Pressure report is available at mayorsinnovation.org.

In partnership and purpose,