Leadership for women who run businesses
You built the business. Now you have to lead it.
Honest, practical writing on leading people, building a business that doesn’t depend on you, and getting seen — from someone who has made most of the mistakes first.

77,000+ women in the Women’s Entrepreneur Network. · Duke MBA · Founder of several businesses
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Lead Your Team
Delegation, hiring, difficult conversations, and becoming the boss you’d want to work for.
Build the Business
Pricing, launching, systems, and building something that doesn’t depend on you.
Women in Leadership
Negotiation, the pay gap, and what the research actually says about women who lead.
Get Seen
Being visible without the cringe — podcasts, content, and being remembered.
Lead Yourself
Courage, your inner critic, time, and protecting what matters most.
You're Not Alone
The loneliness of leading, and why the best owners don’t solve everything alone.
Latest from the Blog
What to Do When You’re Stuck in Analysis Paralysis
Analysis paralysis is rarely an information problem. People stuck on a decision usually have plenty of information — frequently more than they need. What they don't have is a rule for when to stop looking. The idea that fixes this Herbert Simon, who won the...
Decision Fatigue: What’s Real and What Isn’t
By four in the afternoon, decisions you'd have made carefully at nine get made carelessly, or not at all. Most people who run something recognise this immediately. The usual explanation for it is wrong, or at least much shakier than it's presented. Which matters,...
When to Trust Your Gut, and When Not To
"Trust your gut" and "don't make emotional decisions" are both standard advice, and they contradict each other. Neither tells you which situation you're in. There's a good answer to that, and it comes from an unusual source. Two researchers who expected to disagree...
Why “Busy” Is a Red Flag: Identifying Unhealthy Priorities
Ask a business owner how things are going and the most common answer is "busy." It functions as good news. It signals demand, momentum, a business that people want. Nobody follows up. Which is convenient, because busy tells you nothing about whether the business is...
How to Stop Feeling Behind All the Time
Behind what? It's worth actually answering, because the feeling of being behind requires a schedule — and there isn't one. Nobody issued a timetable for how large your business should be by now, or what you should be earning in year four, or when you were...
Rest Is a Leadership Skill
Rest gets filed under self-care, which is why owners ignore it. Self-care sounds like something you do when there's spare capacity, and there is never spare capacity. Try a different frame. Your judgement is the product. Not your hours — your judgement. Pricing,...
What Happens When You Build a Business That Depends on You
Here's the question that settles it, and most owners flinch slightly when they hear it. If you disappeared for a month with no notice, what would happen? Not a planned holiday with everything prepared. Gone, unexpectedly, for four weeks. If the honest answer is that...
Founders, Find Your Work-Life Balance: Tips That Actually Work
Most work-life balance advice was written for people with jobs. That's not a small distinction. A job comes with an external boundary — contracted hours, someone else's deadlines, a defined scope, and a moment where the building closes. The advice assumes that...
Boundaries Every Woman Leader Needs
The advice to set boundaries is given as though the setting is the hard part. It isn't. Saying no takes two seconds. The hard part is what happens afterwards — and that differs depending on who's doing it. The asymmetry, stated plainly The same boundary reads...

Meet Haley
Engineer, Duke MBA, mother of four — and still learning to lead.
I’m Haley Lynn Gray, founder of Leadership Girl, the Women’s Entrepreneur Network and In2itive Biz Solutions. I write about what building businesses has actually taught me — including the expensive parts.

Join 77,000+ women building businesses — and leading them.
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