What does sacred feminine leadership actually look like?
It is a question that feels very alive for me at the moment.
Within the Shamanic Way of the Womb® Apprenticeship, we are moving through our Luminary Leadership module — exploring what it means to become visible, to take our place, to hold responsibility and to develop a conscious relationship with power.
And this week I have the great privilege of welcoming one of my own teachers and mentors, Dr Lynne Sedgmore, to speak with the women about power, the Goddess Enneagramme and Luminary Leadership.
At the same time, I have just returned from the Glastonbury Goddess Conference, where I witnessed leadership not as a concept, but in action.
All of this has left me reflecting deeply on the kind of leadership we need now.
Sacred feminine leadership is not the absence of power
For many women, power is complicated.
We may have experienced power being used over us. We may have learned that being powerful means being dominant, controlling, forceful or somehow less feminine. Equally, in spiritual communities, we can sometimes become so wary of hierarchy that we struggle to acknowledge leadership at all.
But refusing to engage with power does not make power disappear.
Power exists wherever people gather.
The question becomes: how do we meet it consciously?
Sacred feminine leadership, for me, is not about making ourselves smaller so that everyone feels comfortable. Nor is it about replacing one hierarchy with another dressed in spiritual language.
It asks us to develop a mature relationship with power.
To know when to lead.
To know when to listen.
To recognise the gifts and expertise of others.
To take responsibility for our decisions.
To remain open to challenge.
And sometimes, to have the courage to make difficult decisions rather than avoiding them in the name of harmony.
Leadership in action
At this year’s Glastonbury Goddess Conference, leadership was visible everywhere.
Not simply on the stage or amongst those whose names appeared on the programme, but through the many different roles required to bring a large gathering into being.
There were Pillars holding responsibility for particular areas and teams. There were people organising, communicating, problem-solving, welcoming, building, tending, facilitating and responding to what was needed in the moment.
There were countless acts of leadership that might never be seen by most participants.
This is something I find deeply moving.
Leadership can be an act of devotion.
It can be carrying boxes, answering questions, managing a team, noticing what has been forgotten, holding a ceremonial role, keeping track of finances, making sure people are safe, communicating information or staying behind when everyone else has gone home.
Not all leadership is glamorous.
Much of it is service.
And yet service does not mean self-sacrifice without boundaries. Sustainable leadership also requires us to ask whether the structures around those people enable them to flourish.
From devotion to structure
The Goddess Conference itself is evolving.
The organisation has moved from being a limited company to becoming a Community Interest Company (CIC), and I now serve as one of its Directors.
That transition brings another layer to my exploration of feminine leadership.
How do we take something born through passion, devotion, creativity and enormous amounts of voluntary energy and create structures capable of sustaining it?
How do we make the most of the different skills around the table?
How do we create systems that support people rather than constraining them?
How do we make decisions clearly?
How do we establish governance and accountability while retaining creativity, spirituality and relationship?
These questions matter.
Because sacred feminine leadership cannot depend entirely upon goodwill, intuition and people continually giving more of themselves.
Devotion needs containers.
Vision needs systems.
Creativity needs resources.
Community needs communication.
Power needs accountability.
And organisations that we want to survive need governance and succession as well as inspiration.
Perhaps creating those structures is itself sacred work.
The myth that feminine leadership must always be harmonious
There is another edge to this conversation.
Women gathering together does not automatically create feminine leadership.
Neither does using circles, consensus or Goddess language.
We still bring our histories, wounds, personalities, fears, loyalties and relationships with power into the room.
There will be disagreement.
There will be different visions.
There will be moments when someone feels unheard.
There will be decisions that cannot please everybody.
Sacred leadership therefore requires more than kindness.
It requires courage.
It asks whether we can remain in relationship when we disagree.
Whether we can receive feedback without collapsing or immediately becoming defensive.
Whether we can challenge something without attacking the person.
Whether we can recognise when our particular skill is needed — and equally recognise when somebody else knows more than we do.
This, to me, is where leadership becomes practice rather than philosophy.
Luminary leadership
Within the Apprenticeship I use the language of Luminary Leadership.
A luminary illuminates.
She does not need to diminish another person’s light in order for her own to shine.
There is room for many lights.
This is one of the great possibilities I see within feminine leadership: moving beyond models in which one powerful person must sit at the centre of everything.
Instead, we can ask:
Where is the wisdom in this group?
Who has the skills needed here?
Who needs to lead this particular piece?
Who needs support?
What are we not seeing?
Whose voice has not yet been heard?
And what structures would allow all of those gifts to contribute to the whole?
Leadership then becomes something dynamic.
At times we lead from the front.
At times we stand beside.
At times we hold the edges.
At times our role is to witness.
And sometimes the most powerful leadership is knowing when to step back and allow another woman to step forward.
The womb and leadership
My own work has always returned to the womb as a place of creation.
And perhaps there is something here for leadership too.
The womb does not create without a container.
It holds.
It nourishes.
It responds.
It grows.
And eventually, it releases.
There is a rhythm of receiving and becoming, expansion and contraction, creation and letting go.
What might our organisations, businesses and communities become if our leadership understood these rhythms?
If we knew that sustainability matters as much as expansion?
If rest mattered alongside productivity?
If listening came before action — but listening did not become an excuse for never acting?
If structure could be understood not as the enemy of feminine flow, but as the vessel that allows something precious to be held?
Leadership as a living practice
I don’t believe I have arrived at a finished definition of sacred feminine leadership.
Perhaps that is part of its nature.
I am still a student.
I am still a teacher.
I am still learning from my mentors, from the women I teach, from the communities I serve, from the organisations I am part of and from the moments when leadership becomes uncomfortable enough to reveal something I could not previously see.
This week, as Dr Lynne Sedgmore joins our Apprenticeship women to explore power, the Goddess Enneagramme and Luminary Leadership, I am particularly aware of that lineage of learning.
We receive wisdom.
We embody it.
We test it in the reality of relationship.
And then we pass something onwards.
For me, sacred feminine leadership is not about becoming the woman with all the answers.
It is about becoming a woman willing to take her place, recognise her power, use it consciously, remain accountable, honour the gifts of others and help create structures in which the whole can flourish.
That feels like leadership worthy of the world we are trying to create.
Featured image by Katia Pulli @KP Ruby Red Photography
Angie Twydall is the founder of the Sanctuary of Sophia and creator of the Shamanic Way of the Womb®. Through training, ceremony, healing and apprenticeship, her work explores womb wisdom, sacred feminine spirituality and embodied leadership.