This system wasn’t built for you. Lead anyway.

Rose Odette
Dec 14, 2025
3 min read

The Truth About Leading in a System That Wasn’t Designed for You

Let’s just say it out loud.

You’re leading in a system that wasn’t designed for you. Not your voice. Not your instincts. Not your way of building power, trust, or momentum.

And yet… here you are. Still standing. Still leading. Still winning. The Truth About Leading in a System That Wasn’t Designed for You.

That’s not luck. That’s Lioness energy.

Join our Pride - https://thepride.leadlioness.vip/communities/groups/thepride/home?invite=693f23380ad95675cf0131ff

The Reality No One Likes to Admit - The Truth About Leading in a System That Wasn’t Designed for You

Most leadership systems were built around:

Command-and-control
Suppress emotion, reward ego
Power hoarding instead of power building
Linear careers instead of nonlinear lives

So when you lead with intuition, empathy, pattern recognition, and long-term vision — you’re often told to tone it down, toughen up, or play the game.

Translation: be less you.

Hard pass.

What Lioness Leadership Actually Looks Like

A lioness doesn’t ask permission to lead. She:

Protects the pride while advancing the hunt
Reads the environment before making the move
Builds loyalty, not fear
Knows when to push — and when to conserve energy

She doesn’t dominate for attention. She dominates through results.

That’s the model. Not the outdated playbook.

Five Lioness Ideals

You don’t need to fit the system — you need to outgrow it.
Your emotional intelligence is a weapon, not a weakness.
You lead through influence, not intimidation.
You see patterns others miss — that’s strategic advantage.
You don’t burn bridges; you build ecosystems.

Five Actions You Can Take This Week

Stop translating your leadership style to make others comfortable.
Call out outdated rules that no longer serve performance or people.
Build a circle that reinforces who you are becoming — not who you were.
Make one bold decision without over-explaining it.
Measure success by outcomes, not approval.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve ever felt like leadership came with invisible rules you were never taught — you’re not broken.

You’re early.

The future of leadership doesn’t look like the old system. It looks like you.

And the lioness doesn’t wait for the system to catch up. She builds her own terrain — and leads the pride across it.

Resources & Authority Links

About the Author

Rose Odette is a healthcare technology pioneer, entrepreneur, and author with over 25 years of experience building and scaling digital healthcare systems. After a 14-year career at IBM in healthcare technology—where she was awarded a patent—Rose founded The Wellness Connection, one of the first electronic medical record (EMR) companies to reach scale. The company grew into a $100 million enterprise, serving large healthcare organizations during the earliest days of digital healthcare adoption.

Rose is the founder of Awake Technologies Corporation and the voice behind The EMR Reckoning, a thought leadership platform examining what digital healthcare got right, what it got wrong, and what must come next in the Post-EMR Era.

Books by Rose Odette

The EMR Reckoning 25 Years of Digital Healthcare—What We Got Right, What We Got Wrong, and What Comes Next (forthcoming)
Charge Like a Bull A practical framework for relentless business growth 👉 https://a.co/d/4Imf61p
Charge Like a Bull: The Game-Plan Book Charge Like a Bull Workbook is your step-by-step blueprint to executing relentless growth strategies.👉 https://a.co/d/gWWxQ5B
Lead Like a Lioness Transformational leadership with strength, strategy, and soul 👉 https://a.co/d/4yhDlRB
Bullish on Execution Whether you’re running a startup, leading a division, or navigating a corporate jungle, BOE hands you the keys to a department-by-department weekly and quarterly execution rhythm that transforms potential into performance. 👉 https://a.co/d/4XHTCPl
Bullish on Immigration: How EB-5 Builds Wealth, Mobility & Multigenerational Security A bold, transformative guide for global families. 👉 https://a.co/d/fYNovxn