If you’re a woman in leadership and still saying, “I’m not in sales,” I have bad news: you’re playing small and calling it strategy.

Here’s the truth: whether you’re pitching an idea, interviewing for a job, navigating a conflict, or influencing where your team goes next quarter (or what your toddler has for dinner), you’re in sales. Sales isn’t about a quota. It’s your ability to move people with your presence, words and energy.

However, too many high-performing women — especially in leadership — fall into two dangerous patterns that keep them stuck:

  • The overfunctioner: quietly overdelivering, under-asking, and mistaking work ethic for strategy.
  • The survivor: still operating in survival mode, leading from armor — defensiveness, control, and guardedness — because that’s what kept her safe in male-dominated rooms.

I’ve been both. I’ve led both. And I’ve coached dozens of women who are brilliant, competent, and completely unaware that their power is being diluted by the very habits that helped them succeed.

It’s time we call out both ends of the spectrum, passivity and protection, and invite a new model of leadership: one rooted in clarity, conscious influence, and unapologetic energy.

The Overfunctioner: Hoping to Be Noticed

Early in my career I thought if I just worked hard enough someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, “Wow. You’re amazing. Let’s promote you.”

That moment never came. Instead, what came was exhaustion, quiet resentment, and the slow realization that I was holding myself back by trying to be the “good soldier” instead of the strategic leader.

We’ve all seen it: the ill-equipped leader with the bigger title and even bigger paycheck. The one who gets by with half the skill and none of the grind. And yeah, you’re smarter. You work harder. But they asked for it. You’ve been waiting to be discovered. They’ve been demanding to be heard.

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: You don’t get what you earn, you get what you articulate.

You weren’t promoted to prove yourself. You were promoted to move the room.

The Survivor: When Armor Becomes the Cage

Then there’s the flip side: the women who have fought tooth and nail to get a seat at the table. I honor them and have immense respect and gratitude for them. But I also see the toll it’s taken.

I’ve been in rooms where I knew I had to be sharper, faster, and more prepared than anyone else just to be heard. I led teams while grieving, built departments from scratch, pitched to investors while navigating IVF, and kept going because “soft” wasn’t an option.

That armor served me … until it didn’t. Because when the fight becomes your identity, you stop knowing how to trust, delegate, or make space for others to rise. You lead from a place of protection and scarcity, not vision. And your influence suffers.

You can’t build what’s next if you’re still flinching from the fight.

The next generation is watching. We can’t mentor, empower, or open doors if we’re still gripping our seat with one hand and our battle scars with the other.

I’ve seen it in women’s organizations. In C-suites. In mentorship rooms that were anything but safe. And it breaks my heart. We need women who remember the fight but don’t become the gate.

Sales is Just Influence — and You’re Already Doing It

Sales isn’t about being transactional. It’s about moving people toward alignment.

  • Convincing a colleague to try something new? That’s sales.
  • Coaching a team through change? Sales.
  • Getting your spouse to agree to a weekend away or your kid to eat something green? Sales.

As chief revenue officer, I didn’t just close deals. I translated big ideas into aligned, lasting partnerships by driving vision, value and velocity across teams — not because I was pushy, but because I understood people. Sales was never about a pitch; it was about reframing the room.

Even now, I work with leaders who say, “I’m not in sales,” but are responsible for culture, hiring, customer experience, retention. If you’re leading anyone, you’re influencing everything.

The Shift: From Performative to Powerful

So how do we shift? It starts by identifying where we’re stuck in old patterns. Some common phrases I hear people say and how to reframe for momentum:

  • “I need to earn my seat” → “I already have a seat. Now I use it to shift the room.”
  • “They’ll see my value if I just keep showing up.” → “I’ll make my value unmistakingly clear.”
  • “I don’t want to seem too aggressive” → “Clarity isn’t aggression; it’s leadership.”
  • “I should wait until I have more experience.” → “Experience is built in motion. I’m already equipped.”
  • “They’ll think I’m too much.” → “Too much for whom? I’m not here to shrink to fit small rooms.”
  • “I can’t make that career move, my entire network is in this industry” → “If my network limits my growth, it’s not a network, it’s a comfort zone.”
  • “I don’t know what to do next” → “I don’t have the full plan, but I have the next right step.”

One of the most powerful questions I ask in my trainings is,  “Are you performing leadership or embodying it?” Performing looks like overfunctioning, hoping to be noticed, or protecting what you’ve built. Leading looks like asking directly, trusting others, influencing outcomes without ego.

In my ACRA framework, this is where Check Your Self and Reframe the Room come in. Are you reacting from fear or responding from alignment? Are you letting your presence speak before your voice ever does?

The next generation of women leaders is watching. If we don’t model healthy influence, we’re just passing down burnout in better outfits. The next era of leadership will be built by women who stopped performing and started owning the room.

Chrissy Dunlap is the founder of the Power of ACRA.