"It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional"

Billie Jean King underscores a stubborn double standard in how we read leadership. Men are routinely granted a full emotional spectrum by default: toughness is offset, in the public imagination, by an assumed tenderness. That automatic allowance softens edges, excuses missteps, and makes their authority feel compatible with humanity. Women, by contrast, are often flattened into a single trait. The moment they occupy authority, their complexity is collapsed into a simple label, too tough, too nice, too emotional, not emotional enough, any one feature eclipsing the rest of their identity and record.

This one-dimensional lens fuels the well-documented double bind. Assertiveness in a woman is reframed as abrasiveness; warmth is reinterpreted as weakness. The same behavior that signals decisiveness in a man can be read as domineering in a woman. Even positive expressions, passion, urgency, conviction, are policed more tightly, narrowing the safe emotional bandwidth available to female leaders. The result is a constant, exhausting self-editing: calibrating tone, facial expressions, and word choices to preempt misreadings that men rarely face.

The costs are collective as well as personal. Organizations lose out when they reward a narrow, stereotyped template for leadership and penalize those who diverge from it. Potential leaders opt out or burn out. Teams receive less candid feedback and less creative risk-taking because authenticity feels unsafe. Media narratives and performance evaluations then echo the same biases, reinforcing the cycle.

Breaking this pattern requires expanding the accepted image of leadership for everyone. Evaluate outcomes and impact rather than personality codes. Train managers to recognize likeability-competence bias. Audit language in reviews and coverage for gendered framing. Showcase diverse leadership styles so multidimensionality becomes familiar, not exceptional. Encourage men to model care without treating it as extraordinary, and women to lead without paying a tax for strength. When we allow leaders of any gender to be fully human, we get better decisions, more trust, and healthier institutions.