A few days ago, I was standing in a dry riverbed in Namibia.
Watching a herd of elephants move across the sand.
No noise.
No competition.
No visible struggle for power.
Just… flow.
Twenty animals moving as one.
And at the front?
Not the biggest elephant.
Not the strongest.
Not the most aggressive.
The oldest female.
And in that moment, something clicked.
What if everything we’ve been taught about leadership is backwards?
The leader who doesn’t perform
Here’s what fascinated me.
The matriarch wasn’t acting like a leader.
She wasn’t posturing.
She wasn’t signaling dominance.
She wasn’t trying to look powerful.
She wasn’t even trying.
She was simply keeping everyone alive.
Namibian desert elephants are among the most extraordinary animals on Earth.
They survive in one of the harshest environments imaginable.
They can go up to four days without water. They walk hundreds of kilometers across barren land. They dig wells in dry riverbeds to access water hidden beneath the sand
And here’s the wild part:
The herd survives because one female remembers where to go.
Water sources humans don’t even know exist.
Migration routes passed down through memory.
Patterns encoded over decades.
When a matriarch dies too early…
The herd doesn’t just grieve.
It gets lost.
The knowledge dies with her.
Nature’s hidden leadership model
It turns out… elephants aren’t unique.
Across the animal kingdom, something fascinating appears.
The most intelligent, social mammals, the ones that rely on cooperation, memory, and emotional bonds, evolve toward female-led systems.
And in humans?
It goes even further.
The rarest trait in Nature
Out of more than 5,000 mammal species on Earth, only a handful have evolved menopause.
Humans.
Killer whales.
Pilot whales.
Belugas.
Narwhals.
That’s it.
Now think about this.
Evolution is ruthless.
It eliminates anything that doesn’t serve survival.
So why would it turn off reproduction in a female who still has decades of life ahead?
We assume menopause is a ‘decline’. A biological shutdown.
But it turns out, it’s an upgrade.
Scientists call this the Grandmother Hypothesis.
In certain species, older females become so valuable to survival not by giving birth, but by giving guidance, that evolution rewired their biology on purpose to free them from reproduction.
So they could lead.
Let that sink in.
Evolution didn’t make a mistake.
It made a decision.
Stop reproducing. Your value now is wisdom.
The pattern we can’t ignore
Look at the species where this shows up:
Elephants. Whales. Humans.
The three most socially complex mammals on Earth.
They all:
- Live in multi-generational families
- Communicate across distance
- Form lifelong bonds
- Mourn their dead
- Depend on shared knowledge to survive
And when left to evolve naturally…
They all arrive at the same answer:
Put the wisest female in front.
Not a decline. A promotion.
Now let’s bring this home.
When a woman goes through menopause…
We treat it as a decline.
Loss.
A closing chapter.
But biologically?
Something profound is happening.
Her role isn’t shrinking.
It’s expanding.
She is being freed from reproduction to focus on something far more important:
Protecting.
Guiding.
Stabilizing the group.
And here’s the truth most people miss:
Evolution does not keep anything alive that isn’t useful.
So the fact that women live 30–40 years beyond reproduction tells us something extraordinary:
Those decades are not leftover time. They are mission-critical years.
In whale pods, when a post-menopausal female dies, her sons are significantly more likely to die within a year.
In early human tribes, older women were the living libraries of survival.
They carried memories.
And memory meant life.
So no, Menopause isn’t the end.
It’s the promotion into leadership.
So what happened to us?
Because if this is what we evolved for…
Why does our world look so different?
Why do we consistently choose leaders based on:
Dominance, Charisma, Visibility, and Performance.
Instead of:
Wisdom, Memory, Emotional intelligence, and Long-term thinking.
Of 194 countries, only about 10% are led by women.
We didn’t evolve this way.
We constructed this.
The lie about emotion
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
One of the most common arguments against female leadership is this:
“Women are too emotional.”
So let’s look at the data.
Globally:
75% of suicides are male. Men die by suicide at 4x the rate of women.
Men commit ~90% of homicides.
Over 95% of road rage incidents are male
That’s not emotion.
That’s unprocessed emotion
Research shows:
| Men suppress | Women process |
| Men avoid | Women regulate |
So let me ask you a question:
Which gender is actually struggling more with emotional control?
We’ve created a world where:
The group more likely to explode under emotional pressure is called “rational.”
The group better at processing emotion is called “too emotional.”
That’s not logic. That’s conditioning.
Two operating systems
This isn’t about men vs women.
It’s about how you lead.
There are two leadership operating systems:
| 1. Performance Leadership – Speed – Dominance – Competition – Control It asks: Who wins? | 2. Matriarch Leadership – Wisdom – Memory – Empathy – Long-term thinking It asks: What sustains? |
Both exist in all of us.
But look at the world today, and ask yourself honestly:
Which one are we rewarding?
Why this matters now
Because we are entering a different kind of world.
AI is reshaping industries.
Climate instability is accelerating.
Global systems are shifting fast.
This is no longer a game of conquest.
It’s a game of survival.
And survival doesn’t favor the loudest voice.
It favors the clearest one.
The one who remembers.
The one who sees patterns.
The one who knows when to move and when to wait.
That’s the matriarch.
The moment this becomes personal
Because this isn’t just about governments.
It’s about you.
At some point in your life, the game changes.
You stop needing to prove.
You stop needing to win.
And you start needing to: guide, protect, and elevate others
That’s the shift.
From:
Performer → Steward
Competitor → Guardian
Leader → Matriarch energy
(Yes, even if you’re a man.)
The question that actually matters
Standing there in that riverbed…
Watching that herd move as one…
I wasn’t watching animals.
I was watching a system that works.
A system tested over millions of years.
And it kept pointing to the same truth:
Experience over ego
Memory over speed
Collective care over dominance
So the real question isn’t: “Should women lead?”
The real question is: What kind of leadership do we need now?
Because nature already answered that.
And she’s been right every single time.
If this made you pause, question, or see leadership differently… share your reflection and leave a comment. Those conversations are where real shifts begin.
With Love,
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261 Responses
Vishen, THANK YOU !!
for bringing forward this topic in such a thoughtful way.
As an older woman (77) it’s my first time entering a blog; I guess it’s about time, especially about such a crucial issue.
Vishen, I find your effort regarding this topic encouraging and by the majority of comments coming in, from other women – so far; they find it truthful and hopeful, as well.
“Times, they are a changing” – yes, and it’s a major constant in life that we seem to resist. We, firstly as humans, then as male/female, then by race/culture … We, in enough measure, need to join voices/initiative to Push Forward and Collectively to get out of the physical, philosophical mess We’re in !
Again, thank you, for broaching this issue. From specifics, in the comment thread, others have also lived, poignantly, the dichotomy you expressed.
My experience has taken me through both sides, of the dichotomy – strong, physical competiveness playing female varsity hockey 60 years ago (not well accepted); trained in a specialzed field (microfossils) and working in a male dominated field (geological); life caught up with extensive participation in consensus based land planning and my more generalized nature came forward.
Yes, Perspectives are definitely changing !! Quick enough ?
From my viewpoint and the patterns I’ve experienced,
Our Lives Won’t Alter – Until We Can Work Out:
How do you ‘ethically’ change -others, your own, – Perspective ??
Is that not – The Pattern – that underlies humanity and AI !! ??
I agree with you wholeheartedly. What you are pointing out seems obvious. Perhaps soon others may recognize the truth you speak, and this wisdom, this logic will expand as others recognize it too – what nature demonstrates. I hope so.
Yes! Thank you for taking the time to express this knowledge.
Thank you for sharing this vision.
Cooperation and tolerance are at the heart of a community at peace.
Wow Vishen, such an inspirational post! The wisdom you’re pointing to – from nature, from older women, from those whose voices have long been pushed to the margins – is exactly what the world needs more of right now.
The dominant Western paradigm separated leadership from care, speed from depth, and power from wisdom. We can learn so much from cultures who live more in balance with nature. Like the Ubuntu philosophy, “I am because we are” – the wellbeing of the whole is the true measure of good leadership. And closer to my home: Europe once had its own lineage of nature-based wisdom, held largely by women – healers, midwives, keepers of plant knowledge and seasonal rhythms. The witch trials did not just burn people; they burned a way of knowing. What we are slowly reclaiming now, through embodiment, ecology and regenerative leadership, is in part that very knowledge returning.
I feel this personally. As a mother and as a leadership developer, I want my children to grow old in a world where care for each other and care for the earth are not soft add-ons to serious leadership, but the heart of it. And that quality of leading, deep listening, care, connection to what is alive, is available to every human being.
That is what keeps me going.
Thank you Vishen! This is golden.
As a woman, I have led male teams to success in long term projects with emotional intelligence, intuition, regulation, balance, empathy and yes, hard decisions taken sometimes with emotional engagement perceived as weakness by leadership positions, usually men.
I am truly grateful that you, with your voice, dedicate a blog article to start this conversation, well avoided by design for so long.
Thank you for that view on the female power. It brings hope. It brings awareness and elevates the common consciousness.
Looking forward to seeing you in Tallinn soon!
I just loved your blog this week. As a post-menopausal South African and elephant lover, your blog spoke to my soul. With less estrogen and more testosterone, the result is less people-pleasing and more assertiveness, confidence, decisiveness, emotional resilience, and a different way of focusing. This has undoubtably enhanced my BS-meter and the way I manage family, friend, and life dynamics. An interesting observation is that the men in my extended family seem to be more open to the change in leadership role within the family from patriarchal to matriarchal than the immediate female relatives in the family. My guess is that the higher estrogen levels in these women perpetuate the patriarchal leadership role.
This is perhaps one of my favourite articles from you🙏☺️ There is definitely the purpose of leadership, wisdom and guidance for women, particularly as we navigate menopause. Maybe…it is that we need dual leadership in this world. Both masculine and feminine energy as world leaders working together. I feel like if we take things right back to basics…there would be a feminine leader who looked after the clan’s emotional and social wellbeing (medicine woman for example) and a masculine leader who would lead in hunting and physical protection. Sometimes moments call for quick snap decisions and sometimes a decision for the community needs to be sat with and reflected with emotional well-being factoring in ☺️ Lately, I have been really wondering why it is that our world leaders aren’t required to learn emotional regulation…we need less world decisions being made by overgrown toddlers and more made from true wisdom, experience and high emotional intelligence…not those devoid of emotions…but those who are able to feel their emotions fully and have learnt to be guided by their emotions rather than ruled by them.
Thank you for another great read…I hope you and your family are having an amazing experience in Namibia. And I hope you have a wonderful Easter 🐣🍫
At last!!! You are wise beyond your years Vishen. I thank God for your mother. God bless her beautiful soul. She gave birth to a wise old soul. Cherish your mom. Cherish your daughter and nurture her and her mum and all the women in your space. Your life will never be the same ever again now that you have seen what you have seen. Nature is ancient sacred wisdom encoded.
I am not surprised at all that your awakening to this truth happened on my continent – Africa, not through AI, but in an organic way through THE MOTHER on the soil where the big Colonization RAPE happened. Vishen do yourself a favour and read the life story of Sara Baartman. She lived 200+ years ago in South Africa. Then was taken to France, put in a cage and called a freak for rich French people to mock and ridicule. She is one of our oldest ancestors. Nelson Mandela and an entourage had to go and negotiate to bring her African bones back for a decent burial, after he became the first Black President of our Democracy. Then go to Malta and go into ancient temples and read and explore and discover ancient female led civilizations where there was not one war ever fought. Around the globe are traces where women mattered once. Read the history of Joan of Arc and I can mention many more.
If you want to be a game changer, amplify what you have discovered. Women are the carriers of the ancient wisdom codes. I have served women since age 22 and I am 66 years old. I love Mind valley, but Mind valley has never discovered the depth of ancient wisdom of Africa in the way I have found today in your share of the Elephants. I work with women leaders daily to strip away the layers of deep programming. We are scraping the surface. The layers pain and suffering are deep So, Thank you Vishen. Today you caught my attention, and YOU ARE what JuanPa would probably call an embodiment of Pure Presence. I am deeply grateful for your share. Most of what you shared I can relate to, because we are confronted with all those labels when we gather to reclaim what was ripped from us. God bless the opening created in you. I cannot wait to see where this is going…
I do not completely agree with this because it ignores pecking orders. I would not accept a woman’s leadership or dominance over me just because she’s older. Happens in nature, too. There are reasons Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris did not become president. I’ve known too many older women whose emotional and mental intelligence never got out of high school-level maturity. I’d have to challenge that or start another tribe. Experience also does not convey benevolence – something I consider necessary for true leadership!
Hello and thank you for this. With so much going on around us, we are often overwhelmed and lost – we don’t take or have time to reflect on the wisdom around us. We rush to control or rewrite it and we are not very good at it. As I prepare for this holy season and family celebration around Easter, I am struck by how much your observation about matriarchal wisdom is right on point. I am the youngest of my siblings at 67, but with my mother and other ancestors gone, I find myself taking a leading role in the family, not from the front but from the space of the younger sister. I no longer have to care for my adult son or other children daily, but now have a growing collection of knowledge and skills that I am sharing with them as well as my older relatives and friends. The younger ones stand head and shoulders above me with some of the technological tricks, but still rely on my insights and guidance, including the lost art of cooking real meals! Those culinary and cultural delicacies and traditions born around the kitchen table in my mother and aunt’s homes are part of my memory and I intend to share them for anyone still open to learning. I think it is imperative to do so in time when others seek to erase us, our culture and our history, out of fear, lies, and historic distortion. We created this lopsided, male-dominated view of things, so it behooves us to course-correct in any way we can and look to the wisdom of the women spirits all around us. I am proud to be among them.
I really enjoyed this piece. Thank you again.
Thank you for this profound insight! I am always with my horses. The ability to be amongst true nature is a phenomenal gift from our Creator.
As a 49 year old woman, I know that I am strong and powerful BUT I am also scared of what happens to a woman during menopause. Mostly, I’m scared of hot flashes of all things. I am constantly consuming the latest scientific knowledge on what to expect going forward and how to keep my mind and body as healthy as I possibly can. Being perimenopausal and thinking about my upcoming transition as one of even more power, knowledge, and wisdom is so much healthier than coming from a mindset of fear.
With this writing, you brought a spark of joy and celebration to a topic of uncertainty for all women.
Thank you for sharing this. Inspiring for any aspects of out life and global reality. 🙏
Thank you, Vishen!
We live in a world that clearly needs a different leadership paradigm. Wise women could bring more balance in so many areas of society!
I guess the world needs to address a fundamental question: how do we educate women? What do we want them to become? Education has the power to deconstruct obsolete social constructs. ” If there is a will, there is a way!”, but is there a will? What we see on the news these days is not very encouraging…
This is SUCH a good topic to be addressed in the scheme of things! Thank you for bringing this up Vishen! More of us need to be talking about the qualities that women bring to leadership… and also encourage men to embody these traits too as a global culture… it’s needed for all genders!
As a Regenerative Leadership Coach for women – this is the exact conversation I am having with women – but truly I believe this can even go beyond gender. We are living in a time where the feminine must rise – across all leaders, all genders. This energy of fierce love and protection for all living beings, for our planet earth.
Yes, women naturally have this capacity and this is why I work with them. But with Mindvalley’s reach, I believe this is a message for all – the future of leadership is matriarchal, feminine and regenerative !
Excellent observation! I do hope we begin to gravitate in that direction. It’s high time we change our thinking toward leadership. Perhaps the insanity we face today will spark that fire.
This is truly profound! Thank you! As a midlife woman who advocates on behalf of midlife women, this deeply resonated with me. It’s not only timely… it’s confirmation. I believe this is why midlife women begin to step into whole new versions of ourselves. You can see it in our confidence, in the way we operate, and in how we show up in the world. Thank you again, Vishen!
I applaud you as one of the “new males” who isn’t afraid to look at this issue of matriarchy. I agree..it is what we need bigtime. As a 79 1/2 year old, who has flunked retirement twice, just written my third book, Beautiful Brain Beautiful Life, I couldn’t agree more…because I’m living it. It is my season for mentoring, teaching, leaving a legacy of helping children uncover their gifts. I’m honored to be still serving..and I think I’ll be doing it another 20 years. I agree..matriarchal energy is what we need! Thank you for acknowledging your stance in such a public way.
Oh my gosh, Vishen!
How come you are only realising this now?
It’s a great article, and appreciated because of the numbers you reach who need to hear this – so Thank you! – but you’re quite late to the realisation, brother.