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
I loved the article! I often wondered why is the world going in the wrong direction? So much collective intelligence, so many resources… and our leaders spend them on wars. It’s sad and pitiful. Maybe you are right, and we need a shift to a different type of leadership. I wish the day will come soon and when it will, I am sure it will be a lot better – for the whole planet.
Cheers!
Dear Vishen,
I’m 50 years old and learning to navigate this new peri menopause period and its effects. Many times questioning how much real value I have left in work, family, innovation and intimate relationships. Your post has lifted my spirit and hope that I still have many years left to share my wisdom and sustainable leadership with all who I come in contact with.
Thanks for always generously sharing your insights.
Blessings,
Yvette
Vishen, you are a genius !!!
You probably didn’t realized how much value you just added to my life and million other women. I will be 50 this year and was not looking forward to that birthday but now I am looking forward to my wonderful new promotion. I am amazed how you were able connect the nature with AI and leadership and a strangling woman. I love everything what you write. So far you are #1 man in my mind.
Thank you Vishen, I loved your email, it reasonated so much with me. I have only ever heard bad things about menopause and this is such a beautiful way to see it. I also agree regarding female leadership, in my leadership roles I focus on the wellbeing of my team and sustainability, I bring a motherly energy. I used to think maybe I am not a good leader because I am not trying to lead in a masculine way but this email has reassured me that my approach is also valuable…and needed.
I really love your emails, the content always gets me thinking!
Thanks again, enjoy your trip and family time!
At the front, oldest and weekest members, because no one is left behind. The leader and the strongest members at last.
”I truly resonated with every word of this article—it is pure wisdom. I am working on a project with two female friends and colleagues, and as we navigate perimenopause together, we have been discussing our challenges and how we’ve overcome them. We want to share this vision with others. Your writing has given us strength, and I hope this piece reaches many people.
Well done Vishen, excellent writing and observations— especially poignant in the USA, April 2026. I can only imagine the difference in this country and the planet if we had elected a qualified woman for president.
Thanks for that post, Vishen. There is SO much more we are capable of as humans. All the things you mentioned are a vital part of shifting. And that shift is much larger than survival.
We, as women, are ready. The women I know are consciously working hard on that readiness. We are shedding the superfluous, integrating what we are remembering as a result of the thinning veil. We are practicing coherence day and night. We were built for this. We came to Earth for this moment in time. And we are aware of one another even in the requisite silence.
Thank you very much for the observation with these beautiful lines you wrote.
I can only see how true that is, since I am struggling deeply with keeping at the pace that this society that we have created has stablished as “normal”. I was already having a hard time before perimenopause but now I am constantly in deficit of absolutely everything. I feel currently “sick”. I need a much more slower pace where I can experience, taste, integrate, participate, give, and feel elevated so my power can expand and reach others and help them…But no way…Everything is a straight line, at an enormous speed, impossible to keep connected and flourish, no tasting of anything, just engulfing it…
I so totally agree. And where the world has disregarded women who have opted to choose family over personal ambitions, we now have Dubai who have coined the term ‘Generation Shapers’ for women who were earlier termed as ‘housewife’, which can be used officially. I think this is an amazing breakthrough in traditional mindset and the lead has been provided by the amazing leadership in Dubai. I salute you, Dubai.
Hola Vishen! por qué le enviaste este post a todas las mujeres y a pocos hombres? o quizás no sea eso, simplemente prefieren no leerlo, no opinar, seguir negando, reprimiendo o evitando. Igualmente no soy capaz de meter a todos en una misma bolsa, pues valoro la integridad de unos cuantos. Obviamente resonó cada palabra en mí y leí comentarios de partes del mundo que me hicieron doler el alma, donde las mujeres son algo y no alguien. De todas formas veo muchos avances, mujeres empoderadas, exitosas, tanto en lo laboral como en lo social y ahora lo puedo ver tambien en lo esencial, el día a día de un hogar amoroso que crea vínculos sanos, enseñando a las futuras generaciones a regularse y vivir en mayor plenitud y consciencia. Gracias por tu valiosa reflexión. Saludos desde Argentina.
I can consciously relate to this well written article. In 2006, I went on an amazing journey of self healing. I had may health issues and symptom’s. I worked with a highly trained naturopathic Dr in Vancouver, B.C. With her support i was able to free myself of all my symptoms and prevent disease. The symptom’s I was experiencing was a result of subconscious programming childhood conditioning and not being able to connect to my emotions. It was a long spiritual journey from 2006-2025 . It wasn’t easy but soo worth it. I recall my mentor sharing that because I had done so much internally healing menopause was going to be so much easier and also a gift rather then a curse of aging.. Through healing myself I found my soul purpose to support women to stop over functioning and start connecting to themselves to live life on their terms.
Thank you for capturing the essence of many indigenous cultures in the world. I’m blessed to have been born and raised within the Zulu tribe of South Africa. Part of our way of life is that we elevate our elderly women (oGogo ~ the grandmothers) and they mostly live within the family and hold a very special role as healers of the family, walking libraries and oracles of family history. They lead productive lives, leading the family, providing care and guidance to young ones, mediating where there’s conflict and keeping the fires burning. This is true essence of leadership 🙏🏾
That was such an enlightening & beautiful piece. Thank you so much for sharing.
Yesssss V, just yes. 🙂
Yes Vishen,
as a biologist, author, teacher and coach, I know exactly what you are talking about. To be able to silently lead, we first need to make our selves heard and seen. I can tell you its my struggle to find the right place to be seen. I excel in what i do and what i can offer. But are waved away, some even sigh when they see me. As being different.. ( authentic)
How does my work get noticed?
P.s. A beautiful detail about the elephants is that; When a group is far away from a water source. The matriarch signals a vibration through her paws, into the soil, carying the sound kilometers away. When another Matriarch is at a pool of water she signals back. Thats how the matriarch knows where to go to. And thats why the hurd gets lost when she dies.. I tried it too, this signaling, .. but unfortunatly nobody picked up my signal.. 🙂 Guess the pools have dried out.. ( little Humor)
Nice piece. Still waiting to see if elephants or perhaps whales will build a casino on the moon one day. As my grandmother use to say, men don’t know what to do until women figure out what they want and mother nature did design lads with half the brains and twice the muscle, so use them carefully as they tend to be expendable. Cultures/species survive under women while they thrive under men. “…evolve toward female-led systems…” or plateau and devolve? Bees have yet to create an iPhone and elephants gave up fingers long ago. Humanity is expanding and growing and we will eventually have a 7/11 on Mars and grandma will love it which is one reason she tends to keep her thoughts to herself when it comes to “… Wisdom, Memory, Emotional intelligence, and Long-term thinking….” until it is really needed.
Hi Vishen
What you’re saying makes sense, however, do you think that a gay guy would perform similar to a female as they are both sensitive and have more compassion than the aggressive macho-man?
Thank you very much for this insight. These thoughts are completely new to me and instantly made sense. It’s reassuring. I run a small business (a nice Café in Switzerland) and often, I get pushed towards dominance and control mechanisms. I never liked that. I always believed, that empathy and calmness are my path. You just gave me a new visualization: The matriarch Elephant.
Hope to join you on one of your events soon.
gratefully
Nikolaus
This resonated so hard, and I read it out loud to my mother. What a clear, powerful, empowering piece of writing. I never comment on blogs, but I needed to write and say I hope we have more men out there like you in the world.