42: The Cost of Emotional Labor

SisterSmart Leadership · Mar 5, 2026 · 14m

Emotional labor at work is one of the biggest invisible barriers holding women leaders back, and most have never even named it.

As women in leadership, we often take on the invisible work of managing team emotions professionally: smoothing over conflicts, holding the team together, noticing what no one else does, and absorbing the stress of everyone around us. This invisible work takes real skill and real energy, but it rarely shows up in performance reviews or promotion conversations.

In this episode, we unpack why emotional labor falls so unevenly on women leaders, what it is really costing…