Menopause may make women leaders more empathetic – even as it leaves them drained

Severe symptoms can drain women leaders psychologically but the experience may also make them more empathetic towards employees, according to new research

Menopause may leave women leaders exhausted and struggling to function at work but could also make them more empathetic towards their staff, new research suggests.

Researchers at Durham University Business School found that women experiencing more severe menopausal symptoms were more likely to feel psychologically depleted afterwards.

That depletion was linked to nostalgia for the person they felt they had been before menopause, which in turn was associated with greater empathy towards employees.

The findings, published today, reveal what researchers describe as a “bittersweet” effect in which a difficult and draining period in women’s working lives may also change the way they relate to the people they manage.

Professor Olga Epitropaki, of Durham University Business School, said: “As this stage in life often coincides with a career advancement into senior roles, menopause is a particularly important consideration for women and for employers.

“Leadership involves considerable cognitive and emotional demands, which may be exacerbated by menopausal symptoms. Understanding how menopause intersects with leadership experiences is therefore essential for informing organisational policies that support women’s well-being and career progression.”

The initial study involved 341 full-time women in leadership positions who had recently experienced menopausal symptoms. They were asked to recall a menopause-related incident from the previous month and describe what had happened.

Two-thirds reported hot flushes, while 57 per cent suffered sleep disturbances, 44 per cent experienced psychological changes and 29 per cent reported cognitive difficulties.

Physical pain was reported by 28 per cent and menstrual changes by 10 per cent, with many experiencing several symptoms at once. Some described severe hot flushes during meetings, while others reported fatigue, anxiety and brain fog that made it difficult to function normally at work.

Women who reported more severe symptoms were also more likely to feel depleted afterwards.

And the more depleted they felt, the more likely they were to experience nostalgia for their premenopausal selves.

That nostalgia was then associated with greater empathy towards employees.

Researchers also found an association with psychological withdrawal, including thoughts about being absent from work, putting in less effort or leaving a job. But when they followed the initial research with three experiments involving a further 450 women leaders, the picture became clearer.

Those experiments supported the chain linking more severe menopausal experiences with depletion, depletion with nostalgia and nostalgia with greater empathy.

However, deliberately inducing nostalgia did not significantly increase psychological withdrawal, suggesting the evidence for the empathy effect was stronger.

The study, Menopausal, Depleted, and Nostalgic: The Bittersweet Effects of Menopause for Women Leaders, was published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

The researchers argue that menopause deserves greater recognition in the workplace because it often coincides with women moving into more senior and demanding roles.

Professor Maria Kakarika added: “Rather than treating menopause solely as a medical or personal issue, we conceptualize it as a self-regulatory challenge that intersects with the cognitive and emotional demands of leadership.”

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