Women in healthcare leadership continue to navigate contradictory expectations — decisive but accommodating, authoritative but approachable. The tactics for cutting through those expectations are shifting from vague advice about leaning in toward concrete organizational practices around clarity, sponsorship, environment and authentic leadership style.

During an April 14 featured session at Becker’s Hospital Review 16th Annual Meeting, hosted by Vituity, four healthcare executives shared how they’ve built leadership credibility and how they advance women coming up behind them. The panelists were:

• Carolyn Caldwell, president and CEO of Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif.

• Susan Huang, MD, chief physician executive at Providence and chief executive of Providence Clinical Network in Renton, Wash.

• Maureen Bell, MD, physician director of community impact at Vituity

• Erin Edwards, chief marketing officer at Vituity

Below are four takeaways from their conversation.

Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

1. Clarity is a structural skill, not a soft one

The panelists framed clarity as the precondition that resolves the “decisive but accommodating” bind. Ms. Edwards said decisiveness feels rigid and accommodation feels directionless only in the absence of a clear vision. When the vision and rationale are explicit, both read as integrated leadership.

Dr. Bell, reflecting on leading emergency teams through COVID, named three nonnegotiable conditions: clarity, transparency and presence.

Building on this sentiment, Ms. Edwards said, “It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room, but being the clearest.”

2. Sponsorship — not mentorship — is what actually advances women

Dr. Bell drew a sharp distinction between two structures that leadership programs often conflate. “Mentorship provides guidance. Sponsorship is different because sponsorship provides access,” she said.

A sponsor names a protégée in rooms she is not in, offers her visible and strategic work and stays invested long enough for her to succeed. Ms. Caldwell added that sponsorship obligations continue after placement — including honest feedback when someone isn’t yet showing up the way the role requires.

3. Confidence is shaped by the room, not just the résumé

Dr. Huang argued that confidence is more environmental than leaders often acknowledge. Relationships that drain energy, colleagues who question decisions without cause and environments that signal doubt all erode leadership confidence regardless of competence.

The counter-practice is structural: cultivate champions, hold crucial conversations when dynamics turn against you and recognize that periods of shaken confidence are temporary. Dr. Huang described stepping early in her career into a role where a stakeholder group pushed back despite her working in accordance with her own and the organization’s values; the relationship was rebuilt over time, and the recovery itself became a durable anchor.

4. Authenticity outperforms template leadership

Ms. Caldwell recounted an early-career correction: after her first construction meeting, a project partner told her she had let the men in the room run it. “You have to own the room,” Ms. Caldwell said, relaying the mentor’s advice she now teaches other women.

Dr. Bell, who described herself as neither loud nor extroverted, said consistency of self is what builds team trust.

The practical shift

Asked for a single action for the room, the panelists converged on disciplines, not postures: communicate with clarity, build coalitions, listen with intention, and measure leadership by impact on teams, patients and communities rather than by title. For organizations trying to recruit, retain and advance women, the implication is that the work is structural — sponsorship programs with defined access, leadership development that credits a range of style and feedback loops after placement, not just before.

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