I have had two settlement agreements in my 26 year career 🫡

Hello beautiful soul

I have had two settlement agreements in my career.

I am going to say that again because I want it to land.

Two.

Am I a badass former Chief People Officer turned Founder? Absolutely. Have I also had two settlement agreements along the way? Hard yes. 

And I am telling you this because I think the silence around this particular topic is costing women — real money, real terms, real peace — and I am done with it.

Here is what I know.

Most executives, at some point in their career, have had a settlement agreement. It is common. It is normal. It is almost a battle scar at senior level. Most senior people, when they leave roles, get paid to do it. And they are quite happy about the packages they leave with.

Let that last line land. It's not even a problem in some cases, it's: "Okay cool, what are you offering me?"

But women — we carry it differently. We internalise it. We turn it over in our heads in the dark. We ask ourselves what we did wrong, what we missed, what we could have done better. We see it as evidence of something, perhaps even that we shouldn't have been there to begin with. 

I did that the first time. The second time I did it differently. And that is what I want to tell you about today.

The first settlement knocked me sideways. I will not pretend it did not. Whatever the official language was, whatever the process looked like, it still felt like the wind being taken out of me. And I let it do that to me for longer than I needed to.

By the second time I knew better. I still had twenty four hours of reeling. I will not lie about that either. Twenty four hours of letting it land, of feeling afraid, of the very real and human question of what does this mean for my life now.

Because at that point I was still hoping to have a family. And in those first twenty four hours that fear was loud. If I do this now, what does that mean for everything else I am trying to build? Will I be able to build enough respect in a new role to be able to feel supported if I do?

[Side note: motherhood was not on the cards for me in the end. To my fellow aunties that hoped for something different — I see you. Life did not go the way I thought it would in that regard, and whilst I love my life today, some of you will know the nuance of what I am saying deeply. I know that too.] 

What happened after those twenty four hours is the part I want you to really hear.

I stopped treating it as something I owed them an explanation for. And I started treating it as a negotiation.

The first thing I did was call a lawyer. Before I said another word to the people delivering the news. That one decision changed my entire footing in the conversation. I went from someone receiving something to someone with options. Those are completely different positions.

And then I went back in.

I let my emotional reaction be visible. Not performed. Real. The fear was real. The upset about how it had transpired was real. The fact that I was trying to become a mother and this was landing in the middle of that was real. And I let all of it sit in the room. I did not manage their discomfort for them. I did not make it easier. I let the silence do its work.

The people across that table had institutional power, lawyers, an HR process. I had the truth of my situation. And I used it. Not manipulatively. Just — I stopped hiding it. I let the full reality of what this moment meant for my life be present in the room. And I watched them feel the weight of that.

I also pushed back on the substance. Because at executive level you are always making choices about where to focus. Some of those choices land exactly as you hoped. Some do not. That is not failure. That is leadership. And I had given everything I had to every organisation I had ever worked in. That was true and I knew it to be true and I was not going to pretend otherwise to make the process more comfortable for everyone.

I asked for more than the first number they offered. And then I asked again. I negotiated every detail down to my remaining holiday.

And here is the thing I want to name directly.

A man doing exactly what I just described gets read as smart. As someone protecting his interests. As someone who knows his worth.

A woman doing exactly what I just described risks being read as difficult. Ungrateful. Emotional.

That double bind is real. I know it is real. I felt it in the room.

And I did it anyway.

Because here is what I kept coming back to throughout the whole process: Can I leave here with sovereignty? Am I proud of myself?

That mattered to me so much more than whether they were comfortable with how I handled it.

I left. I left with more than they initially offered. I left having said the true things. I left having let myself be seen — afraid, upset, real — without any of that being used against me as weakness. I turned it into information. Into presence. Into leverage. And biggest of all: I left feeling incredibly proud of myself and the work I had done in that role. 

And, if you ever find yourself in this situation, I want that for you too.

If you are in it right now — or if you have been in it and you have been carrying it quietly, turning it over in the dark, wondering what it says about you — let me say this clearly.

It does not say what you think it says.

1. It says you got to senior enough to be in the room where these conversations happen.
2. It says you made real choices with real stakes and not all of them landed the way you hoped and that is what executive leadership actually is.
3. It says you are human.
4. It says you are in very good and very normal company.

Call a lawyer first. Before you say anything else. That one move changes everything.

And then go back in.

Not to explain yourself. To negotiate. 

And if something needs to shift right now, let me help you figure out exactly what. Take my "What's Actually Real?" survey.

It takes ten minutes and you get a Career Freedom Report for free. I am using the findings from the study (completely anonymously) to share the real picture of how women are in the workplace today. I'll also share when the full findings land this autumn you will be one of the first to see them.

Go here: womenatwork.ruthpenfold.com

You were never the problem.

Rooting for you always
Ruth x