What Leaders/Managers Can Learn from The Menopause Manifesto
Marcus noticed his most reliable operations director had started missing details she never used to miss, snapping in meetings she used to run smoothly, and losing her train of thought mid-sentence during a client call. He almost wrote a quiet note for her file. Instead, in a one-on-one, he asked what was going on, and she admitted, hesitantly, that she suspected perimenopause but had no idea what was normal, what wasn't, or how to bring it up at work. Marcus didn't have answers either, but he told her to take the time she needed for appointments, no explanation required, and he went home and finally read something plain and factual himself. The team's performance issue turned out to be a leadership blind spot, not a personnel problem.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Knowing the Terrain Before You Lead Through It
A leader does not need clinical training, but does need enough plain-language understanding of the transition to recognize it, respond with basic competence, and avoid the two failure modes of over-medicalizing every conversation or dismissing real struggle as unrelated performance drift.
A well-meaning manager sometimes overcorrects into unsolicited health commentary or assumptions about who is affected, which can feel invasive rather than supportive.
Before your next skip-level or one-on-one cycle, read one plain-language explainer on the transition so you can respond, if it comes up, without visible surprise or awkward silence.
Filtering the Wellness Pitch Deck
Vendors pitching wellness perks move fast, and a leader approving benefits or speakers is effectively making a health-claims decision on behalf of the whole team, whether or not that is how it feels in the budget meeting.
A benefit chosen for good intentions and a slick pitch deck can quietly signal that unproven remedies are company-endorsed truth.
Before greenlighting a menopause-related benefit or speaker, ask one question of your HR partner: what is the actual evidence behind this, and who reviewed it.
Modeling Advocacy for Your Team
The book's push toward self-advocacy in a system that under-trains clinicians has a workplace parallel: leaders who advocate visibly for flexibility, whether that is meeting reschedules or quiet accommodations, make it far easier for others to ask.
Leaders sometimes assume that offering flexibility in policy is enough, without ever modeling that they themselves would use it.
Normalize one small, visible accommodation in your own schedule this month, so your team sees flexibility used, not just offered.
Leadership as a Longer Season
Framing this as a normal transition rather than a crisis changes how a leader plans succession, coverage, and support. It is not a temporary disability to route around quietly, nor a decline to manage someone out of. It is a stretch of a capable person's working life that, handled with basic literacy and reasonable flexibility, passes through without costing the organization its most experienced talent.
The instinct to protect a team member's privacy (advocacy) can pull against the instinct to build clear, visible workplace policy (evidence-based options), since policy usually requires some disclosure to function. Resolve this by building flexible, symptom-neutral policies, generous scheduling norms available to everyone, so no one has to disclose anything to access them.
Name one thing, honestly
What is one assumption you currently hold about a team member's performance that might actually be a health transition you have never asked about?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Normalize one small, visible accommodation in your own schedule this month, so your team sees flexibility used, not just offered.