Women Who Lead by Bloom

Women Who Lead by Bloom I help women to unlock their next level of leadership
Founder of Bloom | Workshops + leadership coaching for leaders + teams

Ruth Penfold is a former C-suite executive turned leadership coach, mentor, and yogi. Guiding women to lead with courage, truth, and deep self-trust. After years of performing worth instead of embodying it, Ruth rebuilt her life from the inside out. Her journey through corporate burnout, heartbreak, and reinvention became the foundation of her work: helping women remember their power and lead from

authenticity, not exhaustion. Today, through Bloom and her program Women Who Lead, she creates spaces where women can reconnect with their bodies, find clarity in their leadership, and thrive without burning out. Her approach blends practical leadership tools with spiritual wisdom, a fusion of boardroom experience and embodied practice. From yoga and breathwork to executive mentoring, she teaches that leadership begins in the body long before it reaches the boardroom. Ruth’s message is simple yet radical:
You don’t need to perform to be valuable. You don’t need to overdeliver to be seen. You are already enough and from that wholeness, you can lead. Based in London and the US, Ruth continues to share reflections, stories, and teachings that remind women that leadership isn’t just a title, it’s a way of being. Connect with Ruth:
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://ourtimetobloom.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthpenfold/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruthpenfold/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/

06/17/2026

I watched brilliant women talk themselves out of asking for more money even when I was encouraging them to do it.

Not because they were less capable than the men in the room.

Because a voice inside them whispered: that's not safe.

We are conditioned to ask how will this affect connection before we ever ask what do I actually want. And that is not a personal failing. That is a survival pattern so deeply wired that most women cannot even feel it happening.

Men are simply less punished for taking up space.

That is not opinion. That is the system.

What I had been internalising for years as my own inadequacy was a systemic problem misdiagnosed as a personal one.

We were not negotiating salaries. We were negotiating safety.

And when that many women are internalising the same lesson, we do not get a confidence crisis. We get a collective misdiagnosis.
This is a clip from my TEDx talk. Full version in the comments.

06/16/2026

At the exact moment the world is trying to take power away from us, we cannot afford to be holding each other at arm's length.

That guardedness. That invisible competition nobody chose and nobody talks about. The not quite letting go.

And here is the thing, gang.
That is not a character flaw. That is what happens when you spend years learning to survive inside a system that was not built for you. You adapt. You compete for the limited space available. You become, without meaning to, a foot soldier of the very system you are trying to rise within.

I am not interested in that anymore.

I believe women's leadership will change the world for the better. Not because we are the same as men. Because we are gloriously different. And that difference, when we stop apologising for it and start leading from it, is the whole point.

But we have to be all the way in, darling. All the way.

What's your hot take on this? ⬇️

06/15/2026

Here's what I think...

You can keep changing the job.
The company. The boss. The team. The title.

But if you haven't graduated to the next level with that character, the same character keeps showing up. Different setting. Same game. Same walls.

The situation is not the problem.
It is calling for a bigger version of you to be born.

If you can figure out how to navigate your dynamic with that character, you might just set yourself free in the process.

Whether you leave or whether you stay in the end, it's worth a go IMHO.

🫡

Oh my giddy giddy gosh you guys.I have created something and I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it.Seven ways a woma...
06/14/2026

Oh my giddy giddy gosh you guys.
I have created something and I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it.

Seven ways a woman leaves herself behind. The wound underneath each one.
And the gift — the actual GIFT — buried inside every single one.

I call them "the seven shades of separation" and honestly....? It might be the coolest breakdowns I have ever put together. I am hella proud of this one.

I am in there too by the way. The lone wolf. The capable one. Both. Very much both.

Very much always.
It drops tomorrow in the newsletter and I need you to be there for it.

Come and tell me which ones you are/have been though okay? DEAL?

⬇️

06/13/2026

She calls it self-doubt. I call it a nervous system that read the room correctly.

If you have ever sat in a meeting and felt your mind go blank, you were not broken. You were fluent in a system that taught you exactly how to stay safe as a woman.

We called it imposter syndrome.
We handed you a confidence course.
We kept the system intact.

That is not a personal failing. That is a collective misdiagnosis.

And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

This is a clip from my TEDx talk this March. Full version in the comments ⬇️

06/12/2026

One of my hardest challenges as a leader was embracing both sides of myself at work.

I am type A, baby. I execute. I show up. I make sure the team is on point and delivering.

But I also have a wild and free flavour.

I am silly. I am playful. I lead with levity and lightness. And for a long time I thought those two things could not exist in the same person. That if people saw the playful one they would stop taking the capable one seriously.

Once I realised I could embody both, everything changed.

And not just for me. Because when you stop contorting yourself to fit one version of who you are supposed to be, you give everyone around you permission to do the same.

The point is not to be like me.

The point is to find your version of both.

What are the two sides of you that you have been keeping separate? Tell me in the comments.

⬇️

As we say in the West Country (of the UK)……my recent trip to the UK was GERT LUSH.Comment below your guesses on what tha...
06/11/2026

As we say in the West Country (of the UK)…

…my recent trip to the UK was GERT LUSH.

Comment below your guesses on what that means ❤️‍🔥

One of the first ways I learned to show myself love was taking a little extra care over how I look.So last week, on the ...
06/11/2026

One of the first ways I learned to show myself love was taking a little extra care over how I look.

So last week, on the way to the event that Jane came to, I was not about to let the British weather ruin my hair.

I wore a shower cap from my hotel room. With zero effs to how ridiculous it looked.
Bold move. Committed move. Completely logical in the moment.

What I did not think through is that a shower cap leaves a very distinct circular mark across your forehead. And being a woman of a certain age means that dent is not going anywhere in a hurry.

So I delivered the entire session with it on my forehead.

My friend called it robbing Peter to pay Paul. Solving for one thing and causing a whole other situation entirely.

We laughed our legs off.

And if you look closely at the photo with , you can still see the remnants.
In the interest of brilliant authenticity, there it is gang.

Real recognises real. Right darling?

❤️‍🔥

06/11/2026

Belonging equals safety. We learn that in our bodies from very early on.

So when belonging feels threatened, we register it as danger. Not metaphorically. Physiologically. Our nervous system does not know the difference between a boardroom and a threat to survival. It just knows something feels unsafe.

And for women, there is another layer.

We are taught to send to others first. To be the good girl. To monitor connection before we claim our own power. That is not weakness. That is conditioning. It runs deep and it runs early.

So when I say unlearning this in the workplace is different for women, I mean it. We have a specific thing to unpick. And it is not the same as a general confidence problem.

Every human can feel like they do not belong. Every human has their own authenticity gap. I am not saying otherwise.

But what I witnessed coaching over a hundred women is that we are all internalising the same thing as a personal failing when it is actually a systemic one.

That is what my TEDx talk is about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXdAtzu9Oo&t=410s

If you have not watched it yet, I would love to know what lands for you.

❤️‍🔥

Address

Brooklyn, NY
11201

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Women Who Lead by Bloom posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category