Yes, some of the moments make shocking viewing and took us back to a time when outrageous behaviour was deemed acceptable – Victoria being asked to step on a scale months after giving birth on live tv, or headlines that tried to reassign creative credit to a man when surely her first fashion line could not have been her own idea, but what was most shocking was how familiar those moments felt.

Recently those global conversations return to the same uncomfortable question: why are women dropping out of top leadership roles, and why does progress at the very top feel so fragile?

While I am very much a fan of Victoria Beckham’s fashion line myself, the series also landed with me powerfully because of the similarity in attitudes and bias’s towards many female leaders. While Victoria made media headlines, this wasn’t an isolated celebrity issue; it’s the same set of assumptions and behaviours that show up in today’s boardrooms, investor pitches and team meetings across the globe.

On reflection, as the founder of FabricShift, I have been on the receiving end of those micro-behaviours: questions skirted past me to the men in the room, assumptions made about technical understanding, and the occasional subtle rewrite of who actually did the work. Those moments accumulate. Over time they chip away at credibility, dampen confidence and shorten leadership tenure. If we want fewer founders walking away and more businesses thriving, we must change the system – not the women in it.

When it comes to securing funding, we still see one of the biggest exposures of imbalance in business. The documentary highlighted that Victoria’s business partner almost didn’t invest in her business until he realised his wife admired the brand, and this is a reminder that relationships are still crucial. But the deeper problem is that women often need a personal advocate to be truly believed. Too many investors still privilege a narrow style of leadership, aggressive certainty and a singular personality or charisma, while penalising traits that actually correlate with long-term success: collaboration, emotional intelligence and humility.

Coaching women to ‘act more like men’ in the boardroom isn’t a solution, it’s another form of bias. Instead, investors and boards should design processes that reduce subjectivity. Standardised evaluation criteria, scorecards for pitches, and panels that include diverse perspectives shrink the room for instinctive bias.

Culture and process can shape who survives and who burns out. Toxic behaviours aren’t always the explosive headlines, more often they are daily norms: interruptions tolerated, credit quietly reassigned, and a team culture that rewards the loudest voice. If leaders want different outcomes, they must model different behaviours. Run meetings so that every voice is invited in: start with round-robin updates, appoint a facilitator to ensure airtime is shared, and summarise actions in writing so credit is visible. When you rewrite the operating system of meetings and decision-making, the subtle biases that favour a particular leadership archetype begin to erode.

In a fragmented, digital-first world, a founder’s personal brand can be a powerful asset, however for females it’s often misinterpreted as oversharing. You don’t have to expose your whole life, however you do need clarity. Know what you stand for, what outcomes you will not compromise on, and how you want your business to be perceived. Those non-negotiables act as a compass when investors, journalists or partners try to reframe your story. They also give allies the language to push back when someone tries to rewrite the narrative.

Practical steps that have helped me and other founders:

• Define three non-negotiables: values or boundaries you won’t bend on (e.g., product integrity, transparent pricing, team wellbeing). Use them to make rapid decisions and to signal credibility
• Prepare an investor “elevator fact-sheet” that leads with traction, churn, lifetime value and unit economics – not personality
• Build a circle of advocates – mentors, customers and fellow founders - who can amplify your wins and correct misattribution
• Audit your own language and behaviours. If you’ve unconsciously calibrated to a male archetype, unpick which of those moves are essential and which were habit. Authenticity doesn’t mean mimicry

Finally, this is a system problem that needs system-level answers. The media must stop reflexively stripping agency from women; investors must audit pipelines and decision-making; senior teams must design processes that surface diverse leadership styles rather than penalise them. Founders, particularly women, should be supported to lead in ways that play to their strengths, not to an outdated stereotype of what leadership looks like.

The Victoria Beckham documentary punctured a veneer and exposed quiet, everyday assumptions. It reminded me that reclaiming space for female leaders isn’t about asking women to change; it’s about reprogramming the environments that judge them. When we do that, when boards, investors, media and teams redesign how they evaluate credibility, we’ll see more leaders stay, scale and succeed. That’s better for business, and it’s better for the people building it.

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