Women are quietly stepping away from networking. Not because they don’t value connection and relationships, but because the format no longer fits. It never did!
With the proliferation of performative networking on digital platforms and at professional networking events, the pressure to impress and seek acceptance and validation is often self-deprecating and futile.
Like a round peg in a square hole, women, balancing significant visible and invisible loads, are craving something better, something heart-centred, and unsurprisingly, authentic business friendship communities are on the rise.
As a high school business teacher, women’s micro-business mentor and a community facilitator, I have witnessed the shift in confidence, connection and personal and business growth when women have a community of business friends.
Why traditional networking no longer fits many women’s lives
Centuries-old, traditional networking is self-serving by nature, with the sole purpose of boosting trade by gaining favour with decision-makers and their influencers, potentially leading to transactions. It is focused on what my network can do for me.
Consequently, traditional networking is considered a marketing investment to achieve business goals centred on growth and income. An investment that assumes spare time, confidence to self-promote, energy and capacity to show up after work hours and the ability to follow up consistently.
This is simply unrealistic for women who are fatigued and stressed post-pandemic, juggling leadership responsibilities across paid work, caregiving, and managing the home. Often also assuming the invisible mental load of planning, coordinating and preparing for their children and others. “If I don’t do it, it simply does not happen!”
Too often, carving time out to get ready, travel, engage and perform at networking events is more draining than supportive.
What women are choosing instead
Gale Berkowitz, writing for the Women’s Brain Health Initiative, shared a UCLA Study on Friendship Among Women that found women respond to stress differently than men. Due to an increase in Oxytocin levels, women respond with a ‘tend and befriend’ response, and according to Ruthellen Josselson, PhD, we need an unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they’re with other women.
Like walking groups, school mums, and wellbeing groups, when professional women find genuine business friends with the shared experiences and understanding of life, career and business, it is transformative. The energy is tangible.
Friendship-focused communities, like my weekly Hello Monday Locked In sessions, give women a truly safe space to laugh and cry, be vulnerable, and share stories of overwhelm, loneliness, and relationships, as well as the business challenges of reaching customers, setting up systems, and managing projects. As a result, growth, collaboration and connection occur organically. The magic, trust and kinship over introductions and business cards!
Why do these communities support confidence and wellbeing?
In a world fixated on visibility and performance, women are choosing to belong in collectives where they can show up authentically, accepted wholeheartedly, with curiosity about their stories, their work, and their vision.
When asked to provide concrete examples of how the absence of belonging affects women’s lives, ChatGPT highlighted the deepest wound of all. “That women stop feeling like they have a place in the human story”. Like feelings around traditional networking, women may feel like observers, not participants. Like an outsider looking in. Furthermore, it said, “Belonging answers the fundamental question, is there a place for me?
Belonging to friendship-based professional communities provides consistent reinforcement that builds self-worth, increases confidence in decision-making, reduces isolation and provides the support and structure to stay engaged during the hard seasons.
Eugene Rubin in Psychology Today suggests that due to Neuro plasticity, brain cells rewire depending on social interactions, that the brain can change in response to social and environmental experiences. Could belonging to business friendship groups even shift old, ineffective neural pathways to improve happiness and health?
Rethinking what success looks like
Traditional networking does have a purpose. I personally have used LinkedIn and formal networking events to find speakers, facilitators and those with the knowledge and skills for a specific purpose. As a transactional tool, traditional networking continues to offer access and opportunities.
However, female founders and leaders are more intentionally and strategically seeking depth in relationships, where friendship itself and the intrinsic value it provides are fundamental parts of the reward for the time, energy, and commitment.
Compared to traditional networking that is considered work, I am often told my business friendship community is like a ‘breath of fresh air”, and that “no other group I’ve ever attended has left me feeling as uplifted and happy”.
Business friendships strengthen trust and credibility, leading to meaningful partnerships, collaborations and successful connections made to not only introduce, but encourage and drive successful outcomes.
Final reflection: This isn’t rejection, it’s evolution
Women who repeatedly walk away from traditional networking events feeling drained and unfulfilled can take hope that ambition and connection can be better realised in more aligned, friendship-based professional communities.
Choosing real over superficial and conversation over an elevator pitch is a shift that not only feels better but is also more likely to increase confidence, capacity, goal achievement, and happiness.
The big challenge for leadership and professional culture now is how to form intentional, genuine, aligned friendship communities, rather than performative networking dressed up as community, with a trendy new title!