Smart, seen and strategically listened to

Why women’s leadership needs better content, not just louder conversations

By Katie Bennett-Stenton, IABC Victoria Professional Development Chair

Recently, I sat down with one of Australia’s most respected and influential media leaders, Helen McCabe, for a conversation that’s stayed with me. As I’ve reflected on her insights, alongside my own work in strategic communications, several themes emerged that feel particularly urgent for communicators right now.

Helen is the Founder and Managing Director of Future Women, a trailblazing platform advancing gender equity and supporting professional women in Australia. A former Editor-in-Chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly, political editor, and senior media executive, Helen’s influence spans journalism, leadership, and public policy.

One of the centrepieces of our conversation was Future Women’s brilliant campaign, Choose Her Own Adventure. Using a gamified, choose-your-own-path format, women were invited to navigate a fictional woman’s life and career decisions, from workplace bias and financial control to relationship dynamics. With over 70,000 data points collected from real users, the campaign created insights into what women are navigating, and what they really need. It was a case study in communications that not only informs, but listens deeply.

Here are four strategic insights from Helen’s thinking, and my experience, that hold power for communicators and leaders alike:

1. Strategic Listening Isn’t Soft – It’s Data-Rich, Scalable, and Commercially Astute

We often associate emotional storytelling with brand warmth, but Future Women’s campaign showed that emotion + interactivity = data. The emotional journey was the strategy, and it resulted in rich insight that shaped content, policy influence, and funding. It’s a brilliant reminder that smart storytelling isn’t at odds with commercial thinking, it strengthens it.

Edelman’s 2023 Trust Barometer shows that 71% of people globally say it’s more important than ever that the brands they buy from share their values, not just their products. (Edelman, 2023)

2. We’re still often marketing to women as a monolith, that has to evolve, fast

Yes, the conversation about women in leadership has been happening for years, but content still too often speaks to women as a single block or token demographic. Helen shared how she’s often invited into conversations where teams of men are tasked with figuring out “how to reach women.” It's 2025. The better question is: which women, in what contexts, facing which systems? Content needs to account for the rich diversity in experience, ambition, and barriers, and resist the urge to flatten them into a neat persona. And it’s not just about ‘representation’, it’s about relevance, tone, and resonance. This means staying curious, informed, and reflective about our own assumptions, and building messaging around actual lived realities.

Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2024 reveals that 54% of women in leadership roles report feeling burned out, and over half still feel unable to be authentic at work, pointing to a major gap in workplace inclusion and the content that supports it. (Deloitte, 2024)

3. Talk to us like leaders, not just lifestyles

This was one of Helen’s sharpest points. Much of the content targeted at women, even at senior levels is patronising, vague or laden with lifestyle fluff. The tone is wrong because the positioning is wrong. If we genuinely believe in gender equity, we need to communicate to women as decision-makers, powerbrokers, investors, and change agents, not just mothers, consumers or carers.

A Harvard Business Review study found that companies with more women in executive roles were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability, underscoring the strategic importance of how we frame female leadership. (HBR, 2018)

4. Good communication doesn’t just talk, it listens at scale

Helen emphasised that communication needs to invite interaction and insight. It’s not about louder volume, it’s about better framing. Her team's campaign didn’t go viral because it shouted. It succeeded because it reflected, included and adapted. That’s what we mean when we talk about two-way communication at scale.

According to the USC Annenberg Centre for Public Relations, campaigns that adopt participatory frameworks build stronger long-term trust and deliver more sustainable behaviour change. (USC Annenberg, 2022)

So, what does it mean to communicate in a way that truly listens?

It means:

• Inviting nuance instead of rushing to solutions.

• Designing interaction, not just broadcast.

• Admitting what we don’t yet know, and being bold enough to ask.

And it means moving beyond demographics and into human experiences. The message is not just what’s delivered. It’s what’s received, and what’s made possible because of it.

You can listen to the full conversation with Helen McCabe on the #KatieTalks podcast on Spotify and Apple.

If you're shaping how your organisation communicates with women, especially in leadership, finance, or policy, this is one episode not to miss.