What A Dominatrix Taught Me About Leadership

Leadership Is About Safety, Not Control

Last week, I was at a very serious business training: experts in systems, metrics, team dynamics, finances... the whole works.

But one of the speakers captivated the room the second she walked on stage. Why? She was introduced as a Dominatrix.

Yes, you read that right.

And yes, she works in all the ways you’d imagine someone with that title might. But she’s also a trained somatic therapist, a coach, and a thoughtful, provocative trainer. She wove deep insights about leadership into her talk, holding the room’s attention so fully that the next speaker opened by saying, “Well... now I get to talk about tracking tools. No pressure.”

She made one point that resonated with what I tell my own leadership clients:

When you're in a leadership role (facilitator, manager, trainer, speaker, Dom), people want to be led.

They want to know where they’re going.

They want to feel that you’ve got this. 

That they can trust you with the room...and with themselves.

And if you lose that?

If you aren’t reading the space, adjusting, addressing what’s really needed, you lose your leadership. And with it, the sense of safety in the room starts to unravel.

This doesn’t mean becoming authoritarian.

It means holding the role with grounded certainty. Listening. Noticing. Responding. But never stepping back from the responsibility to lead.

People don’t feel safe in chaos.

And the leader’s job, our job, is to hold the space with presence and care.
It was one of the most powerful teachings I’ve seen on psychological safety and power.

It's a good reminder: the most honest leadership lessons often come from the edges, not just from the C-suite or a slide deck.