Summary: What if the things that bother you most are actually trying to get your attention? Gloria Steinem’s life offers a powerful reminder that change often begins with a GLIMMER—a question, contradiction, or moment that makes you stop and wonder why things are the way they are. Discover what happens when you pay attention to those signals and find the courage to follow them.
Some people see the world as it is. Others notice what doesn’t quite fit. Gloria Steinem was one of those people. Throughout her life, she questioned assumptions so deeply embedded in our culture that many people no longer recognized them as assumptions.
She often asked questions like: Who gets heard? Where is the power? Who gets interrupted or ignored? She looked at the role of women at home, at work, and in the community, and asked: Whose ambition is admired, and whose is considered threatening? Who decided this was simply “the way things are?”
Steinem noticed. And then she did something much harder. She followed what she noticed.
Before Change Comes a GLIMMER
We tend to imagine significant change beginning with a grand vision. Often it doesn’t. It begins much more quietly. Firstly, there is discomfort or a contradiction. Often, a question that won’t go away, or a moment when something inside us whispers, “Pay attention.”
That’s what I call a GLIMMER.(opens in new tab)
A GLIMMER isn’t necessarily the answer. It’s the signal that something deserves our attention. Steinem spent a lifetime paying attention to those signals. As a journalist, activist, co-founder of Ms. magazine, and one of the most recognizable voices of the women’s movement, she helped bring conversations once considered private or inappropriate into public view. But what fascinates me isn’t simply what she accomplished; it’s what happened before the accomplishment. She was willing to question the pattern.
The Patterns We Stop Seeing
Every family has patterns. All organizations have them. And every culture has them. Eventually, patterns can become so familiar(opens in new tab) that we stop recognizing them as choices.
We hear: That’s just how business works. Don’t challenge the person in charge. Keep your emotions out of the office. Work twice as hard if you want to prove yourself. Don’t make trouble.
And perhaps the most dangerous: We’ve always done it this way.
Steinem’s life reminds us that just because a pattern has existed for a long time doesn’t mean it deserves to continue. That’s true in society. And it’s certainly true in leadership.
The Five-Part Journey
In my work, I describe the movement from automatic reaction to greater awareness in five parts:
Trigger → Pattern → Pause → Ugly Middle → Choice
The Trigger gets our attention.
The Pattern is the familiar response waiting to take over.
The Pause gives us the opportunity to notice rather than automatically react.
Then comes the part nobody particularly enjoys: The Ugly Middle.
That’s the uncomfortable space where the old way no longer fits, but the new way isn’t secure yet. This is where people often retreat, because changing a pattern can cost us approval. It can make other people uncomfortable. It can make us uncomfortable. Gloria Steinem knew the Ugly Middle well. Challenging entrenched beliefs rarely produces immediate applause.
And then comes Choice. Do I return to what is familiar? Or do I act on what I now see?
Choice is Where The GLIMMER Comes Alive
You might be wondering what this has to do with leadership. The answer is: much more than we may realize.
The leaders we need now aren’t simply the people with the fastest answers. AI can give us answers at astonishing speed. What technology cannot do for us is decide which inherited assumptions we should continue accepting. That requires human awareness.
It requires leaders willing to notice: Why does everyone become quiet when this executive enters the room? What causes us to lose our most creative people? How can we stop disagreements from becoming personal here? Why are we rewarding overwork and calling it commitment?
There may be a GLIMMER hiding inside each of those questions.
The Question Gloria Steinem Leaves Us
Perhaps legacy isn’t only about what we accomplish. It’s also about what we were willing to notice before everyone else was ready to see it. That’s the lesson I take from Gloria Steinem. Pay attention to what bothers you. Look closely at what doesn’t make sense anymore. Especially, pay attention to the question that keeps returning. Don’t dismiss it simply because other people aren’t seeing it yet. It may be irritation or curiosity. It may even frighten you a little.
Yet, it might also be a GLIMMER.
And sometimes the smallest GLIMMER, followed by courage, becomes bright enough for other people to find their way. Gloria, when asked to whom she would hand her torch, responded that she would keep her torch and light those of others from her own. And that is how a GLIMMER can change a culture.
So I’ll leave you with the question I’ll be asking a lot in my new “Follow the GLIMMER” blog series: What are you noticing that you can no longer pretend not to see? And more importantly, what will you choose to do about it?
To your success,
Sylvia Lafair
