Lioness

Lioness is a comprehensive leadership guide for women who are ready to lead with confidence and reclaim their power at work. As an executive coach and training facilitator, Dr Mel Milton-Smith has worked with hundreds of women across industries and career stages. Time and again, she’s found the same pattern: capable women who have every reason to be confident, yet walk into rooms with quiet voices, minimized selves, and a tendency to play small. This book is for those women. With candor and compassion, Dr Milton-Smith combines real-world insights, extensive research, and practical tools to help readers build confidence at work. She introduces the LEVIA Framework: Lead, Elevate, Value, Intuit, and Assert. - LEAD explores shifts from traditional, transactional leadership styles toward contemporary approaches centered on strong values, empathy, and agility.- ELEVATE discusses how to build high-trust relationships, cultivate influential networks, and create psychologically safe and inclusive team cultures.- VALUE helps women recognize their worth, set boundaries, celebrate their wins, and ask for what they need and want—especially regarding pay, promotions, and opportunities.- INTUIT connects readers with their inner compass, teaching them to look inward, trust their intuition, and make leadership decisions that honor their purpose and values.- ASSERT provides practical tools to help women communicate clearly and confidently, negotiate positive outcomes, set boundaries, say “no,” and manage challenging conversations.Dr Mel Milton-Smith also tackles the “elephants in the boardroom”: the gender pay gap, the motherhood tax, and the double binds women often face around confidence, competence, and likability. Drawing on global research, she shows how systemic inequality and social conditioning can undermine women’s confidence—and what practical steps women and their allies can take to shift the balance. Readers will find exercises on building trust and influence, challenging unhelpful feedback, and breaking cycles of people-pleasing. They’ll also see themselves in the stories of women who chose to leave employers that didn’t value them—and built successful careers on their own terms. Lioness closes by encouraging women to claim their power at work and in life, and to connect with a wider community through Dr Mel Milton-Smith’s online platform and training programs.

Dr Mel Milton-Smith is an executive coach, academic, and leadership expert whose work centers on empowering women to lead with confidence. She holds a PhD in Communications and Cultural Studies and a BA (Hons, First Class) from the University of Western Australia, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Certificate IV in Workplace and Business Coaching. As Director of Dr Mel Milton-Smith Consulting (DrMel.com.au), she has held senior academic and leadership roles, including Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management Western Australia; Adjunct Professor at Curtin University; Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University; and Course Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Dr Milton-Smith is an experienced facilitator and keynote speaker, presenting transformative leadership and communication workshops for leading businesses and organizations. She speaks at conferences, including TEDxPerth and the Social Impact Festival, and has written on digital culture, globalization, and gender for international journals and books. Her previous publications include a children’s novel, The Animal House, and the academic text The Work of Art in a Digital Age. Through her coaching, teaching, and the Dr Mel online platform, Dr Mel Milton-Smith helps women and their allies build confidence, set boundaries, and lead with clarity, compassion, and courage.