There is a transformation many senior women navigate almost entirely in private.

I was 50 when I had my first hot flush.

I was standing in front of a room full of leaders, facilitating a leadership coaching workshop, when suddenly I heard a strange rushing sound in my ears.

Then the heat came. Intense. Sudden.

For a moment, I wondered if I was going to faint.

So naturally, I kept facilitating. Because the show must go on.

And somewhere along the way, many women in leadership learned another rule:

Never let them see you struggle.

Afterwards, a woman slightly older than me approached.

“Are you okay? That looked like one hell of a hot flush.”

She knew. I didn't. And for quite some time afterwards, I mostly soldiered on.

I'd spent years working in male-dominated environments. Like many women of my generation, I'd learned that succeeding meant being tough, capable and composed.

Don't show weakness. Don't make excuses. Get on with it.

But over the years, other senior women began confiding in me too. One conversation has stayed with me.

A highly capable woman, 49, had suddenly found herself struggling in ways she couldn't explain. Her managing director noticed.

He'd worked alongside her for years. He knew the calibre of her work. He knew this wasn't normal for her. But instead of asking: “Are you okay? Is something going on?” it immediately became a performance conversation.

She was frightened. And worse, she was beginning to question herself.

When we talked privately, I ran through some common perimenopause and menopause symptoms with her. One after another, things began clicking into place.

She hadn't suddenly become incapable. Something was happening to her that neither she nor her workplace understood.

And I keep thinking about that.

We talk about menopause symptoms — hot flushes, night sweats, disrupted sleep. We talk far less about what can happen to concentration, memory, mood, confidence and our sense of ourselves. And we talk even less about what that can mean when the woman experiencing those changes is responsible for leading people, making complex decisions and performing at a senior level.

That's why I believe menopause literacy belongs in workplaces.

Not simply for women. For the people who lead them, work alongside them and make decisions about their careers.

Because when a previously high-performing woman suddenly seems different, perhaps our first response shouldn't always be:

“What's wrong with her performance?”

Perhaps good leadership starts with:

“What's happening for her?”

Menopause isn't necessarily the beginning of the end of a woman's professional life. For many of us, it may be the beginning of a profound transformation. But we need to understand what we're navigating first. And we need workplaces willing to understand it too.