Female Leadership Development: Leading with authenticity and confidence
This program is designed to support female leaders at any stage of their career to discover and leverage their distinctive leadership identity, supported by their natural strengths, traits and values. In developing their unique leadership style, they strengthen their own performance and wellbeing, and that of their teams.
Who would benefit from Female Leadership Development?
Female leaders who:
Are ready to take the next step in their careers but feel held back by self-doubt, workplace dynamics, or external barriers.
Struggle to fully own their leadership potential in environments where they feel their gender holds them back. They want to be more confident in asking for opportunities and need tools to thrive and influence.
Want to find and use their unique voice as leaders, aligned with their values and personality, rather than conforming to traditional leadership stereotypes.
Manage the constant juggle of professional leadership responsibilities and personal or family commitments, and want strategies to maintain energy and balance.
Desire to connect with and feel supported by like-minded women, share experience, exchange knowledge and resources.
Why is this program valuable to organisations?
Today’s organisations are committed to gender inclusivity and gender parity. Success depends on being able to develop career pathways for women, being able to retain strong female leaders in their roles, developing a strong female talent pipeline and having positive leadership female role models in the organisation.
Some of the challenges female leaders and those aspiring to leadership face are:
Women often lack confidence in leadership. Compared with men, women speak up less, don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, often underestimate their abilities, and engage in self-doubt more regularly
When male dominated leadership in organisations is the norm, women can perceive their gender as a negative. This can lead to adopted, forced or unnatural modes of behaviour, undermining their effectiveness, authenticity and enjoyment of their roles
Women often forge non-linear career paths due to career breaks. They may then experience a flat lining of their careers. Once back at work, they also often manage ongoing caring responsibilities and can find this a challenging juggle, threatening their performance, wellbeing and career development
Women experience more challenges to their resilience than men and often experience burn-out
However, women are uniquely well placed to lead, as organisations transition from more “command and control” styles of leadership to collaborative, affiliative and empowering styles. Organisations therefore have the opportunity to support women to embrace their “feminine” authentic traits, strengths, abilities, leadership and humanity into their roles, and be valued for them.
“Women face unique challenges on their leadership path and this demands a more nuanced approach to their leadership development”
Our promise
Balancing personal growth and skill-building, we help female leaders increase their personal impact, and inspire trust, loyalty, and strong performance from their teams.
Using the best of the evidence, interventions and tools from leadership research, strengths science, coaching psychology and wellbeing science we work with your female leaders or future leaders to:
develop executive presence
Building credibility, communicating and influencing for cut-through and impact, building important relationships and “managing up and across” in organisations effectively. Skills for networking.
Feel good and function well at work
Adopting proactive strategies for wellbeing and resilience to improve vibrancy and performance. This helps leaders better support their teams.
Enhance inner self confidence
Embracing their authentic leadership identity and style. Leveraging identified strengths, embracing traditionally-labelled “feminine traits (if relevant) , and articulating personal values and purpose. Overcoming imposter syndrome or self-doubt. Feeling able to advocate for self and team.
Embrace career opportunities
Building the confidence and mindsets to plan for promotion and the next career stage.
How is this program delivered?
There is not a one size fits all approach to female leadership development. We work with leaders to become the best, authentic versions of themselves, leveraging their motivations and strengths to propel them toward their goals, and those of their teams and the organisation.
We apply evidence-based practices from leadership research, strengths science, coaching psychology and wellbeing science into practical strategies which are easy to implement and lead to lasting change.
We recommend the incorporation of a discovery tool e.g. Strengths Leader Profile (CAPP) or CliftonStrengths (Gallup). Where relevant, we can recommend additional psychometric and leadership assessment tools, as well as 360-degree assessment.
Like any program, the best one for your organisation is one that is tailored to your needs, that uses your company language, that supports your company culture and values. We’d love to talk with you to customise a program format that best complements your organisation’s strategy.
Female Leadership Development: Leading with authenticity and confidence has been developed to be delivered in various modalities, either stand-alone or combined together for more powerful and long-lasting impact.
Coaching
Individualised, scaffolded awareness, interventions and support
The gold standard for embedding lasting change
Effective to sustain change post-workshops
Typically 6-10 one-on-one sessions of 60-90 minutes over a period of up to 12 months
We also recommend 1-2 three-way meetings with the coachee’s manager
Group coaching
Facilitated learning where the coach guides discussions, encourages peer learning and shared experiences, and creates a reflective space for participants to explore their own leadership styles, set goals or growth opportunities. enhance cooperation, knowledge sharing and resource exchanges
Participants usually come from different teams in an organisation or from different organisations.
Format is typically 6 sessions of 60-90 minutes
workshops
Interactive, reflective sessions with education, skills development and individualised, outcome-based activities
Relevant for a group of women who want to develop their leadership, build relationships, share knowledge and resources
Flexible format - typically half day or full day
Client feedback and research findings supporting this program
“I’ve been able to clearly translate my career vision into workable goals. The coaching has given me more confidence to accept my way of working and personal style that can be compatible with my leadership objectives. During this process my coach was positive, supportive, empathetic and engaging.”
“What the world is seeking from leaders today is changing; feminine traits such as collaboration, empathy are on the rise, positioning women well to be effective leaders.”
“50% of female leaders admit to feelings of self-doubt versus 31% of male leaders”
“Representation of women at senior levels is growing slowly at best. Only 17-25% female representation”
”Women need higher resilience to counter traditional obstacles at work”
