Accelerate Your Leadership – A leadership Programme for Women

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In 2018 we designed an online leadership programme for women. Whilst feedback for that programme was excellent, we wanted to offer a second programme which focuses on a more personalised experience. This new programme emphasises one to one coaching and techniques to apply your learning in the workplace.

This is a programme designed specifically for women, to help you recognise your strengths, increase your confidence, define your ambition and achieve your career goals.

It is based upon Head Heart + Brain’s extensive understanding of neuroscience as it relates to workplace interactions, motivation and development, and the personal challenges that women face at work.

An approach founded in neuroscience allows us to more deeply understand how people learn and how behavioural change really takes place. We are drawing on our experience of what really makes a difference to people’s success so that you will gain maximum benefit from each of the modules and be able to apply the insights and tools effectively.

The programme

The programme incorporates a number of elements designed to provide insight, make change and support your leadership. In each month of the six-month course, participants will engage with a new set of online materials as well as attend a webinar. This is supported with six one to one coaching sessions and three facilitated group coaching sessions focused on learning how to apply the insights with your colleagues.

Materials include an ebookeach month with a summary of the ideas plus practical exercises you can apply, video’s, self-assessments and quizzesas well as reflection and application ideas.

Topics covered:

Month 1: Introduction and How to Get the Most out of the Programme

In this introductory module you will meet the other participants and coaches, undertake an inclusive leader self-assessment, and discuss your goals for the programme with your coach. In addition, we will cover the myths and stories about why women are not better represented in senior leadership.

Also, in this module, you’ll be introduced to the building-blocks of the programme: the basic neuroscience (which is presented in an accessible and immediately engaging way), and our approach to helping you to manage your career for success. You will learn:

• The basics of how our brains function and how this impacts our motivation and success at work
• The differences between male and female brains and whether they impact work performance and style
• Why women have a different experience at work to men and how you can make this work better for you
• The role of stereotypes in work and how they impact your career
• Tips and tools for managing your learning on the programme

Month 2: Confidence and presence

One story about women is that they sabotage their career through lack of confidence. We are at our best when we believe in ourselves and understand our strengths; when we’re grappling with self-doubt it slows our productivity and keeps us from doing our bravest and best work.This module enables you to re-set yourself to the level of self-belief you need to be successful, and to spend more time in that state of mind.

In this module, you will learn:

• Remedies to the kinds of self-doubt women experience, including imposture syndrome,  that can sabotage their careers
• How you can recognise the triggers that pitch you into self-doubt
• Tap into our own authentic presence
• How to fake it when you’re feeling under-confident but need to be at your best
• Effective long-term techniques, like self compassion, for spending more time in the right frame of mind

Month 3: Matching Your Career to Your Ambition

It’s said women don’t push hard enough for promotion and don’t plan their career, they wait until they are asked to take a role or feel they have the perfect experience and qualifications. The reality doesn’t live up to this myth but you do need to feel you are nearly there and sometimes that’s about getting the right perspective. In this module, we help you ‘audit’ your career to avoid career-traps, spot when you’re being expected to perform to a higher standard than your male colleagues, and what to do about it and ensure you get experience in the financial and strategic skills essential for the most senior positions.

We will cover:

• How to spot the double standards and respond with smooth comebacks
• Auditing your work habits to identify which are helping and which are hindering you
• Deciding when to go for a promotion
• Rekindle your ambition

Month 4: Influence and Negotiate for Resources

Whatever your role, most success comes from influence. At some point in your career you will no longer depend solely upon your own skills and effort. Your effectiveness will depend on your ability to persuade and influence others: to give you help, to give resources to your project, to get you on the right team, or persuade a client to agree to your proposal.

In this module we’ll introduce you to the neuroscience-basedmodel of influence: CORE. You will also learn everyday techniques for getting people to agree to your ideas:

• Using the CORE model to plan and execute your influencing tactics
• How to position your ideas to help people agree with you
• How you can present yourself and your ideas so that people are more inclined to want to help you
• Negotiating for the resources you need and the rewards you deserve, while keeping key decision-makers on-side

Month 5: Get the Men on Board with Your Career – Networks, Mentors and Sponsors

Work can be tough and it’s important to have support. Networking isn’t something you do instead of work these days, it’s an essential element in success. Your network helps support you through the tough times, is a source of ideas, helps with problem solving and keeps you connected with diverse thinking. Mentors and sponsors play an essential role in a successful career and women need to know how to position themselves to find and use them effectively.

In this module, you will learn:

• How to analyse your network and spot gaps
• Developing and maintaining your network
• Using mentors to support your career
• Finding a sponsor and maximising their help

Month 6: Become the Leader you Want to Be

There is loads of data that shows women make better leaders and bosses than men, this is largely ignored by talent policy and promotion criteria. It’s still expected that the leaders of organisations will be men: women who progress to the same heights may be judged harshly. When you do make it into the upper echelons you can make the most of your success by setting yourself up right.

In this module, you will learn:

• How strong women are treated and what to do to combat the backlash
• Finding your leadership style and breaking free of stereotypes
• Developing a clear leadership purpose
• What it means to be an inclusive leader.

Each module has videos covering the scientific research (in an accessible form), practical tools, examples and advice from role models, a self-assessment or quiz and a summary ebook. Each module takes around 2 hours to complete the core materials and webinar. We provide optional materials if you wish to delve deeper on a particular topic.

Who will Benefit?

The programme is designed for women in business roles who want to maximise their success and accelerate their leadership.  Senior women have found the programme beneficial especially when they want to move into a new challenging role. Women in middle management have also found the programme invaluable in clarifying career ambitions, leadership style and boosting confidence.

Here is some feedback we have had on the programme:

From the mentor of a senior women in the public sector “….after completing the ‘women in leadership’ module, she had a ‘ready brek glow’! She said working her way through it, she’d kept saying to herself ‘that’s me’ and found it so good, she’d done the module twice. She said that module was life changing as far as she is concerned; it had made her determined to apply for promotion and sell herself well. She hadn’t realised how much she put others first and critiqued herself until she did the module.”

From the line manager of a mid-level participant “….is practicing being assertive, which is fun to watch. She’s also finding the programme life changing and gives me enthusiastic updates when she’s completed a module.”

From a senior marketing executive in pharmaceuticals USA.

“What I enjoyed:

• Content is interesting
• The set-up of individual modules, very clear structure and easy to follow
• The animation 

I didn’t find anything I didn’t like yet.  I personally like the high-power posture section and the habit (name the cue, routine, reward to change behavior).  And I will apply them in my daily work”

Your Investment

Women are generally poor at investing in themselves, family comes first, work second, you third. This programme will ultimately help you to invest in the people and priorities in your life. If you can’t think of it as an investment in yourself, then think of it as an investment in your family and the benefits at work. At the end of the programme, you will be better for the experience.

This six-month programme has been designed to ensure you make real change. The programme investment is £3550 plus VAT for this you get six webinars, six modules of online materials and six one to one coaching session so you can really apply the insights to your situation plus group coaching on an action learning set. You can register here.

Early Bird Offer

For people signing up and paying at least one month before the start of the programme will receive free access to either our online module.The mother bias, managing family and work or Building high performing teams. See below for more details. PLUS a copy of our book Brain-savvy Woman.

Ask us about our discounts for women’s groups and charities and organisations who have more than 6 women going through the programme together. janhills@hhab.co.uk

Timetable

The programme will start in September 2020. Dates will be provided nearer the time. Webinars will be times to match the time zones of participants.

The Mother Bias – Managing Family and Work

Going back to work after leave to have a baby can be daunting. Juggling child care commitments and work is equally a challenge and on top of that it shouldn’t be the case, but women with children do face additional prejudices and stereotyped expectations at work. It’s important to understand the additional challenges for working mothers in order to overcome them. (If you are not a mother this module has plenty of content on how women are judged and how you can manage those stereotypical judgements, self-awareness and managing the bias which women can encounter.)

This module reveals the science of how people are judged, and particularly the judgements made of working mothers, and how you can prevent long-term damage to your career:

In this module, you will learn:

• The assumptions and frustrations working mothers face
• How to maintain your ambition in the face of work challenges
• How you can improve your own self-awareness to manage how you present yourself in different situations
• Tools to present your best self, more of the time and for regaining your confidence after a break

Minimum time needed to complete the materials: 3 hours

Build a High-Performance Team

Neuroscience is giving us a new perspective on teamwork: what actually works and what doesn’t. As your career progresses youwill be responsible for the work of a team, and your success will be judged by the team’s effectiveness. How do you build a successful, cohesive team from scratch, or inject energy into an established team you’ve taken over?

In this module, you will learn:

• The science of teamwork and what makes high-performing teams special
• How to set up your team up for success
• Managing with the right mindset
• Using feedback effectively
• Finding the right rewards (it’s not all about money)
• Generating energy in a team

Minimum time needed to complete the materials: 4 hours

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Register for online course