20-first partners with ELP in leadership programme for women - Building Gender Balanced Business

Brand Me was designed for women on the cusp of taking on senior leadership roles.

The designers of the programme, which is now in its third year, discovered that many women have the same issues in common, some of which may make their transition to leadership more problematic and difficult.

“It’s important to ensure women remain with the companies that have invested in them,” says Ann De Jaeger, a Flemish philology graduate and MBA, who is the Managing Partner at Executive Learning Partnership (ELP) – Strategy and Learning Architects. “Businesses with a greater gender balance at the top are more likely to perform better. They have drawn from a wider pool of talent and more balanced leadership teams bring a range of perspectives and approaches to the discussions which lead to better decisions.”

ELP and 20-first partnership
ELP has designed the Brand Me programme along with the McLane Group, which specialises in personal mastery tools for leaders. ELP has also partnered with the gender consultancy, 20-first (publisher of 20-first.com). 20-first offers Brand Me as part of its range of programmes for 21st century leadership and services, transforming companies into “gender bilingual” organisations. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, says that: “20-first has decided to partner with ELP as this is one of the rare programmes that we have identified that fits with a strategic approach to valuing the benefits that gender differences can bring to business.”

Succeeding while remaining authentic
The problem that De Jaeger identified is that many women were finding the male-dominated business model uncomfortable for them, making it difficult for them to be both authentic as women and thrive in senior management ranks. She first came across the issue when running a number of ELP leadership sessions across the world and was struck by how few women were attending. She also discovered there was an appetite among senior women in business to have a course that would help them avoid the common traps women sometimes encounter when they move higher in the leadership pipeline.

ELP tested out various hypotheses about women in work on a select group of leaders, which will be familiar to many readers of this website. For example, the researchers discovered that women considered their sex to be a minority, even though the majority of consumer purchasing decisions are made by women. They discovered that women tended to focus on their work and expected that to help their case the most while men were better at promoting themselves.

In summary, De Jaeger became convinced there was a need for a course that helped women in the 30-45 age range reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and consider how some of their behaviours might be hampering their future career paths. “What we would hate to see would be that women feel dispirited by the experience of leadership in the corporate world and choose to leave,” says De Jaeger.
Past programme participants have evaluated it very positively, with an average score of 4,67 out of 5. For some it has literally been a life and career changing moment and the companies sponsoring these talented women have noticed the impact as well and are now sending delegates to each session.

The next “open” Brand Me programme is planned next Spring, March 13th-15th 2012. More information can be found on the Brand Me website.

The programme is now in its third year running. It draws on Aristotle’s principle that learning has to combine the heart, the hand, and the mind, to be enjoyable and lasting. There are four aspects to Brand Me, which take the participants from one end to the other in just 48 hours.

The heart, the hand, and the mind
In regard to the “mind”, participants discuss their own cases in the context of wider research or thinking. For example, they might talk about the four archetypes (geisha, invisible, guy, bitch) framed by the writer, Margaret Heffernan in her book, The Naked Truth. “They might ask,” says De Jaeger, “whether they fit into any of those stereotypes.” Having to conform to one of these stereotypes rather than be authentic as a business woman is one of the reasons some women leave senior management, she believes.

The programme stimulates the participants to discuss their own stories, investigating their successes and failures. “We make them feel safe enough to open up and discuss these things, which leads to some incredible new realisations.” They discover, says De Jaeger, that they have other choices about how they approach their work and their leadership style, which can make them more effective at work. Finally, the programme delves into the “doing” aspect of what the women do on the job.

De Jaeger sold a previous company which produced management videos for the media giant, Pearson, run by Dame Marjorie Scardino. De Jaeger later ran the department of executive education for Financial Times Knowledge, a company also owned by Pearson. In De Jaeger’s view, Scardino is a good example of how a woman can be an extremely effective leader at the very top of an organisation and retain her authentic personality as a woman. “She has a good sense of humour; she takes care over her appearance and dresses in a classy way. She is not trying to hide her femininity. And she’ll face head-on any audience that may be treating her in a patronising way as a woman. She’ll take the wind right out of their sails.”