The fact remains that key positions in various organisations are occupied by men than women. Organisations may claim that gender discrimination has been eliminated, but the small number of women managers proves it is still a men-only territory.
Various executives often ask what is a women in leadership course and why their companies need exclusive women in leadership course when they have great leadership development training in place.
The need for Exclusive Women in Leadership Course
Leadership development programs exclusive for women only needs to be made a part of any organisation. The reasons include:
- An organisation lacks something when there is evidence of a leadership development gender gap. Most organisations lack this gender-neutral leadership training programs for they naturally have men in mind when it comes to key positions.
- The leadership development programs in most organisations are exclusively for men. It has been found that the leadership development programs implemented in various organisations are geared for helping and supporting men skill gaps.
- The leadership programs used by organisations do not address gender-specific career skill sets. Skill sets such as self-promotion, assertiveness, and asking for opportunities are common in men. These are skill sets that need to be taught to women for them to advance their career. Women usually are good at building and collaborating but are likely to share the credit for a job well done than owning them. This is an important skill set that can be addressed and helped by women leadership programs.
- The proper mentoring program addressed specifically for women is not part of the leadership development programs of most organisations. A mentor can make or break the career goals of his/her protégé. Confidence, the right kind of attitude, and connections are things a mentor can encourage in a protégé. This is because women, in general, think they have to meet 100% job requirements before they can make it. Men, on the other hand, think that meeting 60% of the job requirements make them confident to be considered for the vacant spot.
- Barriers in the mindsets of top executives. This gender-specific issue is not a topic covered by most leadership development programs. However, gender-specific mindsets are one of the top things that put women at a disadvantage. An exclusive women leadership development program will be able to teach them ways to effectively address encountered mindsets in the workplace.
- The emphasis of training programs of crediting people skills rather than business skills to women. The business skills are often addressed to men by the various leadership training programs. Most of these programs see women as possessing the best qualities of people skills but not business skills.
- Learning is more comfortable when the training program in the presence of other women. Women may deny this, but true or not, women are more comfortable learning with their peers. This is because the same vulnerabilities they see in themselves would not prove disadvantageous to them. A survey supports this feeling when it found that women develop and learn as much as 93% in exclusive women leadership programs.
Would the development of women leaders need a different training approach? Many women agree. Organisations have also begun to perceive that fostering leadership in women needs a different approach than that of men. Teaching women to work hard on their profiles and show aggressiveness in their pursuit of leadership roles are the benefits gained from women leadership programs.