LEADERSHIP GROWTH FOR WOMEN IN CHALLENGING TIMES

Leadership growth for women in challenging times

It is a known fact that women today have achieved laurels in every field. They have shown that they can make successful leaders with outstanding leadership qualities.

As the famous quote goes, “Follow not the crowd, let the crowd follow you.” A lot of women today have proved themselves extraordinary with their exceptionally appreciable skills and talents.  

Despite all this, there still seems to be something missing, keeping most women a step or two away from moving to the topmost ranks. It is, therefore, essential to focus on the strengths to enhance leadership growth. It is even more significant during challenging times.

We are all living in a world that is going through challenging times. Women leaders also have various roles to play. They have to keep up with the expectations of their seniors, maintain connectivity with the team, convey the targets to the team, and much more. Women leaders experience new challenges each day.

Every complexity has a simple solution too. Identifying the correct goals, having good relationships, and achieving the desired results can help a leader tide through the challenging times. For all this, leaders with dynamic concepts and ideas need a program structured to mentor the skills and ease the path to help rise to the top. 

Executive coaching helps hon the leadership skills to help women leaders become more successful and fulfilled despite challenges.

A competitive world

We all know that we live in challenging times with more competition everywhere. It is very likely to give way to various pressures in such a situation. It is critically important to stay focused, ambitious, and confident.

Pandemic – a global challenge

While the global pandemic has impacted the lives of everyone, women in leadership roles also have faced the most acute challenge. They are balancing between working full time to working from home, being full-time caregivers for those at home, and much more.

Working from home has its challenges.

Time management – With a challenging and competitive economic world, the realities have changed, requiring additional push from each leader to survive and thrive. This has put forth extra work demanding additional time with extended work hours; time management becomes exceptionally crucial.

Demotivated and stressed team – Working from home makes it challenging to collaborate with team members and could result in a lack of perceived support for the team.

Maintaining good connectivity with the team is very important; being empathetic towards team members and keeping their spirits going will help destress and work efficiently.

Additional responsibilities:  Lack of domestic help brings in other commitments, which is another challenge that women in leadership roles face.

Apart from this, some of the most significant aspects of successful leadership growth are-

Executive presence – A powerful executive presence is the ability of the leader to inspire her team, instill trust, build stakeholder relationships, communicate with impact, and take challenging discussions with ease and grace. We can say that executive presence is what people talk about when you are not in the room. 

Leaders must exhibit a powerful executive presence, especially when everybody is working from home.

Untimely layoffs in surroundings – an additional stress

A worldwide analysis suggests that most women are hard hit during staff reductions. They are more likely to sacrifice their work voluntarily or involuntarily should someone at home suffer in any way.

Stakeholder relationships:  Having excellent stakeholder relationships is a critical leadership quality. It is essential to connect with stakeholders and learn about their motivation and challenges. In the changing times, everybody across the organization is experiencing the same challenge and is a bit more stressed and irritable. This required leaders to be more empathetic and flexible in dealing with the stakeholders. 

The need of the hour is Enhanced self-awareness:  The most essential and distinctive trait to be a great leader is to know more about self before knowing others. 

Once the leader is aware of her strengths, requirements, goals, routine, and emotions, their impact on her actions, and how they impact the actions of others, it becomes easier to manage stress. 

It also leads to better decision-making. 

Executive coaching is the way to go if one has the zeal for leadership growth.

Focused one-to-one leadership coaching or executive coaching supports the women leaders in improving overall leadership skills and executive presence and improving their ability to lead with confidence and composure in these challenging times.

Confidential discussion with the coach can be the best way to overcome any challenging situation.

EP3C framework for Leadership coaching (Developed by Coach Kshitij) is a time-tested model for women’s leadership development. It supports the holistic development of women leaders to take up higher roles.