Jones Consulting has had the pleasure of designing and delivering a leadership programme for female leaders at the University of Leicester since 2019. This year we are targeting women leading in Space / STEM in an exciting new pilot programme – watch this space!
The Women leading with Purpose programme targets both professional and academic staff who are looking to hone their leadership skills. Over the course of 4 modules participants discuss leadership styles and how to build their confidence and impact in the workplace.
Strengths profiling identifies key strengths and styles when under pressure which leads to increased self awareness. Communications skills training focusses on story telling and authenticity, and we introduce participants to design thinking and prototyping techniques for managing their careers and life planning.
One of the most impactful elements of the programme is the cross cohort projects that each participant develops with peers to support the network of female leaders across the University and champion gender equality.
Projects initiated from the Women Leading with Purpose programme make an impact at the University of Leicester
Approximately 6 months after the leadership programme ended, participants showcased the work they had initiated as part of the programme at an internal event. The event was attended by the Pro Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Art and Humanities, Henrietta O’Connor, who is a key sponsor of the Women Leading with Purpose programme at the University. Participants presented the results of the final projects they undertook to promote gender equality and develop a community of leaders across the University.
The 3 projects were…
Walk with women –
A career and life journey plotting tool that allows someone to easily input their life and career achievements that can be published online (e.g. on an internal intranet or external website). Its purpose is to inform and inspire other female leaders and students to continue on their own career / academic journeys by providing easy access to inspirational stories and role models across the University. From a gender equality perspective it celebrates how to overcome some pinch points in a woman’s career and aims to influence the culture of the College of Life Sciences to further celebrate its female leaders. www.le.ac.uk/walk-with-women
Aspire –
An ezine (online magazine), published as part of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion area of the University of Leicester’s main website. Its aim is to advertise causes and topics that are interesting to women. It’s first publication focussed on Black History Month as the team wanted to talk about the under representation of BAME female professionals across higher education in the UK (at time of publication there are 25 Black female professors out of 21,000 professors in the UK). Aspire also profiled black female authors and gave information on their publications and where to access the titles in the University and outside. In addition, the team interviewed female leaders across the University about their careers and published their stories in the ezine.
Connect me –
is a programme of events designed to build the community of women professionals across the University. The team planned, organised and delivered 3 events on topics they felt were important to women: Women & Health, Women & Change, Women & Coping. The team secure match funding from the Centre for BME Health East Midlands and hosted their first event on wellbeing which included guest speakers and interactive yoga sessions in the main courtyard at the University and had a great turnout. The next event is planned for January 2020.
It has been a pleasure and an honor to be involved in sparking these leadership journeys from such a fabulous cohort of women and we are excited to be leading the programme in 2020.