Reevaluating women’s leadership development

This article is from Chief Learning Officer by?Shereese Floyd

“Break the glass ceiling” is a metaphor used to describe the invisible barrier women face when ascending into leadership positions. This phrase is also used to describe women being the first to do something or exceeding a limit — personal or otherwise.

McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace ?report reveals two additional challenges women face:?

This research revealed that we’re amid a “Great Breakup.” Women are demanding more from work, and they’re leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it. Women leaders are switching jobs at the highest rates we’ve ever seen — and at higher rates than men in leadership.

That could have serious implications for companies. Women are already significantly underrepresented in leadership. For years, fewer women have risen through the ranks because of the “broken rung” at the first step up to management. Now, companies are struggling to hold onto the relatively few women leaders they have. And all of these dynamics are even more pronounced for women of color.

Women have been managed. Historically. Consistently. Oppressively. They have been told what to do, what to think, what they can be and what it’s worth. And while there has been some progress where women have more agency over themselves and have shattered the proverbial glass ceilings in many areas, the effects of “management” still exist.

Study after study shows women are underpaid, undervalued and not in places where decisions are made. Women remain underrepresented in leadership roles that can not only change the trajectory of their lives, but their destiny.

We know this, yet we keep studying and reporting it.

It’s the same old song, but let’s give it a different meaning.?

The solution to the future of women’s leadership lives in the past, but not in the way we have historically reported it. Rather, more in the way women (and companies) have historically not addressed it.?

What if it’s not about glass ceilings, but rather glass confinements??Is it the things around women – labels, titles and expectations of each, rather than what’s above them??

Based on our work with thousands of women on personal and professional development, we have seen that no matter where a woman sits in an organization or what title she possesses, every woman can be a leader.

Leadership is a relationship with self and how that relationship is translated to others. Because of this, true leadership is steeped in self-awareness, self-governance and self-mastery.?

Traditional leadership programs taut words like:

“Live up to your full potential”

“Build confidence.”

“Executive presence.”

There is a gap between where a woman sits with herself and where she desires to be — effectively leadership programs have to train to that gap. Traditional programs teach a skills-based curriculum rather than experience-based. These programs fall flat because the programs teach within the confinement rather than to the individuality, complexities and depth of who women are — authentically.?

To address the “broken rung,” there are three prongs to an effective, successful and sustainable leadership program, with each having a distinct and separate role.

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Shereese Floyd is the CEO of Witness My Life - a people and culture firm that partners with corporations and universities to create and implement women’s leadership programs. She has coached thousands of women around the world to end self-doubt, to embrace self-mastery and governance and to develop authentic leadership. Shereese works with professional women to identify marketable and profitable skills garnered through their lived experiences to build and grow their influence in leadership, whether building a business, scaling a corporate ladder or pursuing a mission.

Break the Glass: Redefining Women’s Leadership?is a signature offering that has been licensed to companies and taught as a single day or multi-day workshop.

Her book Become the Greatest Story Ever Told: Making a Memoir serves a dual role as a memoir-writing tool as well as the basis of a curriculum and study guide.?

Shereese is a TEDx speaker and coach as well as an award-winning speechwriter for her TEDx: The Secret to Healing the World. She’s been featured and/or interviewed in Chief Learning Officer, Essence, TEDx, CEO World, Entrepreneur Magazine, Blavity, Forbes, Inside Business, Charlotte Post, ABC, NBC and more. To schedule a call to work with Shereese, visit her website?https://workwithshereese.com/