Women In Leadership Series

By Nicola O’Neill

The Executive Institute hosted a variety of excellent speakers as part of their Woman in Leadership series, sponsored by Allianz. I was delighted to be the facilitator for some of these events this year. I would like to share some inspirational insights from two of the most recent speakers.

Christine Armstrong, Global keynote speaker and author of ‘The Mother of all Jobs’ presented “Why your Best Woman Leave and What to Do About it” Lockdown trends: unpaid work, women’s role at home is disproportionate, communicating more and commuting less, significant increase in incoming communication: Meetings up 148%, chat up 45%, incoming docs up 66% etc. 25% of the female pipeline have left during COVID Microsoft research: 73% of us want flexibility, 67% of us want collaboration We need to create boundaries: breaks, non-meeting days, fixed flexibility etc. Organisations need to examine their intentions now with an eye on the future (particularly around remote working) and don’t give up when COVID ends. This is just the beginning Personally define what your value is and where you get value from? Personally examine where you get your energy from and develop an energy tracker to identify: what gives you energy? what takes it away?

Harriet Waley-Cohen, Award-winning global keynote speaker, presented “Turning Your Inner Critic into a Cheerleader” The world sees our outside, not the “secret reality” in the inner voice within. Do you have an out-of-control critic? What is the impact of our inner voice? Assess your critic or your cheerleader’s voice because you deserve to choose the voice you want to hear Watch your thoughts as the inner critic is not always telling the truth. Thank your inner critic and move on Engage in peaceful acceptance and don’t argue back To switch your focus, ask the following: How am I feeling, thinking? What am I focusing on? What would you like to feel and think? What is the focus that would best serve you? When things go wrong, we are creating “Wisdom Moments” Visualize your cheerleader and call on her to advise