Feminine Leadership Training

PART 2: LEADING OTHERS

In the second part of the journey we will turn our focus more outwards and dive deeper into how to lead others. After having practiced to enter into an empowering relationship with yourself, we will investigate how you can implement this knowledge in your relationship with others. You will reflect on what kind of role model you want to be in business & life and how you can hold space for others to tap into their self-leadership potential.

We will look at team dynamics, coaching and communication strategies and how you can empower your employees or people around you to step into their power. You will learn how to set healthy boundaries, how to give effective feedback and how to implement a culture within your team that enables employees to feel safe to try, fail forward and grow.

healthy feminine and masculine leadership qualities

I believe that an empowering leader embodies healthy feminine and masculine leadership qualities. The philosophy of yin & yang illustrates two complementary forces coming together. These forces are interdependent so that the definition of one requires the definition for the other to be complete. Yin is more associated with darkness, female, receiving, being, the night and the moon. Yang is more associated with the day, action, male, sun and passion. These forces are not gender-specific, but are potentials that we all can tap into. They are neither negative or positive, but we can live them in balanced or unhealthy ways.

I believe that there has been a bias towards leadership qualities being predominantly masculine. Often people still associate being assertive, competitive, goal-oriented, decisive, determined, disciplined, strong and rational with a successful leader. Although these qualities are great assets to tap into, they are only half the picture.

If we look at the state of the world - we see that half of the picture is missing. Although in Switzerland we have never had such a high standard of living before, burnout and depression are on the rise. In the race for ever more, faster and better, we forgot to be and live our feminine side.

In studying hundreds of female coaching clients, I see a direct correlation between over- or under-active feminine and masculine attributes and the risk of burnout (see illustration “unhealthy leadership poles”). For instance if you tend to embody more of the masculine values and less of the female qualities, you might be always focused on the next achievement and nothing ever seems enough. You might be very driven and constantly in doing-mode, but it is very hard for you to re-charge and be. The body will be working with you (and sending you signs of warning that it needs a rest, such as bad sleep, inability to focus as much as before etc.) and you can burn on until you might burn out.

If on the other hand the unhealthy feminine attributes are too active and the masculine not active enough, you might be constantly available for everyone to talk to you and you have a hard time to set boundaries. You might be looking out for everyone else, even take on other people’s tasks (to seemingly be in control), but you might forget what you need. By constantly giving and being there for others, you might neglect yourself, which also increases the risk of burnout in the long run.

A lot of women (me included) bought into the story that in order to prove that we are equal to men, we need to be strong in a masculine sense. Yet, real strength for me now is not only how assertive you can be, it is how vulnerable and empathetic you can be. I don’t care how empty your inbox is, I care how much you care. We don’t need more success in terms of financial rewards, we need more people-focus through kindness, emotional intelligence and compassion. We all get to foster that part within us that knows that we are part of this planet to grow, learn, connect and evolve - together and not against each other.

During the second module you will reflect on which qualities you are tapping into on a regular basis, which ones you rely on too heavily and where there is potential for you to harness.