Article by Jina Melnyk, Managing Director, Corndel Advance
Leadership training is a key workplace tool that can help close the gender pay gap and increase both leadership opportunities and career progression for women.
According to a recent study by LinkedIn, women make up an average of 30% of leadership positions in the UK. While appointments of women into leadership have risen slightly in recent years, representation drops off significantly from mid-management level.
One significant issue is women often not applying for more senior roles due to a complex mix of different factors.
Many of our clients come to us asking us to create workplace training programmes that work towards encouraging more women to apply for senior roles in their organisations.
To support more women in leadership roles, organisations should increase access to executive coaching, workplace training and networking opportunities in order to foster leadership skills and the confidence to succeed.
Workplace training programmes that focus on leadership and management training will help to develop key skills that allow female staff to thrive in a senior role – such as effectively managing up to C-suite and other senior leaders, influencing others outside of your direct authority, how to network and how to take up more space in the room.
Career benefits
Workplace training can provide a career-changing learning opportunity to help aspiring and existing managers and leaders adopt new approaches, build connections and grow into confident, competent leaders.
Putting yourself forward for leadership or management training can feel daunting, and even exposing. But trainers will provide an environment where learners feel psychologically safe to ask questions, focus on learning new skills and honing existing skills, and build confidence in their abilities.
Attending a workplace training course also makes you a member of an inclusive forum of other learners and peers from other organisations to share your experiences with, discuss ideas and grow together. By building better self-confidence you can both grow as a leader and help foster confidence in your team.
How to ask for leadership training at work
Once you’ve decided that a workplace training programme could help give you the skills, tools and confidence you need to advance as a leader in your organisation, the next step is to do your homework before putting in a Learning and Development request to your line manager.
A pitch that outlines how a workplace training programme will benefit the business, as well as yourself, is more likely to be successful.
Identify which training programme focuses on the objectives you want to achieve and put together a request that aligns those objectives with the overall strategic objectives of your business, department or team. Outline how the course will benefit you, your team, and your line manager to help improve performance at work. Also, consider ‘why now?’. What opportunities could the organisation miss out on by you not completing workplace training?
Finding the right training course and provider is key to achieving your training goals. With the right workplace training partner, organisations can develop confident, empathetic leaders and create more allies in the workplace to help more women advance in their careers and thrive in leadership and management roles.
Once you’ve found the perfect programme and received the green light from your workplace, you have a golden opportunity to build the leadership skills and confidence to progress your career to the next level.
About the author
An experienced MD, CFO and senior leadership executive, Jina has a passion in developing other executives to be their best selves, challenging them to do the unexpected, and building their confidence. Jina and her team have a track record in equipping leaders with the capabilities and skills necessary to meet organisational objectives in today’s challenging times. In doing so, leaders transform themselves, others and the business.
