Everywhere you look, women are changing the face of leadership. Why? Because they are tired of waiting. They want to see gender parity in leadership in their lifetimes. At the current pace, this will not happen until 2095. Some powerful leaders of today’s women’s movement are gathering in Santa Barbara April 19-21 to help bring about that change. It’s all about collaboration and women helping other women.
Like Elisa Parker, Grass Valley, CA, who started her SeeJaneDo radio program six years ago with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “My girls were then four and seven,” Elisa recalls, “and they were questioning why their world seemed so broken. I felt I had to try to create a world that served them, to create a platform for women’s voices to bring about change.” Part of her strategy is to participate in the April Santa Barbara training to become a Leadership Ambassador.
Women made great progress in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, yet their share of leadership has remained stuck at less than 20 percent for decades. It’s even worse for women of color. Doors have been opened, yet most women still do not step through to join the ranks of leadership.
Activist leaders have noticed their reluctance and begun to organize in earnest. Contrary to the stereotype of bitchy women, these women love to collaborate and partner with others. Elisa’s effort is one of thousands, led by ordinary women and stars alike, all determined to change the power equation: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, Kimberly Bryant’s Black Girls Code organization, Rinku Sen’s Race Forward organization, Jennifer Seibel Newsom’s #AskHerMore campaign, Geena Davis’s Institute on Gender in Media, just to name a few. This movement is characterized by mutual support, encouragement and collaboration.
Longtime women’s rights advocate Gloria Feldt, a former national president of Planned Parenthood and co-founder of Take The Lead, says these powerful leaders are ready to take it to the next level. She says women can achieve parity in leadership across all sectors by 2025, that she can teach them how, and that it’s time to share her knowledge so others can do it, too. Exemplifying the collaborative trend, Take The Lead currently partners with more than 40 universities, leadership organizations and businesses.
Dr. Nancy agrees. That’s why Women Connect4Good, Inc., is underwriting Gloria’s next Train-the-Trainer in Santa Barbara, April 20-21. An application form to participate is available online. After interviewing Gloria years ago for a podcast about women’s relationships with power, they collaborated on Leading Women.
Gloria began sharing her signature 9 Power Tools curriculum with other expert trainers last year in order to accelerate women’s progress. She trained 16 diverse Leadership Ambassadors in New York City and Phoenix in 2015, all of whom were already experts working in the field, and now are qualified to deliver the training to companies and organizations.
The Santa Barbara training is the third Train-the-Trainer offered by Gloria and Take The Lead Head of Strategy, Lex Schroeder. Gloria said, “We are so excited to connect with courageous women leaders on the West Coast, by bringing Take The Lead’s training to California.”
Fast Facts
- Women make up more than 50% of the population, are 59% of the college-educated, entry-level workforce, and control 85% of consumer spending.
- The rapid advances women made into leadership in the 1970s and 1980s have largely stalled.
- Whether counting women on corporate boards, in the C-suite, in politics, behind the camera or at the editor’s desk – none of the percentages rise above 20%, and most are much lower.
About the Training
- Certified trainers can incorporate the material into their own brands or teach as a certified Leadership Ambassador with Take The Lead.
- This training focuses on:
- Achieving gender parity in leadership, which means advancing women to occupy half of all top leadership and decision-making roles across all sectors by 2025. This goes beyond just teaching them leadership skills.
- Cracking the code of implicit bias that has held women back to less than 20% of leadership for decades.
- Changing the definition of power itself. Rejecting the oppressive “power over” and claiming the “power to” accomplish something by joining with others. These concepts change women’s feeling about power from “love-hate” into “I can’t wait to use this!”
- Fostering “Collaboration as strategy” to achieve collective leadership and systemic change through strategic partnerships.
- Creating an intergenerational movement of women leaders,
- Women who become trainers join a diverse, supportive community of powerful, motivated women of all ages and backgrounds. Some are building their training businesses; all are motivated primarily to uplift and advance other women.
- The certification process includes marketing assistance and membership in the supportive community of Leadership Ambassadors.
- There is a fee, however organizers will seek to match participants with scholarships where possible.
- To apply to take part in the training or for more information https://www.taketheleadwomen.com/leadership-power-tools-training/
About Take The Lead
- Take The Lead’s 2014 launch, co-sponsored by Arizona State University and dozens of other local and national groups, filled a 3,000-seat auditorium and reached 500,000 globally via livestream.
- Take The Lead prepares, develops, inspires, and propels women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025. It’s today’s women’s movement, the needed game changer, a unique way for women to embrace power and leadership parity.
- In addition to offline leadership events, Take The Lead regularly hosts online learning programs, including free monthly Virtual Happy Hours and on demand learning programs, including the online certificate course version of the “9 Leadership Power Tools To Advance Your Career” workshop.
- See more than 40 partners in Take The Lead mission
- Read bios of diverse Leadership Ambassadors
What are you waiting for? If you are an expert trainer and want to join other women leaders, redefine power and help uplift and advance other other women, this Leadership Ambassador Train The Trainer is for you. As a Leadership Ambassador, you will bring this transformative work to new audiences so that together, we can bring women to leadership parity by 2025. Remember, it’s all about collaboration and women helping other women, and together we can do more then we can ever do on our own. Find out more about Train The Trainer HERE.
