Unprecedented Challenges for Women in Leadership
Unprecedented Challenges for Women in Leadership
We're currently facing an incredible time of opportunity -- a chance to redefine the ways we work and how we do business. There's no doubt that organisations need to be adaptable, flexible, and nimble in this new and emerging environment, and most have proven they can be.
But in this changing environment it's also time for a new breed of leaders -- leaders who will empower their teams, seek solutions, encourage innovation, and let people bring their own unique skill set to the table.
We're moving from a knowledge-based economy into a skills-based one.
This means, in its simplest terms, that 'what you know' is no longer going to be as valuable or as important as what you can contribute.
By now, we've come to realise that technology can do a very good job of automating efficiently and accurately many of the everyday business tasks. We can also 'Google' pretty much everything we need to know.
Therefore, IQ is no longer as important as EQ. Knowledge is only valuable if it translates into 'knowing' (which is where wisdom lies).
Businesses need leaders who can think creatively, intuitively, and strategically to map out the new future. Are you prepared?
Countless new challenges have emerged for leaders, such as keeping their teams:
Countless new challenges have emerged for leaders, such as keeping their teams:
Accountable
Engaged
Motivated
Energised
Inspired
This can be quite tricky even for the most seasoned leaders. Research shows us that sitting for a long period of time in front of a screen is linked to more fatigue, exhaustion and weariness.
At one point or another, we all feel like we are living in a box, whether it’s a square in a Zoom, WebEx, Skype, Teams or Google meeting. …. And when you are just one of these little squares on a screen, standing out amongst the crowd becomes more difficult than ever before.
In this context, the big questions for women in leadership are:
In this context, the big questions for women in leadership are:
How can I balance inspiration, encouragement, visibility and influence while continuing to push for performance with limited interaction opportunities?
How do I expand and build my brand within my organisation without appearing self-centred?
How can I adapt to our new normality, create a comfortable environment for my teams and achieve our organisational goals as an empowered collective?
Believe it or not, there are effective solutions for all of the frustrations, disappointments and failures that you experience when it comes to influence, impact and leadership.
The secret sauce to accept change, readjust your life, work and play is by shifting the dial and adopting a specific type of mindset...
The secret sauce to accept change, readjust your life, work and play is by shifting the dial and adopting a specific type of mindset...
Hello, my name is
Catherine Plano
and I am here to help women in leadership like you tap into their greatest potential.
Hello, my name is
Catherine Plano
and I am here to help women in leadership like you tap into their greatest potential.
In this day and age, organisations are in dire need of authentic leaders who can:
In this day and age, organisations are in dire need of authentic leaders who can:
Adapt, adjust and attain results in a turbulent global climate
Make a difference within their teams and organisations by leading with a holistic approach
Stand in their truth, demonstrate resilience and adopt the right mindset for change and growth
I know exactly what is getting in your way and holding you back from becoming an extraordinary leader in these high-stress, high-pressure times.
It all starts with YOU
I believe that traditional paradigms of leadership are outdated and no longer suited for today’s high-paced, tech-savvy environments. We are at the cutting edge of new models of leadership that are changing the world for the better, growing corporations to new heights and creating healthier lives for all of us.
There is a proven science and an alchemy approach to leadership. I have learned so much along my journey as a woman in leadership over the 25 years of working with corporations and running my own company, and I am still learning.
My STORY
Mine is the classic make-it-or-break-it-in-the-Big-Apple story.
I was a highflying, high profile executive working in New York City. I’d been juggling motherhood and executivehood for more than a decade. Neither left me any time for anything else.
My life was a pressure cooker and the only way I could cope was to keep blindly hurtling through it. I was, without realising it, hurtling at full speed away from everything I needed to keep me grounded – my very own sense of self.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I crashed and burned. I suffered physical, emotional and psychological burnout, collapsing spectacularly on a footpath, gasping for air.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I crashed and burned. I suffered physical, emotional and psychological burnout, collapsing spectacularly on a footpath, gasping for air.
I was terrified. I broke the heel of my shoe. The contents of my handbag spilled everywhere and I had to place my trust in a city full of strangers to get help.
I returned home to Melbourne shortly after, exhausted, wounded and so fearful – so terrified – of another public breakdown that I lived like a hermit for 6 months.
And then I began to heal.
I began to do the work I needed to do to find myself again. Along the way, I had an extraordinary breakthrough. I began to see anxiety and panic attacks for what they really are: deception, mistrust, worthlessness, denial and depletion. In short, the sort of neuroses that lead to workaholism and busyness for busyness’ sake.
If there was an ‘aha’ moment for me, this was it.
If there was an ‘aha’ moment for me, this was it.
I decided to make some adjustments in my life, which included a mindset shift by standing in my truth, facing those brave conversations and backing myself.
It was in that moment that I decided to make a complete shift in my way of thinking, my way of being and my way of communicating. I decided to leave the corporate world and start my own business. Not working for a corporation but working with corporations and being in front of some of the largest companies in Australia and international organisations.
The Problem for Women in Leadership
The Problem for Women in Leadership
Nowadays, with everyone working from home, practicing physical distancing and experiencing a lack of human interaction, women in leadership are finding it challenging to lead, inspire, motivate, engage and influence their team, peers or organisation.
It is complicated for the modern leader to articulate their leadership values. When asked, ‘in an ideal world, what would your dream team sound, look and feel like?’, they just can’t put it into words.
Especially in these trying times, a healthy company culture means:
Cultivating positive relationships
Demonstrating adaptability, openness and proactivity
Making your team feel valued, heard, acknowledged and better understood.
To do so, you need to create a shared purpose, vision and understanding of why you exist as a whole and why you do what you do, all achieving personal, professional and organisational goals.
As a leader, it is critical for you to foster connections across your organisation if you want to have any sort of influence on change, transformation, innovation or decision-making to make things happen.
Why?
Why?
When you trust your team, peers and organisation to deliver on their word, there is an astonishing difference in terms of company culture, efforts and results.
Building an environment of trust begins with the unshakable belief and unconditional confidence that your team can deliver. Instead, leaders are doing their job plus some. They are overworked, overwhelmed and over process everything because they don’t know ‘how’ to build a culture of accountability.
Most leaders find it burdensome and avoid the conversation altogether when it comes to communicating at multiple levels in fear of causing conflict. All that does is leave our leaders unmotivated, low morale, decrease in their performance and productivity, and an increase in absenteeism.
Unresolved conflict can have a tremendous impact on an organisation because leaders go elsewhere on account of not knowing how to have these difficult yet necessary conversations.
An alarming number of team members feel they lack leadership guidance and development even when they receive training on how to be a good leader. The environment and culture do not allow them the space and time to implement and install the learnings without any help.
Consequently, team members are confused and even appear to be lazy because they have no real direction or clarity on their roles within an organisation.
What do most highly successful women in leadership do differently?
What do most highly successful women in leadership do differently?
Leaders solve a very specific problem
When it comes down to problem-solving, it requires transparent, candid and straightforward communication. Oftentimes, leaders move the problem to another department, another team or don’t address the problem at all, which has a profound impact on the rest of the team and company culture.
Outstanding women in leadership deal with the problem head-on because they know how to. Leaders breed leaders by getting down to the specifics, and this keeps their teams moving forward and up in the organisation
Leaders equip teams for creating results
Women in leadership that coordinate with a top-down approach — a command and control culture by ‘telling’ their team what to do — only develops resistance, generates conflict and creates silos. There is enough neuroscience evidence that shows the brain contracts when we are ‘told’ what to do. This is a sure killer for team engagement, motivation, ambition and inspiration.
Instead, a successful leader empowers their team because they know ‘how’ to equip them for success, resulting in a collaborative, inclusive, innovative and creative team with a shared vision.
Leaders provide a structure
At times, women in leadership provide team members training on how to be a good leader. However, team members find it difficult to practice and apply the information they have digested because there is not a structure or framework to help them with a step-by-step approach to make sure the training has landed. It’s more of a tick and flick approach.
Research reveals that the brain can forget up to 90% of what it has learned within a week. Having a structure or a system in place can enhance accountability, consistency and trust because leaders know ‘how’ to provide a reliable framework.
Leaders focus on engagement
Feedback is an essential ingredient when it comes to increasing engagement. It’s a two-way street. Its leaders asking for feedback and doing something with it. Most organisations roll out engagement surveys asking for feedback but don’t know what to do with it or ‘how’ to action it. Therefore, team members feel undervalued, not heard and they don’t have a voice.
There are three types of engagement in a culture. There are those that are engaged, those that are disengaged and then there are the high performers. When leaders focus only on the numbers, this produces laziness, an uncaring attitude and differences in opinion. However, when women in leadership focus on engagement, they have more of a chance of moving their least engaged team members into top performance simply because they know ‘how’ to drive engagement where the teams are productive, committed and successfully exceeding their numbers.
You Feel Stuck
You do not know how to work with difficult people, those who are resistant and make it problematic for others. You are finding it overwhelming, mind-boggling and feeling stuck with ‘how’ to lead difficult people. Therefore, leaving you second-guessing, self-doubting and self-analysing your approach every step of the way.
You Want to Build Unrivalled Resilience
You are experiencing conflict within your culture, whether it is with you and others or within your team. You do not know how to go about starting the courageous conversation that you must have, leaving you exhausted, anxious and not knowing ‘how’ to begin the discussion.
You Want to Be a Change Agent
You want to be seen as a motivational and inspirational woman in leadership, one who is adaptable to change. Still, you are finding time management challenging, confusing and constraining, leaving you overwhelmed, drained and depleted because you don’t know ‘how’ to lead change effectively.
You Want More Confidence
You have this fear of being seen as an imposter. You are held back because of your fear of failure, fear of being criticised and fear of making a mistake. This impacts your decision-making and confidence to speak up in a meeting, leaving you feeling crippled with self-doubt when you know the modern leader is one who is comfortable in standing in their vulnerability.
You Want to Influence
You want to be able to challenge the status quo and have grit to push through with grace, no matter what is put in front of you. You want to be able to be persuasive and be that go-to leader when it comes to successful negotiations.
You Want to Create Safety
You want to create a psychologically safe environment where you and others experience security, autonomy, fairness, esteem and trust. This will increase loyalty, satisfaction and feeling heard and valued, but you don’t know ‘how’ to go about it.
You Want to Be Innovative
You want to improve your communication skills and accelerate your personal and professional growth. You aspire to be more composed, socially aware and self-aware, but you don’t know ‘how’ to control that inner critic, those out of control thoughts and disempowering emotions.
You Feel Stuck
You do not know how to work with difficult people, those who are resistant and make it problematic for others. You are finding it overwhelming, mind-boggling and feeling stuck with ‘how’ to lead difficult people. Therefore, leaving you second-guessing, self-doubting and self-analysing your approach every step of the way.
You Want to Build Unrivalled Resilience
You are experiencing conflict within your culture, whether it is with you and others or within your team. You do not know how to go about starting the courageous conversation that you must have, leaving you exhausted, anxious and not knowing ‘how’ to begin the discussion.
You Want to Be a Change Agent
You want to be seen as a motivational and inspirational woman in leadership, one who is adaptable to change. Still, you are finding time management challenging, confusing and constraining, leaving you overwhelmed, drained and depleted because you don’t know ‘how’ to lead change effectively.
You Want More Confidence
You have this fear of being seen as an imposter. You are held back because of your fear of failure, fear of being criticised and fear of making a mistake. This impacts your decision-making and confidence to speak up in a meeting, leaving you feeling crippled with self-doubt when you know the modern leader is one who is comfortable in standing in their vulnerability.
You Want to Influence
You want to be able to challenge the status quo and have grit to push through with grace, no matter what is put in front of you. You want to be able to be persuasive and be that go-to leader when it comes to successful negotiations.
You Want to Create Safety
You want to create a psychologically safe environment where you and others experience security, autonomy, fairness, esteem and trust. This will increase loyalty, satisfaction and feeling heard and valued, but you don’t know ‘how’ to go about it.
You Want to Be Innovative
You want to improve your communication skills and accelerate your personal and professional growth. You aspire to be more composed, socially aware and self-aware, but you don’t know ‘how’ to control that inner critic, those out of control thoughts and disempowering emotions.
Introducing...
THE FEMININE LEADERSHIP ANTIDOTE™
7 Steps to Innovate, Revolutionise and Elevate Your Leadership
Introducing...
The Feminine Leadership Antidote™
7 Steps to Innovate, Revolutionise and Elevate Your Leadership
A proven method that enables new women in leadership to move from feeling overwhelmed, stuck, confused and frustrated to influencing, motivating and engaging their teams to be more accountable, driven, focused and confident. As a result, this will increase productivity, employee retention, customer satisfaction, improve corporate culture and organisational agility.
A proven method that enables new women in leadership to move from feeling overwhelmed, stuck, confused and frustrated to influencing, motivating and engaging their teams to be more accountable, driven, focused and confident. As a result, this will increase productivity, employee retention, customer satisfaction, improve corporate culture and organisational agility.
The Antidote is an online program delivered in 7 learning modules. Each module, released weekly over 7 weeks, includes video, downloadable tools, skill-building exercises, and the opportunity to apply the content immediately.
The Antidote is an online program delivered in 7 learning modules. Each module, released weekly over 7 weeks, includes video, downloadable tools, skill-building exercises, and the opportunity to apply the content immediately.
Module 1 – The Mindset Behind Every Extraordinary Leader
Module 1 – The Mindset Behind Every Extraordinary Leader
In this module, we will debunk the mysteries of your unconscious mind to drive change and transformation by knowing how to ask more thought-provoking questions, moving your team from poor performance to high performance.
We will unpack how to:
Influence your team: stop telling, start showing
Cultivate curiosity and ask more insightful questions
Develop awareness of your unconscious biases
Practice a growth mindset over a fixed mindset
We will use the following tools:
Mental Model Mapping tools to change your thinking
Thought-provoking questions guide to spark deep conversations
Share these thinking tools with your team and colleagues as a way to help them make better decisions and solve problems.
Module 2 – The Secret Recipe for How to Engage, Influence and Motivate as a Leader
Module 2 – The Secret Recipe for How to Engage, Influence and Motivate as a Leader
Next, we will share powerful tips with you on how to inspire, drive and shift your team and others from low drive to high drive by creating the space to allow them to stand in their truth, be heard and recognised for the leaders that they are.
We will unpack how to:
Empower through action, compassion and trust
Be of service and take care of your team as a phenomenal leader
Lead with vulnerability, confidence and presence
Show appreciation and value through acknowledgement, reward and recognition
We will use the following tools:
The ultimate questionnaire to supercharge your leadership
The fundamental assessment to drive your team towards success
Invite your team to assess their own motivations, engagement and inspiration.
Module 3 – Speak the Language of Leaders by Mastering the Craft of Communication
Module 3 – Speak the Language of Leaders by Mastering the Craft of Communication
If you want a standing ovation and to be known for your thought leadership, have a voice, and be trusted as the master of communication, this module will enable you to become the superstar of negotiations and influencing any outcome.
We will unpack how to:
Build trust and rapport with anyone through intuitive intelligence
Influence through body language and non-verbal communication
Develop the power of active listening to understand your teams’ needs and drivers
Enrich your vocabulary as a transformational woman in leadership
We will use the following tools:
Assessment tools that will reveal your communication style
A guide on how to lead with effective communication
Pave the way for your team to have powerful conversations that will spark unparalleled results.
Module 4 – The Unparalleled Principles and Philosophy Behind Powerful Leadership
Module 4 – The Unparalleled Principles and Philosophy Behind Powerful Leadership
In order to increase your self-awareness and be able to manage your emotions, the following module will help you learn how to come across as composed, cool, calm and collected to have those conversations that most leaders run away from.
We will unpack how to:
Lead courageous conversations
Incorporate emotional intelligence elements into your leadership style
Create a paradigm shift in leadership and perceptions
Empower your leadership through pioneering thinking
We will use the following tools:
Enhancing and leading with emotional intelligence workbook
A how-to guide and worksheets on courageous conversations
Coach your team the steps to brave conversations as a way to create paradigm shifts and let go of the resistance to change.
Module 5 – The Unspoken Fundamentals Behind the Psychology of Influencing Perception
Module 5 – The Unspoken Fundamentals Behind the Psychology of Influencing Perception
People will always remember how you made them feel. Therefore, building your profile to elevate your personal brand as an influential woman in leadership is key by tapping into your innate superpowers that you had no recollection or awareness of before.
We will unpack how to:
Use storytelling to be an inspirational leader
Establish your personal branding to influence
Lead by example, the confident feminine way
Discover and develop your strengths
We will use the following tools:
A step-by-step template on how to create a career plan on leadership principles
The 5-step process matrix to implement positive psychology as a framework to influential leadership
Share a career plan with your team on how to work with their strengths and increase their confidence.
Module 6 – The Best Applicable Methodologies for Every Woman in Leadership to Manage Teams Effectively
Module 6 – The Best Applicable Methodologies for Every Woman in Leadership to Manage Teams Effectively
If you want to cultivate commitment, progress and perseverance to achieve what matters most to you no matter what life throws at you, this will improve your level of resilience by discovering the upside to stress. Grit is courage, bravery and the stubborn refusal to quit, and you will develop it with the help of this module.
We will unpack how to:
Develop resilience, grit and grace for the confident leader
Implement time management principles for the exceptional leader
Apply the techniques of effective feedback for outstanding results
Adopt inclusive leadership and psychological safety
We will use the following tools:
The ultimate cheat sheet for mastering feedback
Leadership resilience and boosting buoyancy blueprint
Create a feedback culture that initiates trust, autonomy and security.
Module 7 – How to Soar Through Solving Problems in the Areas of Wellbeing and Performance
Module 7 – How to Soar Through Solving Problems in the Areas of Wellbeing and Performance
If you practice mindfulness, you will be present, purposeful and proactive. You will create strong boundaries, build good habits and lead by example the mindful way, having more time for your team, your career and your greatest asset: you.
We will unpack how to:
Decode leadership good habits
Establish strong boundaries of leadership
Practice mindfulness and meditation for women in leadership
Create a leadership development plan
We will use the following tools:
Development models on how to decipher leadership habits that motivate
A step-by-step process on how to profess mindfulness and meditation for wellbeing
Embrace deeper levels of happiness, joy and satisfaction with your team to thrive in the areas of relationships, career and wellbeing.
Read what others say about working with Catherine...
Read what others say about working with Catherine...
Are YOU ready to move from feeling overwhelmed, stuck, confused and frustrated to influencing, motivating and engaging your team to be more accountable, driven, focused and confident.
If you have any questions, please contact us:
Are YOU ready to move from feeling overwhelmed, stuck, confused and frustrated to influencing, motivating and engaging your team to be more accountable, driven, focused and confident.
If you have any questions, please contact us: