Lead Like Her
Six months, in pairs, for the senior woman who is usually the only one at her level and the rising woman she has chosen: the two your organization is counting on, or you and the woman you would bring.
Ascend Institute, Women in Leadership Program
The woman who is already a first, and the woman she chose.
The first. In most rooms she walks into, she is the only woman at the table, and often the first one to have sat there. She has learned to carry that lightly. What she has rarely had is someone across from her who did it before her and stayed herself, and someone behind her who is ready to be next.
The second. She was chosen. A senior woman looked at her and said, that one. She is good at the work and she is starting to be asked to lead it, and nobody has yet shown her the conversations that take a woman from the function she runs to the room where the business is decided. Those conversations are what these six months are for.
The cohort. Qatari and non Qatari women sit in the same cohort, by design, so that nobody in it is the only one.
What happens over six months
Each woman arrives with one door she intends to open, for herself or for the woman beside her, and the six months are built around it.
- 01
Three half day labs in Doha.
The pairs work on the situation each woman actually brought, with the pressure and the politics left in.
- 02
A monthly evening circle, in the majlis form.
The whole cohort, one question, and the time to hear how each woman is answering it.
- 03
One upward conversation per woman.
Prepared here, held in her own organization, with the leader who can open the door she named, in the language the business acts on.
- 04
An optional session for allies.
The pairs bring a male executive from their organization into the conversation, because the door she named is rarely hers alone to open.
- 05
A written return to each institution.
What moved for its pair, set out so that a chief human resources officer can put it in front of the chief executive.
A corporate pair, or your own place.
A corporate pair
Your organization sends two women: the senior woman, and the rising woman she chose herself. The choosing is the first act of the program, because the sponsorship starts inside your institution before the first lab. You receive the written return on what moved, for both of them.
Your own place
You take your own place in the cohort and you are paired inside it wherever a pair can be made. The labs, the circle and the upward conversation are the same. What differs is that the return is written to you, and the woman beside you may work somewhere else.
Small on purpose.
The first cohort is small on purpose: twelve to sixteen women, few enough that Roberta knows every one of them. Its dates and how to apply will be posted on this page; register your interest and you will hear first. Roberta has taught executive presence inside another organization's women's leadership program before now. This is the first program the Positive Impact Hub has built for women leaders in Qatar, and it sits under Ascend Institute.