In an ever-changing professional world, the issue of female leadership is becoming increasingly important. NUMA's Women Leaders training program provides female employees with the space, support and tools they need to develop their assertiveness and network, while addressing the specific day-to-day challenges they face on a regular basis. To assert that there is a specifically feminine or masculine management style is reductive and contributes to reinforcing existing biases. However, it is crucial to recognize that women face additional challenges on their way to leadership positions. 

Training objectives 

The Femmes Leaders course aims to accelerate their professional development by helping them assert their leadership in all circumstances. Intended for women only, the workshops are designed to help you step back from the specific challenges of being a woman leader, and present situations where being a woman brings additional complexities.

• Developing assertiveness: boosting self-confidence and leadership assertiveness. This course teaches participants how to say no firmly and calmly, without creating tension, even in delicate situations. Participants will also learn to express their disagreement assertively, especially when they are in a minority or when their opinion risks being misinterpreted. Finally, the training helps participants to become aware of their strengths and to express them authentically, in order to better assert their uniqueness.

• Reacting to discrimination and ordinary sexism: know how to recognize and react appropriately to forms of ordinary sexism, often trivialized, such as comments on physical appearance or judgments based on gender stereotypes. This training also enables participants to deal effectively with situations of discrimination, whether obvious or more subtle, while preserving cohesion and positive dynamics within the team.

• Develop your network: enable participants to design an effective influence sequence by focusing on exchanges with key people in the decision-making process. They will also learn how to mobilize their internal network, such as colleagues, as well as their external network, including former colleagues, alumni and peers, to strengthen their position. Finally, they will be trained to use specific techniques to increase their influence at decisive moments.

The program 

1. Capitalize on your strengths to assert and develop yourself

• Identify and develop your professional skills.
• Identify personal aptitudes.
• Speak authentically about yourself (exercise in pairs) by asserting yourself without undervaluing yourself. Receive feedback.
• Identify and prioritize short- and medium-term development priorities.

2. Impactful communication 

• Create an impactful communication: define an objective and write a framework to gain impact using a natural style.
• Develop a leadership posture when speaking: use clear sentences without adverbs, positive and active formulas, adopt a high posture, bring value to the group by giving a business perspective.
• Express your emotions for authentic messages: welcome your emotional feelings and choose when to share the need behind your emotion.

3. Saying no and developing assertiveness

• Everyday "no": allowing yourself to say no repeatedly without losing credibility or demotivating the other person. 
• Refusals: say no to requests that go against an established framework or teamwork rules, even when the other person expects you to react differently "as a woman".
• Disagreeing in public: sharing a contrary opinion in a collective body (Codir, Copil...), even when everyone is converging towards the same opinion and your opinion risks being over-interpreted (particularly feminine sensibilities and. an objective business analysis).

4. Influence & network 

• Use your influence to optimize stakeholder support at a key moment: seek to understand the opinions of others to adapt and strengthen your arguments.
• Use your external network (e.g. alumni of the same school, former colleagues) to obtain information or monitor developments.
• Use the allies strategy: rely on your promoters, manage your detractors and engage your neutrals.
• Influence and assert yourself on a decision that concerns you: taking on a new position, assigning a key mission...

5. Negotiation 

• How to prepare for negotiations, whether for a budget or a promotion/increase: choose your starting position, identify your breaking point, imagine your plan B, prepare your concessions and quid pro quos...
• Postures and formulations: active listening, co-construction, open questions, non-verbal communication.
• React to unexpected or tense situations.
• Closing a negotiation.

NUMA's Posture for Women Leaders training offers a comprehensive and nuanced approach to leadership development for women. By helping participants define their principles, respond to discriminatory behavior and promote a culture of inclusion, this training contributes to creating an environment where every woman can thrive and succeed.

The NUMA pedagogical approach

Situational engineering

Each of our training contents is developed on the basis of more than 500 real-life cases that we get participants to react to. Each case is matched with tools, best practices and techniques that can be applied directly in their daily lives. The key to creating commitment throughout the training: your participants come and come again because they are convinced of the concrete usefulness of what they have learned. Priority management and planning are essential pillars of our approach, enabling you to focus on the skills that really matter.

The workshop

Depending on the challenges you face, we co-construct a series of thematic modules, both remote and face-to-face: workshops. This short format (2 hours remote, 3 hours face-to-face), in small groups (up to 12 participants from your company), covers around 6 real-life cases on which we get participants to react, with the resulting actions. The modalities of each session are designed to maximize efficiency and learning. Task management and situation control are an integral part of these workshops. Each workshop also includes an evaluation to measure learning effectiveness.

The trainers

NUMA trainers speak the same language as the participants: with over 15 years' experience in management and leadership positions, each coach is therefore an expert and ultra-legitimate on the subjects he or she tackles, enabling participants to experience first-hand the best ways of handling these situations while sharing their feedback. Each trainer is selected on the basis of his or her skills and experience. Speakers bring unique perspectives and proven strategies for managing emergencies and critical issues.

To find out more about our approach and how we structure our training courses, click here.