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Coaching Women to Succeed   
March 17, 2008—“Most women like me advanced because of a sense of financial insecurity,” says Savitri Sharma, now the leader of a large economic empowerment organization in northern India. Most women in her community “had hardly any say in family decisions and engaged in unpaid labor day and night,” she says. Savitri persevered and overcame personal and professional challenges to become a leader because she wanted security for herself, she says. The 23 women leaders who joined CEDPA last week in Washington, D.C. came from vastly different cultures, but their stories were similar to Savitri’s. Each had to overcome enormous barriers to advance to leadership positions within their communities. In doing so, they beat the odds faced by most women. Worldwide, women make up just over 17 percent of parliaments, hold just 22 percent of senior management positions within businesses, and are less than 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. The women who participated in CEDPA’s March 10-14 Alumni Coaching Workshop shared another similarity with Savitri: each is now committed to helping other women overcome professional barriers and advance to leadership positions. For more than two years, CEDPA has paired senior-level leaders with its recent training graduates in an innovative coaching program that helps newly emerging women leaders improve their job performance and advance in their professions. Coaches act as a sounding board, assist in brainstorming solutions to career challenges and facilitate action plans as their clients move forward in their careers.
CEDPA defines a coach differently than a mentor, supervisor or counselor. Mentoring typically involves individuals from the same organization. Supervisors can also fill the role of mentor or coach, but they have the added responsibility of performance appraisal which oftentimes limits the level openness. Counselors, by contrast, assist clients with personal challenges and address mental health. CEDPA’s coaching model is unique for women leaders in development organizations in that it recognizes the potential impact of a neutral resource outside of one’s organization for professional growth during periods of growth and prosperity, as well as during challenging times. Coaches are selected from the large pool of more than 5,000 CEDPA alumni and are invited to a week-long workshop where these seasoned, professional women gain the skills they need to be an effective and productive coach. The Coaching Workshop helps prepare new coaches like Savitri for their year-long commitment through sessions on topics such as effective communication, how to run a coaching session, non-verbal cues, active-listening skills and difficult coaching scenarios. Since the onset of the Alumni Coaching Program, CEDPA has trained 58 coaches who have worked with over 100 clients. A recent evaluation found that the majority of clients reported that they gained specific skills and achieved their goals. For example, one alumna from China reported that “I think the most useful aspect of the coaching experience for me is that I had a professional and experienced [coach] to listen to my troubles and problems [that] occurred at work and life and got valuable suggestions as well as encouragement from her. Consequently, I have been able to cope with the problems much more smoothly.” CEDPA’s coaching program is made possible with support from the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Educating Women and Girls Initiative, and the Ford Foundation. To learn more about CEDPA’s approach to advancing women’s leadership, please visit our training page. |
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