Case Study: Aspiring Female Leaders
MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs. Their Global Women's Initiative is led annually by senior leaders and championed by the CEO and Executive Group, with the express aim of increasing representation of women in leadership roles by identifying and attracting women to within the client globally; offering career development and skill-building; and ensuring that all women thrive with our client.
The Need
The client sought to refresh and relaunch a regional APAC Female Leaders program. This program had been run in the past, however regional facilitation was led by male facilitators, who weren’t perceived to establish an affinity with participants on this topic. BOLDLY was brought in due to our ability to facilitate and project manage this size of regional engagement with both female and male professionals.
This initiative spanned all business units across the organisation, and was strategically aimed at identifying and nurturing high-potential female leaders to enable diversity in succession planning. Several Managing Director level female leaders from the business were involved as faculty and group mentors to role model the leadership pathway for participants.
The Insights
Through our Development Needs Analysis (DNA) process we were able to uncover the below insights which were used to ensure the development program impacted the needs of the participant group. The key factors our high potential female leaders requested were:
- Focus on Gender-specific Issues: the program needed to recognize and address the gender-specific challenges that women often encounter in their leadership roles. By acknowledging and providing strategies to overcome these challenges, the program was required to empower women and highlight their strengths.
- Build My Confidence and Empower Me: The women in this program wanted to uncover and embrace their leadership potential. By providing the foundation for confidence and self-belief, the program was aimed at enabling women to overcome barriers and take on leadership roles with conviction.
- Cultivating a Leadership Community: Participants wanted opportunities for networking, collaboration, and peer-to-peer learning. By creating an environment where women could seek advice, and learn from one another, the program needed to play a role in building their pool of resources.
The Solution
BOLDLY designed and facilitated a 3-day live workshop, followed by 3 months of online community based learning, pod-based group coaching, and an aligned mentorship program which lasted for 12 months beyond the program content.
In particular, the program needed to engage a culturally diverse group of learners from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, India, Australia and New Zealand. This meant cross-cultural facilitators and coaches were required to bring regional strengths and common communication into play.
The Result
The overall programme received strong positive feedback from participants and stakeholders. A 6-month post-programme follow-up demonstrated good follow-through of mentoring relationships and retention of participants. Coachees explained that their expectation that online learning would be less impactful wasn’t correct, as the small pod-based coaching groups and engagement with facilitators and coaches meant these sessions continued to deliver value to the participants once they were back situated in their businesses. The client measured a significant change in their engagement from this cohort year on year, and was able to show two clear cases of succession planning where participants from this program were included for internal promotion.
Reach out to BOLDLY to collaborate. Here’s our program and some related resources:
- Empowering Female Leaders: The Role of Career Coaching in Career Development https://boldly.app/blog/empowering-female-leaders-role-of-career-coaching
- The Role of The Coach In Advancing Gender Equity https://boldly.app/blog/the-role-of-the-coach-in-advancing-gender-equity
- Coaching Emerging Female Leaders https://boldly.app/blog/coaching-emerging-female-leaders
For a detailed understanding of how these programs can be tailored to your specific needs, reach out to us at connect@BOLDLY.app. Your step towards this investment could redefine the future of leadership within your organisation.
