Implement a Coaching Program For Your Women Leaders

Just 72 women for every 100 men are promoted and hired to manager level positions. In longer terms, this leaves men holding 62 percent of manager-level positions compared to 38 percent women-held spots. In turn, fewer women are available for further promotion, and subsequently, the number of women continues to decrease at every level. For women of color, this disparity is even higher: 1 in 5 C-suite executives is a women, but just 1 in 25 C-suite executives is a woman of color.

Two of the top challenges are that women don’t receive as much sponsorship (47%) and there aren’t enough qualified women in the pipeline (45%). Organizations must take intentional steps to combat this disparity. Implementing a well-designed women's leadership coaching program is one important step toward fixing this broken rung in the career ladder.

The Benefits of Coaching Your Women Leaders

Gender diversity is an essential organizational goal, and it comes with some measurable advantages.

1. Gender-diverse businesses have better financial performance. In a Gallup study of more than 800 business units businesses that were more gender-diverse performed better, 14% higher on average in retail and 19% higher on average for hospitality. Units that were not only diverse on paper but actively engaged saw significantly higher profits – 46% in retail and 58% in hospitality.
   
   
2. More women in the workplace makes the organization a better place to work – for everyone. A higher percentage of women in an organization was correlated to more job satisfaction. This increased presence of women also increased the overall workforce's dedication to the business. This dedication aided in producing more meaningful work for employees, according to a study from the Center for Creative Leadership.
   
   But merely including women in the workforce isn’t enough – women also need to be engaged. While men tend to report higher engagement levels as they are promoted, that’s not the case with women. Implementing a leadership coaching program for women is a key solution to boost engagement.

Tips to implement a successful leadership coaching program for women

1. Provide unconscious bias training. As a first step, provide evaluators and leaders who provide performance reviews with unconscious bias training. This will help to curb biases in early career evaluations.
   
   
2. Communicate the strategic goal for providing coaching. This can mean talking about improving talent retention, training emerging talent, or improving leadership skills. No matter your goals, participants need to understand why the organization is offering the program. Understanding the strategy behind the program also helps organizational leaders measure the success of the program.
   
   Establish guidelines for communication frequency. Make sure both coaches and their coachees understand how often they should be meeting and engaging.
   
   
3. Assess your leaders as individuals. Understand the issues each leadership level faces, and unique strengths and challenges of your leadership team. Apply that knowledge to carefully match coaches – or lean on a software to help improve matching accuracy.
   
   
4. Leverage coaching software. You can take the burden off your program participants by implementing technology to manage the details. This leaves the coach and coachee free to focus on building a relationship. Look for a solution that includes:

• Automated messages
• Goal tracking
• Content management
• Organizational-level reporting
  
  Coaching programs are successful when coaching relationships are successful. Insala’s software solutions can help you lay the best foundations for coaching relationships that support the women leaders in your organization. This will change the trajectory of your organization’s gender diversity and increase your likelihood for success.

We’re ready to apply our 25 years of experience to help you establish a coaching program that truly makes a difference for your women leaders.

Please request a demo to discover how Insala can help you implement a coaching program for your women leaders.