Women’s Leadership Intensive helps women find their voice
Leading means influencing, guiding, inspiring, invoking change and motivating towards a common goal.
But what does it mean to be a leader, in the true and authentic sense of the word? What does leadership really mean for women today?
For Belinda Clemmensen, founder of Women’s Leadership Intensive, that means power, purpose, community and finding your own voice in the world – notions that Clemmensen hopes will resonate with everyone who meets her organization.
Clemmensen is a longtime feminist with over 20 years of experience as a leadership development consultant and trainer in organizations and businesses across North America.
When she realized that in the world of leadership, women’s voices had always been blunt or nonexistent, the Women’s Leadership Intensive was born.
“I had that moment when I realized that pretty much everything I was teaching had been developed by men and no one was really questioning that. Men were the default for leadership just as they are the default for so many other things in our world, ”said Clemmensen. “It sent me on this journey. I know the women’s leadership journey is very different, so if we were to develop women’s leadership for women, by women, what would it look like? It was the seed to change gears, change direction and start a whole new business.
Programs for positive change
The Women’s Leadership Intensive offers both a one-year and a six-week program, as well as a free weekly video series.
The one-year program includes e-learning, coaching and retreats. It’s extremely interactive and intensive and is about “a pretty big transformation and improvement in your leadership,” Clemmensen explains. This program is the more effective of the two, as it gives students the opportunity to use and practice the skills they have learned over a long period of time.
The core pillars of this program focus on purpose, power and presence, and emphasize the idea of finding your own voice as a leader.
The next six-week online course, which is an accelerated version of the one-year program, teaching the same principles, just in a condensed and faster format, begins October 28. (Register here!)
The Women’s Leadership Intensive also offers the Inspired to Lead series, a free online series of one video per week for six weeks. Anyone can register to see them. These videos take the basic principles of Women’s Leadership Intensive and transform them into daily practices.
A new approach to female leadership
The Women’s Leadership Intensive approaches the idea of leadership with new and innovative eyes. Their programs differ from many leadership development programs in that they begin by examining the root of who a person is – with topics such as value, purpose, perspective, and life experience – before teaching skills. that can be used around the world. The association helps women to discover themselves; to reveal their strengths and values before teaching how to use them.
“What we’re trying to do is help women lead like themselves,” says Clemmensen. “You lead like you do, not like you’ve been told. Our community is all about reconnecting with what you really think about, what matters to you, and then how to lead accordingly. “
The Women’s Leadership Intensive is all about finding your voice and discovering what your voice has to offer to the world. Clemmensen points out that most women in leadership ranks often have their voices cut off, and have been for centuries. WLI is working to change that and give women the power and confidence to make their voices heard.
“Unless we start to change the way we think about these things, this will not be resolved,” Clemmensen
said. “It’s not just that the world needs more women and we need to achieve equality, what we do is what kind of voice do you have once you’re there?” “
The Women’s Leadership Intensive views leadership as something about community and inclusion, and that to lead effectively, you have to accept the help of others.
“Leadership has been positioned as that individual achievement, as someone who knows everything and who is exceptional and special,” says Clemmensen. “We position leadership as partnership, collaboration and community. We do these things together rather than the individual model. Community is a big part of that, doing it in the community of other people, other women.
The Women’s Leadership Intensive emphasizes the idea of empowering women and does a lot of work to understand the meaning of power. Rather than focusing on “old power,” a patriarchal, masculine type of power that focuses on independence, says Clemmensen, they practice “new power,” which is much more collaborative and inclusive, and is focused about community and the idea that leadership can be achieved in groups.
Accept support
Clemmensen’s wish for the Women’s Leadership Intensive is that the women of Muskoka benefit from its programs and make positive changes in their lives. She wants everyone to benefit from the WLI, regardless of their social or economic status, whether they are a business owner, an entrepreneur, or someone just looking to improve their leadership skills. . Clemmensen points out that there is financial support in the community through Muskoka Futures, the YWCA and the Northern Ontario Women’s Program, resources that can help cover the cost of the WLI programs.
Clemmensen wants women to know that it is okay to accept support and that support is
there in the community.
“What I hear from a lot of the women I talk to is that they don’t feel worthy of community support or government grants, that they are supposed to be able to do so. themselves, that it’s not valid if they don’t struggle, ”she said. “What you do is important and deserves to be supported. You deserve development and people don’t get there without help. And the help is there, it is there in the community, and it is there in my programs.
For more information on the Women’s Leadership Intensive and their programs, visit: Womensleadershipintensive.ca.
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