Women in Financial Services Blog

Aspiring Leaders Event, held on 22nd June 2017.

Tina.Freed / 26 Jun 2017

Last week a group E2W Members and friends came together at L&G for the Aspiring Leaders event. 

A recurring theme in our E2W Coaching Conversations is how to develop as leaders and overcome barriers, both real and perceived. With that in mind we were delighted to welcome Kat Hutchings, an independent career coach specialising in working with women in financial services who feel ‘stuck’ and want to get more from their professions. Kat helped us consider the challenges faced by women in financial services, leadership styles and owning your personal brand.

First, with Kat’s help we:

• Smashed through the ‘Glass Ceiling’
• Developed coping mechanisms for when we question our self-belief 
• Realised that flexible, achievable targets are far better than fixed, unattainable ones 
• Learnt how to cultivate adult-to-adult relationships with our bosses rather than deferential ones. 

By challenging these assumptions in leadership, we can hope to encourage more women into such roles. 

Next, we focused in on leadership styles.  We reflected on what styles we admired, the strong or positive qualities we saw in others, and how to adopt such a style. Focus included the topic of personal brands, and the importance of authenticity in both leadership and in conveying your brand. 

Taking away from the presentation, attendees were asked to reflect on what they valued about themselves, and ask their colleagues for three words to describe their own leadership style or how they are perceived. All were asked to provide feedback to E2W with their colleagues’ responses, and what technique or tip they would put into practice in the following days. 

Some feedback already received:

• “What a great event and I have much food for thought on how to approach my imminent interview, and my interactions going forward with my colleagues - sometimes you do feel like you are on the back foot and it just needs to be "adult to adult" conversations.  Kat gave an inspirational talk…”
• “Thank you very much for the session last night, it was very interesting… I took away a few pointers, but the one thing I really want to change is with regards to the deference statement, falling into that child role. It is something I just realised I do fairly easily.”

One of the great benefits of the evening was to see members meet each other for the first time, and make new connections.

Big thanks go to L&G for providing fantastic facilities and great food and refreshments.

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