Northstar Women Leaders
Our Mission
To powerfully change the lives of women by being a catalyst for their personal transformation and leadership development at all stages of their career.
“Creating a work environment where women can thrive, and implementing initiatives that support, advance, retain and reward them, is not only the right thing to do, it is a smart and strategic business approach”
-KPMG International
Current Research
In 2014 KPMG conducted a comprehensive and groundbreaking survey of more than 3,000 professional and college-aged women, exploring the qualities and experiences that contribute to women’s leadership and advancement. A number of the key findings from the respondents of this study are alarming.
- Companies with the best record for promoting women outperformed industry revenue averages by 46 percent. Yet, 70% of U.S.‑based corporations have no clearly defined strategy for developing women for leadership roles (Mercer 2010)
- 80% of the professional women in the KPMG study believe it is critical for companies to support a woman’s development in their twenties and support career advancement in their thirties (61%)
- Two in three respondents believe they need more support building their confidence to feel like they can lead.
- Six in 10 of professional working women who responded to the survey indicated that they aspire to be a senior leader of a company or organization. Yet, more than half of the women agree that, “as women” they are more cautious in taking steps toward leadership roles and six in 10 find it hard to see themselves as a leader.
Our Programs and Services
Challenging women to practice and improve their leadership mindset and skillset with competence, courage, credibility and curiosity through connection.
The Leadership Challenge for Women Leaders
Imagine this…you have made a commitment to take your leadership skills to the next level. Your career has provided you with the opportunity to network with other professionals in your field. You want and deserve more. You have done your homework and decided that you would thrive in a leadership development program focused on a well-researched model of leadership in an empowering, all-female environment where your confidence will soar.
The Leadership Challenge for Women, a unique
The Leadership Challenge® helps leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done. It approaches leadership as a measurable, learnable, and teachable set of behaviors and is rooted in the belief that leaders, teams, organizations improve when ordinary people enable those around them to achieve extraordinary results.
Based on data from more than 20,000 leaders and 100,000 constituents over 30 years, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge, found that the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership could be learned. Think about it…with the right knowledge and environment for
Leading Leaders Up
Building Familiarity, Comfort and Trust. Building bench strength and retention.
The Leading Leaders Up program is focused on building corporate cultures where diversity and inclusion are celebrated. Often times, organizations spend significant resources to attract diverse talent yet do not create an onboarding and retention structure that guarantees employee engagement from day one.
Trust between managers and their direct reports is a key factor in forming a diverse and inclusive culture, which fosters extraordinary performance. Managers are critical in supporting direct reports’ growth. According to a 2016 Catalyst study, “those managers who successfully achieve trusting relationships with direct reports will obtain optimal performance from their direct reports, enjoy greater team productivity and realize personal satisfaction in their success development of talent.”
Research finds that minority women face greater challenges than white woman in forming trusting relationships at work. The existence of trusting supervisory relations where direct reports feel comfortable disclosing information to managers represents a win-win-win situation-for the individual woman, the manager and the organization.
First, thinking and behavioral assessments, including the HBDI (HERRMANN BRAIN DOMINANCE INSTRUMENT®) and Whole Brain Thinking Model, facilitate this important conversation. The HBDI® is a powerful psychometric assessment that defines and describes the way people think and process information The HBDI is built on Whole Brain® Thinking, a holistic and complete model for making decisions. Diversity of Thought is an overarching approach to inclusion that everyone identifies with and can relate to a positive impact on your bottom line.
The Leaders Leading Up is a coaching program that engages the emerging leader, manager and the managers one up supervisor in critical conversations using behavioral and thinking assessments that align expectations during the on-boarding process. The sessions are designed to accelerate the process of building familiarity, comfort and trust.
New hires are the pool from which program participants are identified. Leaders Leading Up is a powerful on-boarding and retention approach that results in maximum productivity and development by creating mutually agreed upon expectations.
How it works:
- Managers identify high potential reports
- Both the manager, the one-up manager and new employee take the HBDI
- All three clients are coached individually on the results of their HBDI
- The manager and new employee are then coached as a pair utilizing the HBDI
- Finally the new hire, manager and the manager’s one up are coached as a trio on their team HBDI
The Leadership Institute
The Leadership Institute provides an array of programs designed to empower women as they build their leadership muscle. We believe that implementing leadership programs that develop and connect high potential women with senior leaders is key to ensuring that women succeed.
Women know that confidence and determination are two characteristics of leaders.
Our programs focus on empowering women to build their leadership muscle.
Session topics include:
- Confidence building
- Feedback
- Public speaking
- Building Your Personal Brand
- Strategic Thinking
- Decision Making
- Networking
- Critical Thinking
- People Management
- Negotiating
- Whole Brain Thinking
- Emotional Intelligence
Legacy Leaders Circle
“I am inspired by the next generation of women leaders. When I see their potential, I want to have more of an impact and pay it forward.”
– Kathy Hopinkah Hannan,
National Managing Partner
Corporate Responsibility & Diversity, KPMG
The Leadership Institute at NWL works closely with distinguished women leaders in our community who believe that although it might be lonely at the top as a senior executive…it is also lovely at the top when women leaders support women through Northstar Women Leaders.
The Legacy Leader Circle is a select team of established women leaders who serve as contributors to Northstar Women Leaders in a variety of capacities. They are committed to serving as positive role models for emerging female colleagues and supporting each other. Their life and leadership experiences extend beyond that of traditional networking groups. Diverse by design, the Legacy Leader Circle represents women in a wide variety of industries with a diverse set of skills and experiences. Through Northstar Women Leaders, the Legacy Circle provides and promotes established leaders with opportunities of corporate board membership, keynote speaking, authorship as guest bloggers in the field of leadership or subject matter expertise.
Northstar Women Leadership Circles
Whether you are starting your career as a rising star, in the midst of making a name for yourself or transitioning in the work place or to a new community, Northstar Women Leaders Circles provide a conversational structure for connection, growth and development.
