2023 GovWFollowMyLead Program™ 

(Multi State Version)

Supporting women working in the public sector

Studies have found that women in the public sector have been advancing into leadership roles more easily than in the private sector and the pay gap between men and women in government positions have narrowed considerably over the years. These advancements in gender equality in the public sector space can be highly rewarding for women who work in the public sector, on top of the satisfaction from knowing that they are doing work on behalf of citizens on the local, state or national level. However, women in public sector are expected to perform well in a work environment that is characterized by a variety of challenges.  According to a report by Deloitte on “The future of government”, it is stated that “[p]erhaps nowhere is the gap between the public sector and the private sector greater than in workforce management. While much of the private sector has transformed over the past two decades, the public sector, for the most part, has not. Most public sector organizations are still locked into decades-old workforce policies, such as rigid job classifications, lockstep pay, and reliance on seniority as a substitute for capability.”

We have designed this GovWFollowMyLead program specifically to help empower our women working in the public sector in different states towards leadership. Please note that separate registration and fee for this Program is required to attend the Program (whether or not you are a member of The Koa Club general community).  Registration fee for the 6-month multi-state 2023 GovWFollowMyLead Program is $550 per person. Details of the 2023 Multi-State GovWFollowMyLead Program are described below.

The GovWFollowMyLead™ Program is designed to:

  • Strengthen the leadership, personal and workplace skills of women in the public sector so they can build the confidence to succeed, gain insights on being effective leaders, managers and team members, and be armed with useful tools to navigate commonplace workplace challenges.
  • Equip women in the public sector with strategies to maintain their well-being, especially during these high stress times
  • Help women in the public sector establish supportive relationships with other women at work, providing them a safe environment to share best practices and informal advice with each other.

Program Bonus

Once you have registered for this 2023 Multi-State GovWFollowMyLead™ Program, you will also be automatically made a community member of The Koa Club. The Koa Club is a global community of high achieving women seeking further growth and empowerment in their professional and personal lives and it offers workshops, events and activities that are designed to help its members gain new knowledge and skills so they can be empowered in unexpected ways, not only in relation to their careers, but also practical life skills that are designed to improve the quality of their daily lives. The Koa Club will act as your extended learning club outside the Program and as your alumni club when you complete the Program.

Fees

Please note that separate registration and fee for this Program is required to attend the Program (whether or not you are a member of The Koa Club general community).  Registration fee for the 6-month 2023 Multi-State GovWFollowMyLead Program is US$550 per person.

If you register and pay for this Program by June 30, 2023, you are entitled to a 10% discount off the applicable registration fee for the Program using the discount code: 10offmulti (code expires July 1, 2023)

Note: If you are registering for someone else, please make sure to register using the intended participant’s full name, email address and contact information (not your own name, email or contact information if you are not the intended participant). If you are registering for more than one person, please register for each person separately. 

Registration for this 2023 Multi-State GovWFollowMyLeadProgram will close on September 22, 2023. 

Register Here!
View Workshops Mentorship Huddles

details.

Workshops will be held online and the Zoom dial-in details will be provided to you once you have registered.

 

2023 program overview

The 2023 Multi-State GovWFollowMyLead™ program is a six-month long program and has two phases:

Phase 1 (Personal Skills Development) September 2023 – November 2023 (Holiday break December 2023)

3 workshops focused on the well-being and personal development for the women participants and are designed to provide insights for women on mastering life-changing skills in a number of ways, including to eliminate self-defeating beliefs that creates obstacles to their success, to gain confidence to help them show up with their best selves and to learn tools to succeed as an effective communicator. We also include as part of our Phase 1 workshops, important strategies and tools to manage stress, relieve pressures and avoid burnout that women may face at work and at home. 

Phase 2 (Workplace Skills Development) January 2024 – March 2024

3 workshops focused on providing the women participants with practical strategies for operating effectively within the workplace, including, developing much-needed leadership skills, applying emotional intelligence to help with decision-making process, successfully managing up, down and across an organization, and wielding effective influence strategies to maintain successful team collaboration at work. The final workshop is focused on learning the key tools to ease decision making fatigue and to build resiliency for the long term. 

Workshop 1

Phase 1: Personal Development Skills

 

Friday, September 22, 2023 

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Productivity Culture – Understanding and Managing (and Avoiding!) Burnout


Agenda:

Introduction to the Program – Goals and Expectations

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

According to Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report, which captures how people are feeling about work and life in the past year, U.S. workers are some of the most stressed employees in the world, and another survey by Deloitte’s Women at Work 2022: A Global Outlook found that almost half of the 5,000 women surveyed felt they are experiencing burnout.  Stress levels of working women have been much higher than men, in some cases due to women having to juggle their busy careers with demanding family caregiving and child-care challenges, and in other cases, caused by factors such as feeling isolated from working remotely, reluctance to delegate, always putting others’ needs over their own, inability to say no, feeling the need to always be perfect and working twice as hard to prove themselves. Employees suffering from burnout generally feel cynical and detached from their work, suffer from the beliefs that they are unaccomplished and ineffective in whatever they do, and are constantly overwhelmingly exhausted. 

In this workshop, our speaker will discuss the common culprits causing burnout, helps us to recognize the signs of burnout in ourselves (and in others whom we may be managing at work) and will share valuable tools and strategies on how to prevent and recover from burnout in order for us to stay productive and feel re-energized.

 

Workshop 2

Phase 1: Personal Development Skills

 

Friday, October 20, 2023

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Improve Performance with Greater Confidence


Agenda:

Empowered Networking: Amplification of Your Superpowers 

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

There is no secret that confidence is directly related to how well we do our job and how successful we can relate to the people working around us. People who lack confidence may be more hesitant to show their abilities and skills are likely less willing to contribute in a team environment and are generally uncomfortable with engaging in the important art of self-promotion. Lack of confidence can have a dramatic effect on our careers, keeping us in our comfort zone because we want to feel safe with little risk of failure, which results in us failing to seek stretch assignments to help us grow, causing us to lose our motivation and ultimately undermine our self-esteem over time.

We do not have to be born with confidence – it can be learned and practiced. We begin the process of attaining greater self-confidence by becoming more self-aware, adjusting to a growth mindset, and aiming to show up with our best selves in whatever we are engaged in.  

In this interactive workshop, our speaker will provide participants with increased knowledge, self-awareness, and strategies in developing self-confidence to achieve more and perform better, whether at work or in other aspects of our lives.

 

Workshop 3

Phase 1: Personal Development Skills

Friday, November 17, 2023 

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Other Self-Limiting Beliefs


Agenda:

Empowered Networking – Team Building Challenge

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

Have you ever felt like you’re only winging it and that it is only a matter of time until people find out that you are not as competent as they may think? Are you sometimes convinced that your successes are just down to blind luck or being in the right place at the right time? If so, you may be struggling with impostor syndrome. Many of us do, and imposter syndrome afflicts even those who are well educated, accomplished and appear to have their act together.

Besides experiencing imposter syndrome, it is also not uncommon, especially for women, to have other self-limiting beliefs. Each of the self-limiting belief is a state of mind or belief about ourselves that often come from a place of negativity, self-doubt and fear, keeping us from engaging in new opportunities and sometimes, hindering our potential success.

The good news is that, with some guidance and practice, we can change our thoughts and learn to take a more realistic —and more positive—view on our lives, careers, and accomplishments.

In this workshop, our speaker will help walk us through identifying tell-tale signs of impostor syndrome and other limiting beliefs, the different ways in which it manifests in people’s lives, and what we can do to overcome them. We will leave this workshop with an actionable list of strategies and tools that can help us make positive changes and strengthen our confidence and courage.

Workshop 4

Phase 2: Workplace Improvement Skills

Friday, January 19, 2024 

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Utilizing Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace


Agenda:

Empowered Networking – An Emotional Intelligence Game

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

Emotional Intelligence, also known as Emotional Quotient (EQ,) is the ability to use both our emotions and cognitive skills and its competencies include empathy, intuition, creativity, flexibility, coping, stress management, and intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. Research shows that EQ is a strong driver of leadership and personal excellence and that people with a high EQ are more  innovative  and  have higher job satisfaction than those with lower EQs.

It has been known that people with high EQ tend to be better at: making sound decisions and solving problems; able to keep calm under pressure; good at resolving conflicts; tend to have greater empathy for others; and build and sustain collaborative relationships. Our EQ can evolve and increase with our desire to learn and grow, unlike Intelligence Quotient (IQ), which does not change significantly over a lifetime. Achieving a high EQ is not just for people in leadership roles, but it’s a quality needed for everyone at all levels of their careers to help foster workplace success.

At this workshop, our speaker will explain the different elements of EQ, provide techniques on how to develop our EQ as well as how to use it to our advantage to better manage our relationships with others at work and to help us be better decision makers and problem solvers.

Workshop 5

Phase 2: Workplace Improvement Skills

Friday, February 23, 2024 

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Build and Develop Your Leadership Skills 


Agenda:

Empowered Networking – Defining Your Leadership Style

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

Even if a participant is currently in an individual contributor role, there may be times when she may be asked to take on a leadership role, perhaps as a team leader for a project, or she may be given the opportunity to move to a position that allows her to manage others, or she may aspire to move up to a leadership role. Being a leader is more than a title, it’s important to know how to lead others, get the work done, deal with conflict, solve problems and inspire others to follow.

When directing, motivating, guiding, and managing groups of people, each of us may often navigate to the natural leadership style that we are most comfortable in engaging, but it is also important to understand the other common leadership styles that do exist, ranging from autocratic at one end, to laissez-faire at the other, with a variety of styles in between, so that we may flex to a different leadership style as and when appropriate for the particular situation. 

In this workshop, our speaker will help us gain an understanding of the various leadership styles and how to develop behaviors supporting the specific styles, learn the importance of crafting a compelling vision and demonstrating commitment, courage and flexibility, and implementing strategies for building a successful collaborative outcome with our teams.

 

Workshop 6

Phase 2: Workplace Improvement Skills

Friday, March 22, 2024 

@ 9:00am – 11:00am PT; @ 10:00am – 12pm MT; @ 11:00am – 1pm CT; @ 12:00pm – 2pm ET

Principles of Influence and Persuasion


Agenda:

Empowered Networking – Flex Your Influencing Muscles

Speaker Presentation & Q&A

Description:

How often have we admired someone who appears to have the superpower of influence and who could also easily persuade others to do their bidding? Influence and persuasion are two separate leadership skills. Influence is a personal power that comes from a trait that you possess, is a part of your identity and involves your ability to impact or change the opinions, behaviors or actions of others without having a formal authority over them. Persuasion happens due to your action, and it is about convincing others to achieve desired outcomes without coercion. Not having a formal position of authority at your workplace does not mean that you can’t wield any influence over others – you can learn to be effective at influencing diverse stakeholders that are crucial to your job.

 In this workshop, our speaker will help us to understand how to assess our own level of influence, finding sources of personal power, learning strategies of influencing and persuading without manipulation or coercion, and knowing how to implement those strategies.

 

mentorship huddles

As part of the GovWFollowMyLead Program™, we will also be organizing several Mentorship Huddles for the women who have signed up for the Program.

The Mentorship Huddles is a group mentoring program within the GovWFollowMyLead Program™ that enables the participants to collaborate with colleagues within an organization who share common interests or learning objectives and develop together.Each Mentorship Huddle is made up of 6-10 women who have registered to attend the GovWFollowMyLead Program™ and is led by a Huddle Mentor. The Mentorship Huddle brings together smaller groups of women to collectively explore and discuss workshops and other relevant issues – while being mentored and guided by a Huddle Mentor, who will be someone who has knowledge and/or experience with the various issues and challenges raised by the workshops.

why mentorship huddles?

  • It encourages the expansion of knowledge pool as women from across departments and generations in an organization can collaborate to learn from one another.
  • It helps to build intra-organizational personal relationships by breaking down silos between departments, genders, ethnicities and beyond, providing a safe space to discuss things which can sometimes be uncomfortable.
  • It gives members a place where they can have a voice that matters to build confidence and develop or improve leadership and other skills.
  • It connects people with varying skillsets to tackle challenges or issues raised during a Huddle meeting.
  • It may help open access for the participants to influential peers, future sponsors and senior leadership that they might never have interacted with before.
  • It aims to inspire participants to push themselves to deal with obstacles by understanding that others in the group may be tackling similar issues and helping them to overcome those issues or obstacles.
  • It fosters the building of trust between participants that allows them to come together in support of each other’s goals, while simultaneously seeking to achieve their own.It aims to be more fun than traditional mentorships with group activities including role play and brainstorming that creates energy and camaraderie.

how does a mentorship huddle work?

  • All participants will be assigned to a Mentorship Huddle, facilitated by a Huddle Mentor. The assignment will be based on results of a survey collected from each participant after the first workshop to determine the best fit for any specific Mentorship Huddle.
  • After each workshop, questions and details of that workshop will be shared with the Huddle Mentor who will use the provided information as the base for group discussions at Huddle meetings.
  • Huddle meetings will be scheduled by the Huddle Mentor as appropriate with that specific Huddle group and will be held no less than once a month.