Cultural Training Asia (CTA) has launched two Women in Leadership (WIL) programs to help accelerate gender equality and participation of women in leadership roles. The two programs – aimed at women at different levels of seniority in the workforce – will run in October and November this year.

According to McKinsey Global Institute (2012, 2015) closing the gender gap could increase the GDP in South East Asia by 11%. Research also suggests that organizations with more gender balanced leadership teams financially outperform their less gender balanced counterparts.

Yet, around the world, including South East Asia women remain underrepresented in leadership roles, in Singapore for example only 27% of management positions are held by women.

“A lot of women are getting inpatient. Changes are very slow and organizations could do much more,” said Dr. Zsuzsanna Tungli, Managing Partner at Developing Global Leaders Asia.

“The good news is that women networks are getting organized, a lot of awareness is happening, especially through subconscious bias programs and panel discussions. Less is happening in ‘debiasing’ recruitment and promotions policies and practices or creating pay equity between male and female employees,” she added.

Building on its expertise in global leadership development and a desire to speed up the journey towards gender equality, Cultural Training Asia has designed two leadership programs aimed to support women at critical stages of their careers:

• Advance and thrive for women in senior management
• Accelerate for women with 5 years work experience

“In my experience these programs can spark amazing results. In order to create a longer-lasting impact we have created programs as leadership journeys rather than one-off events.” said Dr. Tungli.

The Women in Leadership (WIL) programs invite participants on a journey of integrated learning: including workshops, individual coaching sessions, panel discussions, Harrison Assessment, and much more.

The WIL programs aim to enhance women’s leadership skills, career advancement chances and confidence.

WIL Programs Differentiated Approach:

• The WIL programs are a journey and include several touch points over several months to ensure the best opportunity to create behavioral change.
• In addition to the ‘gender lens’, the WIL programs also apply a ‘cultural lens’ to the leadership subjects as cultural competence is a critical skill for today’s business leaders.
• Male inclusion: Gender equality can only be achieved with the inclusion of men, therefore the program includes men in parts of the programs and supports the UN HeForShe campaign.
• Comprehensive ROI measurement: In order to assess the effectiveness of the WIL initiative, surveys will be undertaken twice following conclusion of the program at 6 and 12 month intervals and this information will be fed back to participating organizations/participants.

“We believe the time for talking is over and companies must invest in their female workforce more to reap the benefits of a balanced leadership team, better business results, improved innovation and creativity,” added Dr Tungli.

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