Navigating the Challenges
“We have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.”
As our celebration Women’s History Month comes to a close, I continue to be reminded how we stand on the shoulders of the women who came before us. During my lifetime, women were not able to establish credit in their own name. When I was born, we’d never had a woman astronaut or Supreme Court Justice. Discrimination on the basis of sex was not yet recognized under U.S. law. Women executives, law firm partners, physicians were rare.
During my lifetime I’ve seen extraordinary progress in gender equality. Yet opportunities for women and people who identify as gender non-conforming continue to be challenged by systemic inequities, microaggressions, and insensitivity. More recently we’ve seen backlash that seeks to not only reinforce the obstacles but reverse the progress.
As I coach women leaders across industries and disciplines, I hear consistent themes: a desire to be seen as strong and capable, yet likable; a desire to succeed and achieve, yet build followership; moving from exhilaration and excitement to frustration, loneliness, exhaustion; wanting to feel heard, yet often feeling misunderstood; enjoying the achievements and high points, yet working really hard, constantly running and juggling; being role models of success, yet internally questioning and judging.
The challenges that high achieving women continue to face are real. As America Ferrera’s character Gloria so perfectly pointed out, “we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.”
It’s an understatement that BIPOC women and people who identify as GNC face additional, unique, and more daunting difficulties. Yet the challenges we confront as we seek to operate as leaders in the workplace are often very similar.
Minerva 2024 is a group coaching program designed for high achieving women to help them navigate these challenges and:
• find purpose
• live with agency and intent
• enhance their ability to positively impact their peers, teams, organizations, and communities
• enrich their relationships
• gain perspective, resilience, and strength
• achieve their goals
Structured as a coaching engagement, Minerva 2024 will help women gain clarity around their goals and intentions, self-awareness to align their impact with those intentions, understanding of the obstacles their putting in their own way. They’ll acquire tools and build plans to help them remove those obstacles and strengthen their accountability to sustain their growth into the future.
As a group coaching experience, Minerva 2024 members will experience additional benefits from harnessing the group’s collective wisdom and community of support as each individual member works to gain greater self-awareness, embrace growth and change, and gain tools and strategies for overcoming the obstacles they face inside themselves and within their organizations.
The ideal Minerva 2024 member is a high-achieving woman or person who identifies as GNC who is a leader within their organization, sees themselves as high achieving, and wishes to embrace growth and development within a supportive community. Interested in learning more? Go to Minerva 2024 for details and to register.