Transformational Executive Presence for Women.
Stop Apologizing for your power. Embrace it.
Your Power + Confidence: Re-Kindled.
Virtual or Onsite via COVID-Safe Open-Air Guidelines
Outcomes & Benefits: Women’s Leadership Development Program
Each woman participant (and/or other gender Allies) will learn BOTH the core tools taught in our award-winning mixed-gender Transformational Executive Presence Training tools plus additional tools specific to executive presence for women.
(1) In this female leader empowerment program, you’ll first learn the top-rated core tools from our Transformational Executive Presence Training to:
- Radiate a confident presence that inspires, creates buy-in – and propels your career
- Create credibility and trust with key decision makers
- Look and feel impressive with anyone
- Develop powerful, warm rapport – the kind that creates credibility and buy-in
- Create warm, mutually-supportive alliances with other women participants
- Receive expert coaching to clear your personal impediments to a confident presence
- Learn how to overcome hesitation borne from self-doubt; instead, you’ll know how to demonstrate executive decisiveness
- Discover how others perceive you through Video Feedback Training (most participants initially cringe and later feel hugely grateful for powerful lessons learned)
(2) IN ADDITION, each participant (including Allies not identified as female, if you choose) will:
- Uncover specific areas in her life in which she walks a fine line (see “Fine Line” article below) and practice reversing this
- Receive solo attention and feedback from expert facilitators to reverse her personal insecurity ‘tells’
- Participate in smart and heartwarming explorations about themes common to women such as:
– Waiting until perfect before speaking up
– Fearing criticism or retribution when taking one’s full power
– Holding oneself back, apologizing for taking time and space, and supporting the next generation of women
How do I attend this women’s leadership development program?
Case Studies from Women Leaders
What can I say? Life-changing. This training really changed my life. It was absolutely instrumental.
As Executive Director, I use the skills every day in my interactions with employees and clients. As a result of The Executive Presence Training I am less apologetic about my presence and my right to take up others time and attention. I now project a sense that my words matter.
Secondly, as a result of The Executive Presence Training, clients are more likely to do business with the company I represent. The training taught me how to connect with and create trust with potential clients. Prior to the training, I’d never felt confident in my initial attempt at ‘small talk’. However, The Executive Presence Training taught me how to develop rapport based on genuine connection. Now, my clients feel deeply understood, and this creates trust.
- Cynthia W.
I can now take command of a room better than professionals with far more experience in my field.
Attending Cream of the Crop Leaders’ Executive Presence Training changed me for the better, and the changes continue to extend beyond my career. The [facilitators’] compassion, expertise, and delivery of feedback transformed my approach to myself and actually changed my perceptions, my behavior, and even my posture. I no longer live in my own head, surrounded by the fear that “I am not enough”. I no longer feel invisible.
And the thinking tools of top performers have rendered me (the ultimate nervous-Nelly) to be level-headed and calm at times of high pressure.
Over a year later, I am a better leader, friend, and person as a result of your training. Thank you!
- Kelly F.G.
During a recent investment presentation in front of 100 sophisticated and high net-worth attendees, I spoke clearly, slowly – and with confidence.
Prior to The Executive Presence Training, I would not have been able to convey my message as well as I did. I also politely disagreed with one of my panelists regarding factors driving an investment’s future returns. Prior to the training, I would have never been to do so without it coming across in a negative manner.
After the speech, people came up to me and sought out my opinion on important issues surrounding the investment. I was told by the conference organizers that I did a great job.
Cream of the Crop Leaders gave me the confidence to be the best that I can be.
- Peggy F.
What do participants report from our leadership development programs?
- Extraordinary boosts in confidence and benevolent power
- Ability to maintain a powerful, credible yet relational presence with key stakeholders (including those in high positions of power, colleagues, and significant others)
- Simple tools for projecting confidence in any situation in which credibility is called for
- Easy to apply methods for creating warm-rapport while maintaining one’s power
- Vibrant mood! Ability to identify and transform the automatic negative thought patterns into confidence-building thought habits
- Re-kindled courage and excitement about approaching dreams and challenges!
- Dignity and beautiful self-respect rather than an apologetic nature
Looking for the best programs for women or other women leader empowerment workshops? Request a complimentary consultation.
View related research.
3 ways to bring Transformational Executive Presence for Women as a women leader empowerment program to your organization:
- For Workplaces + Pre-Established Groups (women’s groups, faith groups, book clubs): We bring this workshop to you. Maximum 16 participants (women-only or mixed-gender). Just request a Quick Quote.
- Only You? Host a Workshop: You invite up to 15 others; we provide easy-to-use templates. Free Seat for the Host. Find out more.
- Be a Sponsor: Gift a Workshop and empower women for life; you’ll be giving gifts 16 times (16 seats)!
Your Location | Worldwide – or Virtual Training
Women’s Leadership Development Programs That Work
3 Great Reads | All About Women
The Business Benefits of Promoting Women
Companies should recruit, promote, and develop more women not just for women, but for the good of their company’s success.
See more.
The Fine Line Women Walk
When women manifest leadership traits, others tend to punish them for it. Can you relate?
See more.
Women Wait To Be Perfect
Women wait to be ‘perfect’ before taking action or speaking up, even when fully competent. Are you sometimes like this?
See more.
Ways to attend our Transformational Executive Presence for Women or mixed-gender Executive Presence Trainings:
Live Virtual – Transformational Executive Presence for Women
Complimentary CEU Credits |Leadership Development Training for Women
Cream of the Crop Leaders’ women’s leadership development programs offer continuing education units (CEUs) and recertification credits for:
- HR Leaders: SHRM recertification units – Cream of the Crop Leaders is a SHRM Preferred Provider; HRCI recertification units – Cream of the Crop Leaders is a HRCI Approved Provider
Group Favorite
Raise your event energy!
Exciting + Empowering.
Leaves audiences radiant and engaged!
An unapologetic feminist and supporter of equality for everyone, Sioux Messinger has presented to and coached some of the world’s top leaders. A dynamic yet polished speaker, Sioux’s interactive style captures everyone’s attention – and generates rave reviews from C-Suite level executives, emerging leaders and everyday amazing people. After all, everyone wants to look and feel a bit more credible and confident.
Sioux was formerly Clinical Faculty in the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at University of California San Francisco and co-facilitated clinical research groups for women at Stanford University.
Yet, what really sets Sioux apart is this: Her uncanny ability to see in others what they don’t yet see in themselves, her unequivocal conviction in the equality of all people – and her commitment to help all human beings remember their full magnificence and benevolent power. |
Partial List of Sioux’s Speaking and Training Engagements
AONE Summit (American Organization of Nurse Executives)
- Topic: Executive Presence for Nurse Leaders: Practice Tools to Radiate Credibility and Create Buy-In
Harvard Medical Center (HMS)
- Topic – Executive Presence-Confidence: Skills to Look and Feel Confident, Credible & Powerful. Offered at HMS but not exclusively for HMS members
Princeton, D & R Greenway
- Topic – Executive Presence-Confidence: Skills to Look and Feel Confident, Credible & Powerful
AT & T Park (San Francisco Giants Ballpark), Ed Rev
- Topic: Confidence Can Be Learned – and Becomes Authentic
Ruth Asawa SOTA
- Topic – Executive Presence-Learned Confidence: Skills to Look and Feel Credible & Powerful
University of California, San Francisco – School of Medicine, As Clinical Faculty, Department of Psychiatry – Present, intermittently
- Topic: Executive Presence
- Topic: Establishing Your Professional Presence
Companies should recruit, promote, and develop more women not for women, but for the good of their company’s success. See more.
Research presented by IBM’s Kenexa High Performance Institute showed that organizations with a strong diversity and inclusion culture:
- Reduce employee turnover by half
- Increase workforce innovation by 400%
- Double customer engagement
Companies identified as being the best at promoting women outperformed the industry median on three profitability measures. Pepperdine University tracked the performance of Fortune 500 companies with a strong record of promoting women to the executive suite and compared their performance to that of other firms in the same industries:
- The 25 best firms for women outperformed the industry medians, with overall profits 34 percent higher when calculated for revenue, 18 percent higher in terms of assets and 69 percent higher in regard to equity (2001).
- The 10 best firms for promoting women showed greater profit results than the firms that were merely very good.
- The results were confirmed in subsequent studies in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007
Attention Women: Leadership Training Empowers You.
Benefit your organization by bringing Executive Presence for Women onsite to your workplace.
Catalyst found that even just a 10% increase in women on the board correlates to a 21% increase in women in executive positions (as reported by PS Mag.com), and even more importantly:
- Return on Equity:On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 53 percent.
- Return on Sales:On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 42 percent.
- Return on Invested Capital:On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least by 66 percent.
Linda Babcock, author of Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, shows us that the consequences of not promoting women for businesses are substantial:
- “Promoting men faster than women and paying them more, even if done so unintentionally, can make a company vulnerable to lawsuits from women about inequitable treatment.
- Even more important, perhaps, businesses that don’t recognize this problem aren’t making the best use of their “human capital.” The person who raises his/her hand and asks for an assignment may be the one who gets it, but s/he may not be the most qualified person to do that job. By drawing from only “half the team”—by promoting men more than women because the men ask—businesses don’t always promote the best people.
- As a result, they under utilize women’s skills, fail to make the most of their potential—and limit their companies’ productivity and growth. They also lose the advantage of the unique points-of-view women often bring to decision-making and problem-solving.
Benefit your organization by bringing Executive Presence for Women onsite (COVID safe techniques) – or through our highly-interactive Virtual Training.
Employees who work in a “high-inclusion and high-diversity” work environment perform at 80% higher rates than those who work in “low-diversity and low-inclusion” environments (Deloitte).
Shriver Report (Maria Shriver and company) reports that “Research clearly shows that when women lead, the business performs. Many of the traits that make women successful at home (organizational skills, caring, attention to people issues, focus on delivering results) make women successful at work.”
Women’s leadership development programs can help women succeed in the boardroom, the workplace and at home.
Stop apologizing for your power: Embrace It with women’s leadership training online or live (COVID Safe).
Click through the 4 Tabs | Can You Relate?
ON ONE HAND, she can’t be | → | OTHER HAND, she can’t be | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Too self aggrandizing | → | Too self-depreciating | |
| Too aggressive | → | Not assertive enough | |
| Too opinionated/shrill | → | Unable to command the room | |
| Too blunt/direct | → | Too nice | |
| Bloodless | → | Hysterical | |
| Too provocatively dressed | → | Too frumpy | |
| Looks too young | → | Looks too old | |
| Credit: Fantastic contribution by Sylvia Hewlett, as seen in her book, Executive Presence. | |||
Benefit your organization by bringing Executive Presence Women onsite. Or, Host an Executive Presence Women leadership workshop for up to 16 women, and receive a free seat.
Male and female graduate students assessed the leadership capabilities of a real-life successful entrepreneur named Heidi and were far more inclined to admire this accomplished individual when she was recast as Howard. Students given the case study about Heidi perceived her as ‘selfish”, “out for herself” and “a little political”.
This Heidi/Howard experiment was replayed in 2013 with names Kathryn and Martin. Participants liked Kathryn slightly more but didn’t trust her nearly as much. “Men seemed more genuine” whereas women seem to be “trying too hard”, making them less trustworthy – even when the scenarios were identical and only the names were changed (Research by Stern School of Business at NY University, 2003).
Benefit your organization by bringing Executive Presence Women onsite. Or, Host an Executive Presence Women leadership workshop for up to 16 women, and receive a free seat.
A large scale study of over 60,000 men and women found that those who reported preferring a male boss noted not the positive characteristics of male leaders but rather, the stereotypically negative traits of female leaders, such as “bitchy” or “catty”. This suggests that the competence of female leaders was less important than female leaders being more “likeable” than men. This double-bind between competence and likability surfaces every time a woman takes the public stage (UCLA and California State University, 2011, Kim Elsesser).
Jessica Valenti, Nation correspondent, observes that “Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world”.
Benefit your organization by bringing Executive Presence Women onsite. Or, Host an Executive Presence Women leadership workshop for up to 16 women, and receive a free seat.
We’ve all been there.
As women, we wait to be ‘perfect’ before taking action or speaking up, even when fully competent.
Many men, however, often do the opposite.
Consider these startling reports (click on each below to open):
This suggests that women feel confident only when they are nearly perfect. Commenting on this HP study, Kay and Shipman (authors of The Confidence Code), noted that “Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in. Overqualified and overprepared, too many women still hold back.” Kay and Shipman continue: “There is a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. No wonder that women, despite all our progress, are still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels. All of that is the bad news. The good news is that with work, confidence can be acquired. Which means that the confidence gap, in turn, can be closed.”
- Men initiate salary negotiations four times more than women
- When women do negotiate, they ask for 30% less
And per Babcock, “The consequences for women are pretty extreme: First and foremost, women earn much less money than men over the course of their careers. We calculated that just by not negotiating her first job offer—simply accepting what she’s offered rather than negotiating for more—a woman sacrifices more half a million dollars over the course of her career. In addition to the financial consequences, women often advance more slowly than equally qualified men…
The consequences for businesses are also substantial. Babcock reports that:
- “Promoting men faster than women and paying them more, even if done so unintentionally, can make a company vulnerable to lawsuits from women about inequitable treatment.
- Even more important, perhaps, businesses that don’t recognize this problem aren’t making the best use of their ‘human capital.’ The person who raises his hand and asks for an assignment may be the one who gets it, but he may not be the most qualified person to do that job. By drawing from only “half the team”— by promoting men more than women because the men ask—businesses don’t always promote the best people.
- As a result, they under-use women’s skills, fail to make the most of their potential—and limit their companies’ productivity and growth.”
That men routinely overestimate their abilities and subsequent performance, and women often underestimate both, even when the actual performances were equal in quality.
Women-Only or Mixed Gender (training and keynote): Which should I choose?
Good question. There’s value in both scenarios.
Benefits to women-only events:
- Women specific exercises.
- Conversations about challenges (and opportunities) specific to women go deeper.
- Beautiful and strong sense of sisterly partnership.
- Unforgettable. Executive Presence for Women trainings and keynote guest speaker events.
- Get powered up. After all, you bring yourself wherever you go.
Benefits to mixed-gender events:
- Both women and men can benefit from practicing full expression of self with the opposite gender present – doing so can help each woman establish her benevolent power while in the company of men.
- In addition, mixed-gender events allow women to hear men’s opinions and perspectives about power and confidence.
- Find out more about our award-winning, mixed-gender Executive Presence Training.
Links We Love
Emma Watson: I’m a Feminist
He for She: A Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality – Ask the men and boys in your life to add their name!
“Gender inequality is one of the most persistent human rights violations of our time. Despite many years of promoting gender equality, inequalities among women/girls and men/boys continue to manifest in egregious ways around the world. HeForShe is a solidarity movement for gender equality that engages men and boys as advocates and stakeholders to break the silence, raise their voices and take action for the achievement of gender equality. Gender equality is not only a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue that affects all of us women and girls, men and boys. We all benefit socially, politically and economically from gender equality in our everyday lives. When women are empowered, the whole of humanity benefits. Gender equality liberates not only women but also men, from prescribed social roles and gender stereotypes.” From: www.HeforShe.org
We offer Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for a variety of professional certificates and licenses:
Visit our CEU Page to view CE Units for HR Leaders (SHRM and HRCI).
HR Leaders: SHRM Recertification Units
HR Leaders: HRCI Recertification Units
