According to the Oxford dictionary;
’The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties’
It’s not necessarily always about bouncing back and remaining strong… but more about how you can be vulnerable, open to learning and working through challenges.
As part of a new career development programme for women launched introduced at Savills (via Redsky Learning), building resilience and confidence came up as a commonly cited challenge many women face in the workplace.
Through the programme we asked questions of the group such as ‘when might our resilience be challenged’ and ‘how might it be challenged as you progress through your career’. The reality is that our resilience can be challenged at any time and in different ways as we progress, so in what ways can we build resilience?
One of the challenges raised was how some women feel that they can’t put their hand up in meetings or raise things with their manager. As women we tend not to want to rock the boat with our manager, particularly when they are deciding whether we are ready for a promotion, so we keep our much needed questions to ourselves. It’s no surprise then that on average, male managers are 40% more likely to be promoted than women.
After each subsequent module, every individual receives 121 coaching where we discuss specific challenges. Through the coaching sessions, we explored the importance of having a voice and of owning your career progression by expressing what support you need from your manager and colleagues. It’s all too common for many women to wait to be invited to go for a promotion, when in fact there’s so much in our control, so much we can do now to be ready.
Our coaching sessions are very action-oriented, where goals are agreed and set. One goal was defined around preparing for an effective 121 with their manager by having an agenda with specific focus on their career progression. We acknowledged that commitment to the agenda is important and thought about the type of outcome we wanted before the meeting.
Over 95% of delegates cited that they felt more confident in asking for what they want in their careers, following the programme.
“I feel like a different person after being on this course, it's given me the confidence to raise things with my manager that i wouldn't have done before”.
The programme runs for approx 5 months and covers the following 4 modules:
Plus 121 coaching
Get in touch: hello@redskylearning.com