Automotive Industry-Related Company Seeks to Develop Women Leaders
Situation: This Internet marketing company has grown by leaps and bounds since opening its doors in 1995. Women are employed in everything from sales to service to support. The industry however is very male dominated, Research shows that profitability, retention, and performance increase when more women assume leadership positions.
Challenge: How to draw women of all levels together to begin to learn how to develop their leadership skills, how to grow their careers, and how to work effectively in a male environment during challenging times. The company also wants feedback on what it needed to do differently. Additionally, customer demands and staffing levels are such that the gathering cannot exceed 4 hours.
Solution: Eileen worked with the planning committee to design a content-rich, interactive learning experience. She developed experiential min-exercises that got the women focusing on strengths and also what actions individuals as well as corporate could take. Her keynote gave specific examples and memorable language to help the women focus immediately on the result they wanted. She also crafted the questions for a panel of five senior women from the automotive industry, met with them beforehand, and then facilitated the panel.
Feedback: According to the Vice President of Human Resources: “This first Women’s Summit was a great success, brought about by “the verve, professionalism and presence of Eileen McDargh. Our employees were captivated by her energy level, by the wisdom she conveyed and by the emotional attachment she created with the group. Additionally, her ideas to pull together the event and mediate the panel worked well and were quite effective with the audience. Most of the women commented, all of whom who are at different organizational levels and in different roles, that they walked away from the conference with a learning that they could apply immediately in their work or home life. It doesn’t get better than that.”
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