Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an In-House Female Leadership Programme

Companies that prioritise gender diversity in leadership gain a clear competitive edge, benefiting from higher innovation, stronger financial performance, and increased employee satisfaction. Yet, despite the well-documented advantages of female leadership, women remain underrepresented in executive roles.

Now is the time for businesses to move beyond talk and take tangible action—proactively investing in female leadership development by offering structured programmes that go beyond leadership training. Women need more than just skills; they need visibility, sponsorship, and strategic support to advance and excel in senior roles.

Drawing from the curriculum of our top-selling Women in Leadership course—developed in collaboration with international experts, including renowned mental health and resilience specialist Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal—we’ve created a step-by-step guide to help your organisation build its own comprehensive women’s leadership development programme.

Our recommendations extend far beyond traditional skill-building. Informed by the extensive research and expert consultation that went into creating Women in Leadership, this guide provides you with a wealth of practical strategies to dismantle systemic barriers and create sustainable pathways for women’s career advancement.

If you wish, your programme can also be strategically supplemented with expert content from the Women in Leadership course, which features exclusive video lessons from Dr. Stejskal, reflective exercises, and insights from the world’s leading psychologists, academics, and behavioral scientists. Our group and one-on-one coaching offerings can also provide women with invaluable support in translating classroom learnings into leadership success.

Step 1: Assess the Need and Define Clear Objectives

Start by identifying existing gender gaps in your leadership and pinpointing specific challenges that hinder career progression for your female employees:

• Conduct an internal leadership audit to assess gender representation at all levels.
• Gather employee feedback via surveys and focus groups to understand barriers to advancement.
• Identify structural challenges, such as lack of sponsorship, unconscious bias in promotions, and limited access to high-impact projects.

Using this data, make sure to set measurable objectives for the programme—whether it’s increasing the number of women in senior roles, improving retention rates, or expanding mentorship opportunities.

Step 2: Secure Executive Buy-In and Leadership Support

For a female leadership programme to be truly effective, it must have full support from senior leadership and be embedded into your organisation’s strategic goals.

Therefore, you’ll need to:

• Demonstrate the business case for gender-diverse leadership with research on its impact on performance and profitability.
• Position the programme as a strategic initiative, not just an HR effort.
• Enlist senior leaders as sponsors and advocates to actively support and champion women’s leadership development within the organisation.

Step 3: Design an Inclusive, Impactful Programme

A well-designed female leadership development programme should offer a holistic approach to leadership development, ensuring women receive not only the necessary skills but also the visibility, support, and opportunities required to advance into leadership roles.

Format:

Decide if your programme will include mentorship, coaching (individual and/or group), workshops, sponsorship initiatives, or a mix. Our Women in Leadership experts strongly recommend integrating the following key components:

• Mentorship: While mentorship programmes are known to be extremely effective in supporting career growth, for long-term impact, they must be structured and intentional. Ensure you establish clear objectives and regular check-ins to ensure meaningful progress.
• Coaching: One-on-one coaching, whether for executive or junior employees, gives women a focused, private space to discuss and develop their leadership presence, communication skills, and confidence. Furthermore, studies have shown that women who receive targeted coaching are more likely to advance in leadership roles.
• Sponsorship Initiatives: Unlike mentorship, sponsorship actively involves senior leaders actively opening doors for women’s career advancement. This means advocating for them in promotion discussions, recommending them for high-visibility projects, and ensuring they have access to opportunities that can accelerate their leadership trajectory.

Eligibility Criteria:

Ensure inclusivity by allowing a mix of self-nominations, peer recommendations, and leadership nominations—rather than limiting participation to women chosen solely by leadership, which may reinforce existing biases.

Key Curriculum Areas:

• Executive Presence – Provide training in public speaking, assertive communication, and personal branding to address common feedback gaps for women.*
• Negotiation Skills – Research shows that women negotiate for promotions and salary increases less often than men. Targeted training can empower women to advocate for themselves confidently.*
• Strategic Thinking & Decision-Making – Many women are placed in operational or support roles rather than strategic positions early in their careers. Use your women’s leadership development programme to equip them with the skills and exposure needed for high-level decision-making.**

Beyond skill-building, a female leadership programme should offer real-world leadership opportunities, for example by giving participants access to high-visibility projects and leadership roles so they can gain necessary experience capital.

Step 4: Develop the Programme Components

Mentorship & Sponsorship:

• Pair participants with senior leaders who can offer guidance and actively advocate for their career progression by recommending them for leadership roles and key projects.

Skill-Building Workshops:

• Focus on public speaking, decision-making, strategic thinking, and conflict resolution—areas where women often face barriers.**
• Use real-world case studies to build confidence and problem-solving abilities.

Networking & Peer Support:

• Create opportunities to connect with senior leaders, industry professionals, and alumni of past leadership programmes. Group coaching is a powerful way to bring people together—with learning benefits for everyone involved.
• Establish peer-to-peer discussion groups for knowledge-sharing and ongoing career support.

Engaging Male Allies:

• Invite male executives to participate in leadership sessions to help them better understand gender dynamics.
• Encourage male leaders to actively advocate for equal opportunities and address workplace biases.*

Connecting Leadership Development to Career Progression:

• Ensure that programme graduates are given tangible leadership opportunities—whether through promotions, expanded responsibilities, or sponsorship for key roles.

Step 5: Roll Out and Communicate the Programme

• Pilot the programme with a small group before scaling it company-wide.
• Clearly communicate its objectives to all employees to encourage engagement and support.
• Protect participants’ time to ensure they don’t miss high-impact work opportunities while in training.
• Coachhub’s Customer Service Team has all the resources and expertise you need to support you, should you choose to supplement your women’s leadership development programme with our coaching and educational programmes.

Step 6: Measure Success & Gather Feedback

Your in-house female leadership development programme should have clear metrics for evaluating its impact:

• Track promotion and retention rates of programme graduates.
• Gather participant feedback to refine the programme.
• Assess organisational impact, such as increased sponsorship of women and improved gender diversity in leadership.

Step 7: Foster a Culture of Continuous Leadership Development

To create lasting impact, organisations must go beyond a single programme and commit to long-term leadership development for women by:

• Sponsoring programme graduates for leadership roles.
• Institutionalising career development pathways for women.
• Holding senior leaders accountable for advancing gender diversity in leadership.
• Providing ongoing individual and group coaching and training in key areas of women’s leadership development.

Step 8: Keep Challenging & Evolving

The most successful female leadership development programmes don’t just train women—they challenge organisations to rethink their leadership structures. As McKinsey’s “Remarkable Women Programme” found, these programmes should hold up a mirror to your company, prompting an ongoing reassessment of policies, practices, and biases.

A female leadership development programme can be a game-changer, but only if it’s integrated into an organisation’s culture and strategy. And a truly effective programme should never place the burden of overcoming systemic barriers on women alone. Rather, male allies, senior leaders, and your entire organisation should be actively involved in driving change—over the long term. One powerful approach? For every woman enrolled in the programme, consider enrolling a proportionate number of men in allyship or inclusive leadership training.

Companies must go beyond training sessions to ensure these leadership development programmes lead to real, meaningful career advancement for women—because when women lead the way, so do their organisations.

* Part of Coachhub’s Women in Leadership course curriculum.

**Topic covered in Coachhub’s extensive learning academy of 1,000+ expert videos, articles, and audiocasts.