Influence to Impact: Leveraging Interpersonal Power for Women Leaders is an interactive leadership workshop designed to help existing and emerging women leaders develop the ability to influence. Influence is the power to effect change and gain commitment in people, teams and organizations. In today’s environment, influence is a critical leadership competency for gaining buy-in for ideas, projects and proposals with team members, direct reports, senior leaders, and/or clients. Developing influence skills is especially essential for women who desire to lead or advance into higher levels of leadership.

Leadership for women is still filled with great complexity related to finding the right balance of developing effective relationships that form effective teams and developing strategies that enable teams, departments and organizations to accomplish goals and objectives. Women leaders in most organizations still face the double bind that can hinder her influence: if she is too relational and seen as more “take care,” she often gets labeled as not ready for leadership. Yet if she is strategic and task-oriented, and leading in ways similar to her male colleagues, she can be labeled as “having sharp elbows,” “strident,” or “aggressive.

Consequently, this gender double-bind can also undermine women’s confidence. Some women when faced with the double-bind, will hold back in order not too be seen in stereotypic ways. Yet, without demonstrating her competence with confidence, an existing or emerging woman leader cannot garner the influence she needs to advance her ideas, projects, team or herself.

The Influence to Impact (I2I) course explores the gender dynamics of organizational influence, enhances awareness of personal influence strengths, builds influence skills, and provides tools for increasing the ability of women leaders to effect interpersonal and organizational change.