CAMBRIDGE, Mass. /Massachusetts Newswire/ — Out of its commitment to help women, WEST: Advancing Women in Science and Technology is launching a ten-month leadership program to develop women in their STEM careers as leaders so that they consistently make a difference in the organizations they serve and in the world.
The core to the program is that each participant collaboratively creates a ten-month impossible project that makes either a societal or organizational impact. The design, development and implementation of an impossible project serves as a laboratory for learning leadership development.
The structure of the program will have two women leaders advise a cohort of ten women STEM professionals seeking to develop their leadership skills over ten-months. The cohorts of twelve will meet every month.
The cohorts will be made up of early and mid-career women.
Additionally, each of the ten members of the cohort will mentor college students majoring in STEM fields, so that the participants learn how to mentor. Participants will also be sharing their impossible projects with their mentees, inspiring them to take on projects for impact that may seem impossible.
Each cohort and their ten mentees will meet twice during the ten months to build deeper relationships and share what they are learning about. Lessons to be learned include: implementing their impossible projects, being a mentor, and being mentored.
Women STEM professionals will be developed as leaders. This will be accomplished through the development of designing and implementing their impossible project, what they are learning from their project, the monthly leadership development circle meetings, and by mentoring other women.
Each participant will assess their leadership strengths and gaps, establish a baseline of leadership skills and abilities, design a roadmap to bridge the gap in their leadership skills and abilities. Aside from personal success, each participant will create measurable results for the ten-month program. Such results include what each participate will be accomplish in their jobs as a result of developing their leadership skills and abilities as well as the impact they will have mentoring women junior to them. Most importantly, participants will learn to develop and engage others in the development of a vision for their project and learn successfully to mentor one another.
In the course of the program, participants will learn how to influence others without authority along with learning how to navigate the landscape of their organization to ensure success. Participants will also learn how to network so that they can engage others and get support for their projects. Additionally, participants will learn how to market and make their projects visible.
This impactful leadership development program will start in September of 2012 and end in July of 2013.
STEM women professionals will meet with their cohorts monthly and with the women they are mentoring monthly as well.
The program builds a network of mentoring, personal and leadership development.
This program is only open to WEST members.
For more information, visit http://www.westorg.org/ .
About WEST:
WEST: Advancing Women in Science and Technology is a 501(c)3 Massachusetts based non-profit. WEST's mission is to promote, advance, and develop women in Science, Engineering, and Technology as leaders, advocates, C-level executives and thought leaders that make a profound difference in the communities they serve.
WEST is a community and a forum, for early, mid-career, executive and entrepreneurial women. Through participation our members become inspirational leaders and role models for their teams, organizations and businesses.
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