As a participant in this programme, you will join a lively community of highly experienced female professionals and reinforce your leadership journey through an extensive learning trajectory.

This programme, which has at its core an eight-week online course component, will provide you with insights and tips on how to navigate the opportunities and challenges of women in leadership positions. It will enable you to be in harmony with your aspirations and contribute to a culture of gender equality, empowerment and transformation – in line with UN 2.0.

Introduction

The Leadership, Women and the UN Programme aims to promote renewed and revitalised paradigms of leadership that ensure gender-balanced workplaces across and beyond the UN system by aligning the learning closely with the UN 2.0 policy brief - in fostering and promoting a forward-thinking culture by means of looks at tipping points of change, and finding opportunities for innovation – as a domain for everyone.

The programme further builds on the leadership engagement driver of UN 2.0 by inducing agility, adaptability and accountability to bring greater gender equality, empowerment and transformation. This aligns with the founding purpose of the programme to advance a transformational, principled, and inclusive leadership culture as envisioned in the UN System Leadership Framework.

You get a unique opportunity to explore different leadership approaches and their situational application through case studies, the gender and cultural dimensions of leadership, behavioural science, communication styles, and negotiation techniques, as well as deeper personal-professional coherence and self-awareness to develop a set of comprehensive skills for transformative and charismatic leadership using tools and techniques that are data-driven.

Upon completion of the programme you will be prepared to thoughtfully lead yourself through the challenges and opportunities for women in leadership roles; influence the leadership culture of your organization; increase the impact of your projects; and unlock the leadership potential of your team.

The programme is designed for highly experienced UN women professionals at P4-P5 levels.

Click here to find out how our alumnae assessed the impact of the programme.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of the programme you will be able to:

  • Develop an enhanced self-awareness and align leadership efforts with aspirations
  • Thoughtfully adopt varied leadership approaches in daily practices to better manage the challenges and opportunities for women in leadership roles
  • Demonstrate strengthened skills in effective communication and negotiation for transformative leadership
  • Gain tangible skills to unlock your leadership potential and that of your team, and increase the impact of your projects
  • Positively influence your organizational leadership culture
  • Develop a lasting and supportive community
Course methodology

The programme unfolds as a learning journey of four months across three phases: a preliminary phase, a core programme and a consolidation phase.

Preliminary phase

The preliminary phase begins four weeks before the beginning of the core programme and it is designed to promote individual awareness around leadership styles and approaches. During this phase you can expect a total of three hours of individualized asynchronous learning through:

  • A questionnaire to prompt individual reflections on leadership needs, styles and aspirations and inform the delivery of the core modules.
  • A 360-degree leadership and personality assessment to provide insights into individual leadership strengths and areas for further development.
  • Access to a self-paced UN System Leadership Framework e-Learning module.

Core learning phase

At the core of the learning journey is a two-month online learning experience that consists of four core modules spanning eight weeks. Each module lasts two weeks and includes:

  • Three synchronous virtual learning experiences with experts, established leaders and facilitators (150 minutes each)
  • Asynchronous individual activities such as pre-readings, guided self-reflection and journaling activities and action-planning
  • Asynchronous group activities organized in a moderated online forum to promote community building and experience-based knowledge sharing
  • Zoom-in resources, recommended materials, and tools to deepen knowledge acquisition and transfer

As a participant you will be able to follow the progress of your learning journey on a dedicated online learning platform that features:

  • Sections curating all programme material and activities (e.g. recording of online learning experiences and weekly activity instructions)
  • A moderated discussion forum where group activities will take place and where participants will be able to share reflections and pose questions 
  • An online library with zoom-in resources (videos, articles, inspirational quotes, tools and templates)

Consolidation phase

The learning journey will conclude with a final phase of learning consolidation where you will be supported for four weeks to further your learning application process and develop your individual action plan.

Through the course of the programme, you will have access to two individualized executive coaching sessions of 90 and 60 minutes respectively.

Alumnae community

Upon successful completion of the programme, you will be offered the possibility of becoming part of the vibrant LWUN Alumnae Community.

The community, comprised of close to 1200 women leaders from over 105 duty stations across the world, provides a truly unique opportunity to further individual and collective leadership journeys, establish mutually beneficial knowledge sharing mechanisms, leverage diverse expertise and skillsets, and forge partnerships to promote a systemic renewal of leadership paradigms. 

Course contents

In this programme, you will be exposed to the following content:

  • Leadership Styles and Approaches
  • Leading Change and Innovation
  • Defining Leadership Values
  • Gender and Cultural Dimensions of Leadership
  • Authentic and Inclusive Leadership
  • Leadership Influence, Charismatic Leadership and Gender
  • Strategic Negotiation
  • Managing Energy for Leadership Alignment
  • Forward looking Action Planning 
Target audience

Female UN staff at the P4-P5 level and other highly experienced female leaders preparing for senior leadership roles. By nomination and open enrolment.

Cost of participation

The programme comprises three phases and costs $5,500. The tuition covers:

•      Preliminary phase

  • Asynchronous e-learning courses
  • Individual 360-degree leadership and DiSC personality assessment
  • Two-part orientation webinars

•      Core programme phase

  • 12 interactive synchronous online learning experiences with experts, established leaders, expert facilitators and cohort participants
  • Long-term and unlimited access to a curated online UNSSC e-lounge learning platform
  • One individual coaching session (90 minutes)

•      Consolidation phase

  • Action planning and one individual coaching sessions (60 minutes)
  • Follow-up webinar to debrief the programme journey

•      Continuous alumnae community engagement