Aspire: Women’s Leadership Development Programme
Gain the confidence, skills, and networks to overcome barriers and take charge of your leadership journey with purpose and impact.
Course overview
Women face unique challenges on the path to leadership. The Aspire: Women’s Leadership Development Programme provides the tools, strategies, and confidence to navigate these challenges, break barriers, and lead with impact.
Delivered over four months through eight interactive half-day workshops, this programme blends leadership theory, guest speakers, peer learning, and practical exercises. Participants will gain valuable career insights, build their leadership identity, and develop strategies to overcome both internal and external barriers to success.
Designed for women in public, private, and NGO organisations, Aspire is ideal for those looking to advance their careers, strengthen their leadership presence, and expand their professional networks.
By the end of the programme, participants will have the skills, confidence, and support network to take ownership of their leadership journey and make a meaningful impact in their organisations and beyond.
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What you'll learn
- Develop strategies to overcome internal and external barriers to leadership success.
- Strengthen your leadership presence and confidence to stand firm in your leadership role.
- Build a powerful leadership network through peer learning and ongoing support.
- Strengthen your influence, impact, and professional profile.
- Improve personal wellbeing and build greater resilience.
- Create an actionable leadership development plan for continuous growth and success.
Course modules
1. Leading Self
- Know yourself: Reflect on your leadership strengths, values, and areas for growth to develop a strong sense of self-awareness.
- Who am I at work?: Understand how your personal identity influences your leadership style and approach to work.
2. Leading through Mindset
- Thinking like a leader: Learn strategies to overcome imposter syndrome, shift from being good to getting better, recognise faulty thinking styles, challenge limiting thoughts, and navigate the accountability ladder and circle of influence.
- Resilience and Personal change: Build resilience and learn how to navigate personal change to thrive as a leader.
3. Leading Others
- Growth Conversations: Learn how to listen and how to asking great questions and learn how to use conversation tools.
- Tricky Conversations: Develop skills for managing challenging conversations, offering feedback, and resolving conflicts effectively.
4. Leading with Influence
- Power and Influence: Understand the dynamics of power and influence in leadership, and how to lead with impact and authority.
- What now?: Develop an actionable plan to continue your leadership journey, setting clear goals and leveraging your new skills to succeed.
Further Information
Benefits for your organisation
Diversity at the top leadership table correlates positively with better organisational performance, so why are more women not in senior leadership roles? Your organisation will benefit through:
- Increased productivity through improved staff engagement.
- Increase in credible female applicants for leadership roles.
- Increased number of female leaders as role models.
- Greater diversity in the leadership team, contributing to improved decisions making.
- Healthier group dynamic in leadership team.
- Improved organisation culture.
Course format
The Aspire programme is delivered through eight half-day workshops held on Monday mornings over four months. The format will consist of pre-work, theory, guest speakers, peer learning, practical exercises and career advice. The programme will be based on action learning principles. There will be up to 18 participants per programme.
Past participants’ experiences
Management Capability Development Fund
This course is registered with the Management Capability Development Fund.
Small businesses may qualify for funding to help pay for services such as training workshops, courses and coaching that build the management capabilities of their owners and key managers.
Management Capability Development funding is only available through the Regional Business Partner Network (RBP) Growth Advisors and can be used with service providers registered with the RBP Network.
Funding may be provided to a business where the Growth Advisors have identified a need for management training as part of an action plan to support the business owner to grow and innovate their business. Business owners are then able to select a service from a registered Service Provider.
For more information on the Management Capability Development Fund or to find your local Growth Advisor go to www.regionalbusinesspartners.co.nz.
Here's what others are saying
“The Aspire course gave me a huge confidence boost and understanding of leadership, especially for women in the workplace. It was inclusive, engaging and enjoyable – and I now have a great toolkit to up my leadership game.”
Susie Ferguson – Presenter, Radio New Zealand
“I found the level of inclusion of Māori views and ways of working well exceeded my expectations. The inclusion of Māori and Pasifika guest speakers is great because we can relate to them and their background. How they overcome some of the common barriers we face as wāhine and as Māori (but also non-Māori) can be really inspiring and empowering, and very useful knowledge to have.”
Participant from Te Runanga o Toa Rangatira
“I enrolled in the Aspire Course hoping to pick up the skills to take more of a lead in my team at work. By the end of the course I was more than ready to step into that team leader role, but the practical “how to” stuff ended up being the least of what I took away from the course. I loved the opportunity to regularly spend time with a group of brilliant women, reflecting together on all aspects of our lives and what might be holding us back from achieving our goals. After the course, I not only felt confident leading at work, but was also empowered to pursue what was important to me in other parts of my life, as a writer, parent, and community member.”
Holly Walker – Office of the Children’ Commissioner
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