What we’ve learned about whole person leadership for women during past 10 years

When we started our whole person leadership program for women almost 10 years ago, we had a lot of questions: what is whole person leadership? How can we help women avoid some of the pitfalls we’d experienced in our careers?  What are the most burning issues women leaders are facing today?

As a diverse group of leaders, we knew we had special areas of expertise to offer, as well as a convening format that was honed by the Center for Purposeful Leadership to generate inclusive discussions that focused on the “heart of the matter”.

We offered the majority of our program online before learning online was common (our first cohort was offered in 2016). And we concluded each cohort with a 2-plus day in-person retreat (except in 2020 at the height of Covid, the year George Floyd was murdered – unfortunately, during our online retreat).

For the five stewards, it has been a labor of love to share what we know about whole person leadership with eight cohorts of about a dozen women – and to learn more about it along with them.

We were proud and excited about the program’s diversity (ages 25-75, interest/expertise (from horse therapy to a variety of Ph.Ds and women on the verge of retirement), and race. In 2025 half of our alumna are women of color), which made the program much more stimulating for us and the participants.

Every year we stretched our outreach and fundraising capacity to the limit to get the program to pay for itself financially, and each year we were able to cover program costs and offer each steward a small stipend. We greatly appreciated grants from the Minnesota Women’s Foundation so we could include participants who couldn’t cover tuition themselves.

Highlights of what we’ve learned during past 10 years

What we learned through our participation and the research we conducted is far too extensive to cover in this article, but here are some essential highlights.  "Whole person leadership" was a term just coming into usage when we started developing the program 10 years ago – during this time, it has evolved to mean leaders who recognize their employees as multifaceted individuals with aspirations and interests beyond work. Duh!

Our program’s focus has been to reveal our participants’ priorities. And something that’s become clear to us is that it takes a while for women leaders to peel back what they feel is expected from them and who they should be to define what is authentically important to them, and what passions propel them forward without the need for a lot of external stimuli.

We found that having a network of accepting allies whose listening skills were honed by our program encouraged participants to reveal to themselves and others what is really important to them and what they are self-motivated to accomplish.

The ages of program leaders range from mid-50s to 80. Most of us were on the bleeding edge of women entering the workforce fulltime during the 1960s and ‘190s, and among us we have experience working with large corporations, nonprofits and academic institutions.

Our program explored gender stereotypes and norms and how that affects the goals women leaders are trying to achieve. As our program became more racially diverse, we had some hot discussions about what it is like to be a woman of color in leadership roles in the United States today. Not easy!

Research done in each cohort identified some common burning issues.

1.        A big one is that ALL leaders have to nurture themselves, so they can lead from the inside out. Burnout is the big enemy of those who don’t give themselves permission to put themselves first.

2.        The prevalence of Perfectionism doesn’t allow us to be seen as we are and recognize that we are all on a journey of self-improvement.

3.        Trust of self and others is critical in developing teams that don’t require a lot of external control, and leaders who are savvy about how to build trusting teams don’t have to be in charge of everything.

4.        Whole person contributors are as important as whole person leaders – you can provide critical leadership within an organization without being in charge of a team.

5.        It’s important to allow the space for new directions to emerge – a common pitfall is to be so focused on what’s always been done that big “a-has” are completely missed, which are essential for survival in today’s fast-paced world of change.

6.        Ultimately, clarifying one’s sense of purpose gives women leaders a clearer sense of what’s more and less important. For example, if I am clear that my purpose is to help others communicate clearly and in an interesting manner, I can more easily recognize and ignore distractions that don’t contribute to my purpose.

This is just a taste of what we’ve learned during the past 10 years. One of the tenets of our program is that we are all learning together and from each other. It has been an honor and a life-changing experience to develop Whole Person Leadership for Women with my co-founders and members of cohorts 2018-2025.

Our next program is for anyone interested in more accountability and support this Fall. It is open to people who are Whole Person Leadership curious and alumna. https://www.centerforpurposefulleadership.org/wpl4w-circles