The Stand Out Leader Incubator

Welcome to your worthy career. A podcast with me, Melissa Lawrence.

I’m a career and life coach with all the corporate credit and talent development and organizational psychology. And I help women like you get extraordinary results by being more of you, not less. I won’t just help you have a.

Career experience worthy of you, but I will help you build your self worth to shift what you think is possible and take the action that will create the career you’ve always wanted. Whether it’s more meaningful work you’re passionate about, making more money, getting to your next level, or being more effective as a leader. We are shattering the glass ceiling here, the one that exists for women at work and the one we put on ourselves with our doubt and inner critic. Each week you will get practical teachings grounded in neuroscience and effective career development strategies. You’ll experience deep mindset shifts in the perfect amount of woo so you can run your career with ease rather than your career running you.

You were born for more, and I’m going to help you get there with maybe a few dance parties along the way. Your up level begins now. Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast.

Today, I am so excited we are going to dive into the Standout leader Incubator. If you haven’t heard, this is my group coaching program specifically for people managers. But this isn’t just any group coaching program. I call this a leadership development revolution. And you are invited to join the revolution when enrollment opens on February 20, just a little bit later this month. Now, why is this a revolution? Two reasons. First, we are changing the landscape for women in the industry. This program is going to give you a competitive edge above your peers. It’s going to help you get to higher levels in your career and diversify the leadership table. And I know we all want that. And we’re going to do this without you becoming some corporate male robot. Now, I’ve seen programs in the workplace that no joke, advise women to talk a certain way, to have their hair a certain way, to dress a certain way. And we are not endorsing that crap, okay? We are not in the 50s anymore. That is outdated and it is the opposite of what we need in our leadership development programs. So we are changing the landscape for women, helping more women stand out and get into higher levels of leadership as high as they want to go within the industry.

This isn’t about pushing you to a level you don’t want to go. It’s about making sure there is access to meaningful work and to scopes of influence into the leadership levels that you want to go to. To shatter that glass ceiling both within your own mindset, but then also within the industry. That is a very real thing. Now, secondly, this is leadership development that actually works. It doesn’t suck it isn’t just concepts, and I’m not just throwing a bunch of tools at you and leaving you to figure them out. This isn’t school where I’m teaching and lecturing and you are frantically taking notes. This isn’t high level and not actually applicable to your everyday job. I’m not just throwing you to the wolves. This is real leadership development, specifically for women like you in the pharma biotech industry. Now, I want you to imagine this. You walk into a meeting expecting others to ask for your opinion, not hoping they actually listen to you this time, or spending time wondering if it’s your turn to talk or if you should even speak up, or if you even belong in that meeting. But instead you have such a presence and authority, not because you are authoritative, but because of the way that you are the leader that you are, that you step into a meeting and other people expect to hear from you.

They want to know what you have to say. Your boss tells you that there are going to be cuts. That’s a real issue that can exist. And you don’t spin out wondering how you’ll handle this with your team. You just know. You go on vacation. You actually take vacation. You don’t have to log in all the time, and you know everything is under control and that your team is delivering without you. Your employees talk to you about their future in the company and it is with you. They love working in your team. Your one on ones and team meetings are fun and productive. And you’ve somehow figured out how to be yourself and show other women what is possible without having to look or talk like your male colleagues. Your boss praises your leadership and asks you to mentor some of your peers who are struggling with their own teams. You navigate difficult conversations just as easily as pleasant ones. There’s nothing you can’t handle. You’re confident in your role as a leader, and it shows you’ve been identified as an outstanding leader with great potential for your future. Now, this is what you can expect when you join the standout leader incubator.

You are confident in yourself and your team. You take your leadership skills and your career to the next level. Now, what does it mean to be a standout leader? When you’re a standout leader, you either a know exactly how to handle a difficult employee, colleague, or situation, or b you don’t have difficult employees, colleagues or situations. It’s really one of those two things. Instead of doubting yourself. Wondering if you should say something. Letting that employee take down your team for far too long. Doing extra work because your team doesn’t get things done on time or right the first time. Questioning how to contribute at your leadership team meetings. Comparing yourself to your peers. Checking your phone at night. Worrying you’ll miss something. Wasting time looking for a right answer online or in one of your leadership books. On the bookshelf. Instead of all of that stress and time and waste, instead of all of that you know exactly what to do. You prevent the issue from even happening. This is what you learn to do in the Incubator. We become those better Leaders by focusing on the simple and proven tools and frameworks. We apply what we learn as we learn it, instead of consuming dozens of articles and motivational quotes only to stay stuck with the same problems, hoping it’s better tomorrow.

We are intentional with ourselves and our teams. We are part of a larger mission to advance ourselves and other women in the industry to be sought after as the best leaders. We invest in our development because we know we are in control of our results. We breathe in and we do the hard things with the support we need around us. You are invited to be a part of this program. Whether you’re on the track to be a People Manager and want to be effective from day one, you’re new to your new People management role or you’ve been a leader for years, but you want to develop further, this room is for you. You will step into your next level here with all of the support that you need to make it an easy transition. So let’s get into some of the details. The Standout Leader Incubator is a three month group coaching program. Enrollment opens on February 20 to the Waitlist and February 22 to the general population. So you definitely want to be on the waitlist because you are going to get first dibs to apply. It’s like a secret society. Applications are going to be reviewed as they come in and there are limited spots over the three months.

You’re going to go from a subject matter expert, a people manager, to a people leader. It’s going to start with a two hour live kickoff event held on Zoom with yours truly. You are going to meet with your Curated Leadership team, which is the other members of the group, and we are going to come together virtually on March 21. And you are going to get a full return on your investment in just this two hour event. Because in this 2 hours, you are going to define the leader you want to be. You are going to establish what it will take to be her, identify your unique value as a leader, how you will enable your team to be the best. You will know how to be the leader you want to be, while also being the person your team loves working for. All in this 1st 2 hours. And then for three months, you’re going to build the skills and the self confidence to be a Standout Leader alongside your Curated Leadership Team that was made just for you. Within this program, you are going to workshop. You are going to practice the skills that you’re learning in a safe space before you implement it with your team.

You are going to get coached, you are going to problem solve. And for each week following the live event, you’re going to attend a personalized workshop or coaching session where you will build the skills to communicate effectively, influence all levels, facilitate difficult conversations, give and receive performance feedback, and lead an employee through their own development. You’re going to uncover your own blind spots. As a leader, you will become confident in every room and every situation, all while staying true to your unique philosophy and vision that you set in the beginning. And you are going to have access to think, take sessions within your leadership team so you can problem solve and leverage the genius that is in the room. Because we all have experience to share. We all have things that we can share with our colleagues that will help them fast track their success. So it’s no more trial and error. No more endless podcasts, books and HBR articles. You are going to learn from the best. You are going to be the best. And the truth is that as a leader, your role is critical to the organization. And the status quo of what your company offers just isn’t going to cut it for the leader that I know you want to be.

So let’s talk about some of these statistics. Now, 84% of American workers say that poorly trained people managers create a lot of unnecessary work and stress. 57% of workers say managers in their workplace could benefit from training on how to be a better people manager. 50% of employees feel their own performance would improve if their direct supervisor received additional training. And people management, think about your people manager, the person that you report to, if they were the most effective leader for you, don’t you think you would perform higher? You would get information when you need it, you would, like, waste less time, you would have more productive meetings. Right? And the top skills that people managers could improve, according to American workers, were communicating effectively, developing and training a team, cultivating a positive and inclusive team culture, and managing team performance. Now, these statistics were all from a study that was conducted by Sherman in 2020. And so what I want you to know is that we are addressing those statistics in this program because clearly, what we’re doing in the workplace to prepare managers to be people leaders isn’t working. As someone who worked in talent and development in the industry, I know the strengths and the weaknesses of the training.

I know even the best training has gaps, and there is some good training out there. But that is why I created this program. And the top skills that people managers could improve that I just shared, those are all covered in the program. When you invest in your development, it isn’t just a good investment for your career, but it pays you back over and over. You become someone who invests in themselves, who believes in themselves, who doesn’t accept the status quo, who doesn’t rely on their current company to decide their potential. You create it. So in the standout leader incubator. You’re going to learn the best and most effective tools. You’re going to get coached to implement them and overcome obstacles. You’re going to build relationships with your own leadership team of other women like you in the industry, working toward the same goal. You will learn together, and you will rise together. You will implement what you learn in a safe space and have support to take it into the workplace and master it. This is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. So I want to kind of call out some secret weapons that you are going to have in this program so you understand why it works so freakishly well, why it is so different than a typical leadership development program that you could register for online or take through your work or get at a conference somewhere.

Now the standout leader incubator. Works because of these secret weapons. It isn’t just material that you can read on the Internet or get through some other resource. You learn the best frameworks and tools for leadership development. But that’s not all. You get secret weapon number one coaching. According to a study from the International Society for Performance Improvement, coaching has a 221% return on investment. 221%. I don’t even think college degrees give you that, okay? Coaching is like having someone observe the way that you process information and identify problems before they happen so they have a higher success rate. It’s personalized implementation strategies. So with me, because I have a masters in organizational psychology, because talent development is an expertise area of mine. You get that knowledge, that strategy, but you also get the coaching because I’m a certified professional coach. So I can teach you something, and then I can watch you, I can observe you, see how you process it and identify problems for you, gaps you may have before you go and implement it and fail. So you end up having that higher success rate. You get personalized implementation strategies. You get accountability.

It’s uncovering blind spots. Coaching shows you possibilities that you can’t see on your own and in a group environment. It’s like coaching on steroids because you get to benefit from everyone else’s coaching issues and problems come up that you would never think to ask because you haven’t experienced them yet. But in this space, you get to learn before it happens. So you get to collapse time and experience results so much more quickly because you get to work through things that you haven’t worked through yet. But when they come up for you, you will know how to handle them, or you will have issues that you didn’t even think to ask. Someone else will. And then you’ll realize that’s an issue for you, and you will get to learn from it and grow from it in that moment. So that is secret weapon number one. Now, secret weapon number two is Think Tanks. So think tanks are a collaborative online space for you and your curated leadership team of other women in the industry to come together and celebrate your progress, troubleshoot, challenges, and reinforce what you learn. It’s leveraging your genius. Yes, you with the other genius minds so that you grow even faster.

Think Tanks are held on Fridays over zoom. These calls are optional, but they are there for you as a resource and from other groups that I have hosted and led. This was something that was really valuable for them and this is really going to help you expedite your results. Now, finally, secret weapon number three are Skill Labs. So you don’t just learn the best tools and frameworks, get coaching and think tank with your leadership team, you also get on demand feedback and support in these Skill Labs. Now, the Skill Labs are like online breakout rooms that you have access to 24/7. So you can implement something that you learn or take something that I taught you in a workshop, kind of marinate on it. And then you can go into one of these Skill Labs and you can ask questions, you can celebrate your wins, you can get coaching in real time. You don’t have to wait until the next call. You have me and your leadership team at your fingertips. So these secret weapons are going to take you beyond traditional leadership development. They are going to make this content so potent and applicable, it is going to help you implement more quickly and reduce failure.

Your success is inevitable when you’re in this room. Now, listen, your technical skills got you here. Your people skills are going to take you to the next level. So you don’t have to doubt yourself as a leader. Whether it’s in your team, with your peers, or secretly in your office, being a confident, standout leader is simple. The problem is that typical leadership development programs just aren’t relevant or applicable. And that is why you were getting these secret weapons and you were getting this program curated for you that I have created. Because it’s one thing to read a book or to go out and try to consume information, and it’s another to apply it. So what you are going to do in this program is you are going to identify your leadership philosophy, so you always know what decisions to make and you are confident in your approach. This is going to be your compass for who you are and your unique leadership positioning. You’re going to uncover your blind spots and brain traps that fuel you without over thinking and making wrong decisions. You are going to know how to communicate and influence your team, your peers, your leaders, so you can always get what you need for yourself and for your team.

You are going to build your emotional intelligence so you can deal with stress effectively and confidently and navigate employee issues without freaking out or stressing out or wondering if they hate you. You know how to develop your team so they feel valued and they see a future with you and the company. You’re going to be able to enable a culture of psychological safety so your team feels that they belong and they perform at a high level. You are going to be the leader that your team wants to work for now and in the future you’re going to advance your leadership career without becoming a generic copy of who you see at the leadership table. You are going to feel confident to handle any leadership challenge in just three months. So you may think, now this sounds amazing, Melissa, but is this really for you? I don’t know. Let me just break it down for you. So this is for you if you are a new or experienced people manager, either directly or indirectly, because I know there’s a lot of matrix teams out there who wants to be seen as a leader and make a positive impact with your team.

You care about the development and engagement of your team and you want to develop them while also bringing in company results. You want a proven and simple way to be an effective manager without reading a bunch of books or attending random courses. You doubt yourself sometimes and you don’t want your mindset or lack of confidence to hold you back with your team or in your career. The idea of having personalized, safe and private space for you to grow and become the best leader you can be sounds amazing to you. If those things were true for you, then you are a perfect fit for this program. But I also want to tell you that this program is not for everyone. So I’m going to tell you how to know if this is not for you. So this is not for you. If you don’t consider yourself a people manager either directly or indirectly and you’re not on the path to become one anytime soon, you care more about the title, the money or the power that comes with leadership than you do the people. You don’t identify as a woman, you don’t work in the pharma or biotech industry, you are looking for a quick fix and you don’t enjoy personal development.

If any of those things are true for you, then this is not a good fit for you. Now, I do want to make one note. If you are an aspiring people manager as and you are not a people manager yet, but you are on a defined path to become a people manager within the next six months or so, you are eligible to apply because a flaw within company training is that you often don’t get trained until you’re already in the role. But we want to stop that. I want to stop that with this program. I want people managers that are able to be effective from day one so that their team can benefit. And they can benefit because when you have someone go in that’s really technically savvy and really good at their job and they go in but they’re not really good at people management, their team suffers and they suffer. And so this program is also available to people that are not in that role yet, but they are on the track to be soon so that you can be effective from day one. And it is also for, like I said, if you are a new manager, or maybe you’ve been a people manager for 20 years, but you just want to be better, this is for you too.

So I can’t wait for you to join us. You are invited to be a part of this exclusive leadership team curated just for you. You will learn just what you need to know. You will apply it in a safe space. You will get coaching that will take you and your team to the next level. You are going to stand out as the best leader and feel confident and good about yourself along the way. And it’s just a bonus that you’re helping to change the industry for the better. So here is what you need to know. Enrollment is February 20 to March 5 or until it’s sold out, whichever comes first. If you are on the Waitlist, excellent call because you get first access to apply on February 20. Everyone else will have access to apply for the remaining spots, if there are any, on February 22. But you can still join the Waitlist to make sure that you have first access to apply. So even if you are just thinking about it, thinking you might want to join, join the Waitlist so that you don’t miss out. Go to yourworthycareer comincubator, we will put a link in the show notes for you.

And then on February 20, you’re going to get that invitation to apply. Now, the application is a brief questionnaire because you might be thinking what is this application? Am I really going to get in? Let me break it down for you. The application is a brief questionnaire to make sure that you are a good fit for the program. It prevents people from buying and joining and slipping through that, say, aren’t in the industry or don’t identify as a woman or wouldn’t be a good fit for the material. I really want to make sure that this is the best group of women in the industry that are all going to learn and grow together. So that is why that application is there. It’s really just a fail safe for you and the other members of this group. Now, again, this is for professionals who identify as women and are currently in the pharma biotech industry and are either already a people manager directly or indirectly or on the track to become one soon. Now, once you complete the application, we will review it and get back to you within 24 to 48 hours. The kickoff event is March Eastern, and it is virtual.

Our weekly calls thereafter are going to be Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m Eastern. We will meet from March 21 to June 13. Now, if you’re thinking, I don’t know, I might have a conflict with that, just talk to your manager about it if you really think it’s a problem. So when I coach my clients, we always meet during the day. I don’t coach my clients at night or on weekends, and they often just block off the time of their development time. Some of them talk to their managers and say that they’re working with a coach for their development, and their managers are supportive of that. But you are an adult. You can figure this out whether it’s with your manager or on your own, but figure out what you have to do to make sure that you attend those calls. Now, a couple of notes about the financial investment. Investing in yourself will have a positive correlation to your success in your career. You will achieve more, you will get better results than if you go it alone, and you will make more money over time. It’s been proven over and over. Now, it is possible that your work will subsidize the cost for you to attend this program.

So I do want to mention that. So have the conversation with your boss now so that you have the answer. If this will make a difference for you on whether or not you want to join, I do suggest so if you are thinking this is going to make me a better leader, that you joined either way, but I understand that that might be helpful for you. So talk to your boss if that’s something that’s going to make a difference. Now, I also recognize that we don’t all start from the same place. So I’m really happy to share with you that at my company, your worthy career, we strive for an inclusive, safe, and equitable society and workplace. And our mission is to help women in pharma biotech of all different backgrounds and walks of life have access to meaningful work and roles of influence. Because together, I believe we can change the industry and the world through our impact and through our action. And like I said, this is a revolution to expand the access to leadership roles within the industry for women. So I’m happy to share that. We offer a partial scholarship to the standout leader incubator.

For a select number of individuals who identify as BIPOC, so, black, Indigenous, people of color, Asian American and Pacific Islander, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, so, BIPOC, AAPI or LGBTQ Plus or any combination who are right for the program and could benefit. So if this is you, and receiving that partial scholarship would make joining the program more accessible, then I really encourage you to apply for it. There is a space on my website for the application for the partial scholarship, so any other details that you are looking for are likely on my website so you can go to yourworthycareer. Comincubator. I cannot wait for you to join us and step into your next level of leadership. I will talk to you soon.

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