A second successful Women Talent Pool workshop took place on Friday, 22nd March at the premises of Microsoft France. It was led by Irène Papaligouras, founder of Leaders Excellence Partners, a strategic human resources start-up, focused on a predicative and proactive audit of leadership competencies.

Under the motto “Mirror Yourself in Your Leadership Style”, nine Emerging Leaders participated in a session aimed at assessing and developing their specific leadership style.

The workshop was preceded by a networking lunch organized by Nathalie Wright, Director of the Enterprises and Partners Division at Microsoft France, and Emerging Leader Myriam El Ouni, Alliance Manager at Microsoft.

WIL welcomed two new Emerging Talents from the Directorate General of the Treasury of the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry.

The workshop began with an in-depth introduction of the participants. They cross-presented each other and produced Chinese portraits of themselves to get to know each other, as well as to get to know themselves better.

In order to determine their specific leadership style, the participants were then asked to assess their personality via the Enneagram personality model, which can be used as a tool to define nine different leadership styles. Leaders benefit from categorizing their personality by becoming aware of their strengths and weaknesses and defining the areas that can be improved.

In addition, the workshop identified three key skills for leaders of the 21st century: self-branding, entrepreneurship, and hyperconnectivity. The first skill, self-branding, is all about signaling one’s unique strengths in order to stand out from the crowd. The second, entrepreneurship, is about being a change-agent, driven towards innovation and optimization. The third, hyperconnectivity, is about turning leaders into sought-after sources of relevant content.

Finally, having discovered their personality and leadership style, the participants were then asked to present their particular leadership development style, to serve as a reminder and guiding principle for further developing their own management qualities. The Emerging Leaders found this session very resourceful and inspiring. At the end of the workshop, they left with concrete elements to help them build a plan for development for themselves and their teams.