Last week I was invited to attend the SheSays‘ first event “Collective Mentorship Nights”.

That was a special night as they tried to bring a concept that involves collective growth to Stockholm. So think of it as a normal mentor session – but which involves a greater amount of people.

The night was very inspiring with all the intimate discussion around topics we wanted advice on for the career growth!

Young women may face unique challenges in asserting and developing a leadership style. One major problem is a shortage of female role models.

People often learn leadership styles by observing others; but there are often few female executives to observe.

The SheSays – The only global creative network for women – brought those female models to inspire us with their successful stories.

We met Susana Meza Graham, COO Paradox Interactive who said that her interest in leadership came from her early experiences working for AIESEC, a non-profit student organization.

We talked also to Charlotte Henriksson – Vice President & COO of Content Agency Matter – who shaped her leader skills through a 10 plus years in the male dominated automotive industry.

However Malin Ingevall – Program Director for Project Management at Berghs School of Communication and founder and CEO at We are the StoryDoers – said in her presentation that she has been developing her leadership skills her entire career without knowing it: as a receptionist, a producer, a project manager, a team lead, a coach, and for the last six years as CEO at a digital agency.

Effective leaders develop a sense of purpose by pursuing goals that align with their personal values and advance the collective good. And to support women’s access to leadership positions, we have to educate women and men about gender bias, create safe, equal workspaces to support transitions to bigger roles, and encourage women to not be agarics to lead and role big positions.

In the end this was some of the thoughts the groups had about future leadership.

SheSays is an award-winning organization running free mentorship and events to women in the creative and marketing businesses. Why? Because they want to see more women at the top.

Looking forward for more of these inspirational events! J