Weekend Retreat "Treasures for your Career"

Let's talk about female Leadership

EWMD Young & Active had invited to a weekend retreat EWMD Schätze – Treasures for your Career and twelve female leaders and young professionals followed the call. And indeed, we all had the privilege to experience a wonderfull weekend of intellectual and emotional empowerment - with incredible women, intensive discussions, good networking and a lot of fun. The setting in Hesselberg fulfilled all its promises of sunny weather, good food and a beautiful landscape with great view from the hill.

"Authentic Female Leadership - Courage to be Imperfect"

We started of on Friday evening with Helene Banner‘s key note on authentic female leadership – daring to be imperfect. At the end, there was not only her inspiring personal story in the room, but the one’s  of each woman, which were brought along and shared. We enriched our hearts with kindness and power. Thank you again, Helene!

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Saturday, Anke Rohfleisch introduced us to the concept of emotional intelligence, which provided the red thread through the day. Self-awareness and -management combined with social awareness form the basis for leadership and relationship management. There was so much we experienced throughout the day: e.g. mindfulness exercises with stones in my hand and peas in my pocket, individual reflection time on my IKIGAI – my reason for being, breakout sessions with a Power-team exercise, walk & even more talk, and a lot of energy and fun in the empowerment exercise when we tried to swap places without talking (the later is always a female challenge ).

Special thanks to Sabine Woytowicz for her online insights into communication within hierarchies. Thanks and big hugs to Elke Weiss und Sibylle Büttner, experienced senior managers, who joined us in the evening and shared their career experiences in an Ask-me-anything talk. If we wouldn’t have been all tired at 12 p.m., we probably could have talked forever.

Meet – Share - Engage

But there was of course more opportunity on Sunday morning. We dedicated the time to talk about team dynamics, leadership styles and in particular to vision ourselves in the future. Fall in love with the wonderful woman you already are and even more you gonna be! Let’s start today with the award ceremony for the successful female managers 2053! Cheer to your success – and believe us, it is so empowering.

Now all that remains for us, is to thank all women again for your energy, openness and contribution. This is EWMD at its best: Meet – share- engage. You made the event a success. Thank you! And thank you also for the overwhelming feedback at the end of the workshop:

I had so many takeaways!

It`s good to know that I am not alone with my questions. Sharing experiences is so good.

I enjoyed every minute, the long journey to Hesselberg was worth it.

I loved the IKIGAI exercise and will continue to work on it.

 Your flexibility (as moderators) to adapt to our topics made the difference.

 We need more Power-team time.

What an energy in the room - great women!

We feel encouraged to do it again! So for all who missed the EWMD Weekend Retreat this year – there will be hopefully another opportunity in 2024. See you there

Anke & Helene

(P.S. If you are now inspired and up to join in next years’ event organisation, contact us.)