Executive Leadership for Women
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Rice Business Executive Education
Accelerate your career and drive your organization forward with our comprehensive leadership and management programs for executives. No matter your career stage or industry, you’ll be prepared to lead with greater confidence.
Upcoming Program Dates
May 12-15, 2026
9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Leading effectively at the executive level presents universal challenges — but for women, additional hurdles exist in environments still shaped by traditional, masculine models of leadership. This four-day program equips women leaders with strategies to overcome these challenges, redefine leadership norms, and thrive at the highest levels.
Who Should Apply
- Senior leaders with 10-plus years of management experience who currently hold or aspire to roles such as Director, Vice President, or C-suite executive
- Entrepreneurs and business owners seeking to grow their organizations and expand their strategic influence
- Rising executives at an inflection point in their careers who are preparing for greater authority, board service or enterprise-wide responsibility
Leaders from corporate, nonprofit and public sectors who are shaping organizational culture, strategy and talent development
Program Outcomes
- Strengthen executive presence. Navigate gender-based challenges with confidence and authenticity at the highest levels of leadership.
- Reframe leadership norms. Move beyond traditional leadership stereotypes by embracing collaborative, learning-focused leadership models.
- Master high-stakes influence. Develop tools to protect and enhance personal and organizational reputation, especially in moments of crisis.
- Negotiate strategically. Apply effective, bias-aware negotiation techniques to advance initiatives, influence stakeholders, and close leadership and compensation gaps.
- Advance career impact. Position themselves for expanded responsibilities, enterprise-wide influence, and board-level opportunities.
Program Overview
Topic 1: Empowering Women in Corporate Leadership
How biases raise challenges for women (executive) leaders – and how to deal with them.
- Explore the “glass ceiling” and “glass cliff” phenomena
- Analyze how gender influences leadership perception and strategic decision-making
- Identify transition strategies for newly appointed female executives
- Address bias in mentoring and evaluation practices
- Develop actionable solutions through case studies and interactive strategy sessions
Topic 2: Leading for Learning
How traditional understandings of leadership as directive, decisive, and “leading the charge” are more associated with gender bias than more contemporary understandings that put the emphasis on leading empowered teamwork to collaboratively determine ways forward with complex business challenges.
- Contrast traditional vs. contemporary leadership models
- Emphasize leadership as “leading from what you need to know”
- Cultivate a growth mindset and psychological safety
- Learn how collaborative, empowered teamwork sidesteps gender bias
- Practice techniques to foster learning-based leadership in complex environments
Topic 3: Reputation Management
Zoom in on the reality that leadership, and the challenge for women leaders, comes particularly into focus when personal or corporate reputation is at stake.
- Understand how personal and organizational reputations are formed and evaluated
- Explore gender bias in reputation assessments, especially during crises
- Learn tools to manage, protect, and repair reputations
- Engage in interactive case studies, vignettes, and group exercises
- Apply management research to real-world reputation challenges
Topic 4: Negotiation
Addressing the reality that negotiations are part and parcel of (executive) leadership – and that gender bias creates unique hurdles for women leaders to be effective negotiators.
- Learn negotiation frameworks tailored for executive-level leadership
- Understand the unique negotiation challenges and opportunities for women
- Build confidence to negotiate in high-stakes, multi-party contexts
- Practice proven strategies to close gaps in leadership and compensation
- Gain tools to influence decisions and drive strategic outcomes