In a world where leadership opportunities for women are often limited, especially in traditionally male-dominated industries, initiatives like the Shakti Women Leadership Program are a breath of fresh air. In this conversation with TheCSRUniverse, Dr. Antarpreet Singh, Director (Academics) at WILL Education, shares the inspiring vision and foundational goals behind the Shakti Women Leadership Program. This initiative is designed to equip women professionals with critical leadership skills at the personal, interpersonal, and strategic levels, enabling them to thrive across industries, including traditionally male-dominated sectors like energy.
Dr. Singh delves into the program's unique approach, highlighting its emphasis on AI, data-driven decision-making, and the blended learning structure that combines online and in-person modules. He discusses the vital role of academic partnerships with UPES and industry collaboration, which have shaped Shakti into a well-rounded leadership development program. With ambitious plans to reach 200 women leaders by the end of 2025, Shakti aims to foster transformative leadership by addressing the evolving needs of today’s dynamic business landscape.
Scroll down to explore how Shakti is paving the way for women leaders to lead with confidence, resilience, and future-readiness:
Q. What was the primary motivation behind launching the Shakti Women Leadership Program, and what long-term impact do you envision it having on women professionals in the energy sector?
A. The motivation for WILL-UPES to launch SHAKTI was to offer to the Executive Education market a very well-rounded program that focuses on all three levels of leadership - Personal, Interpersonal and Strategic. Most of the products in the market do not go beyond behavioural competencies. So we decided to bring in a wholesome product to the market. In addition, I would like to clarify that the product - "SHAKTI" is sector agnostic. While we have one of our current batches from the energy sector, we are concurrently deploying the program for non-energy sectors too.
Q. Women in leadership often face unique challenges, especially in traditionally male-dominated sectors like energy. How does this program address these specific challenges, and what kind of support systems are built into the program to foster long-term success?
A. I would like to reiterate, that our flagship product SHAKTI is both for energy as well as other verticals of the industry. I tend to agree with the viewpoint that energy as well as several other industry verticals are male dominated especially when it comes to senior/top leadership positions. The program upskills women leaders with critical competencies in behavioural, functional, and strategic domains. These competencies are key drivers of organisational success. The program has a unique design as it focuses on future readiness (besides other things) - this part caters to the long-term success of women leaders.
Q. The program emphasises leadership in the age of AI and data-driven decision-making. How critical do you think these skills are for women professionals, and how does the program ensure they are effectively integrated into participants' leadership styles?
A. Leadership in the age of AI age or as we refer to it - ‘Industry 5.0’ in the program, and well-rounded skills in Data Analytics - are key to the future readiness of women leaders as they are well equipped to drive digital transformation projects in their respective organisations. In the later part of our course 'SHAKTI', there is a heavy focus on embracing a leadership style that supports predictive and prescriptive analytics that are key for data driven decisions. In addition, the leadership style also is transformation-driven.
Q. With a mix of online (70%) and physical (30%) modules, how does the blended learning approach enhance the overall effectiveness of the program? What are the benefits of this structure for the participants?
A. We have carefully decided the mix that enables the women leaders to leverage interactions with faculty in a physical class. So as a matter of design, 'SHAKTI' begins with a day long physical session comprising of setting the stage sessions from the Program Chair & Co-Chair as well as other faculty members. Likewise, there are sessions in a physical setting in the end that help leaders wrap up the program in a highly effective manner. The bulk of sessions are in an online interactive mode that helps women leaders attend classes from their workplaces only. A 1.5 hour session each in the morning and afternoon helps women leaders to leverage virtual classrooms and at the same time be able to attend the office work and take care of key work responsibilities.
Q How does the academic partnership with UPES add value to the Shakti Women Leadership Program? What role does UPES play in shaping the curriculum and participant experience?
A. WILL and UPES belong to the same extended GUS (Global University Systems) ecosystem. Working with UPES helps WILL to leverage the key expertise of faculty from the School of Business (SOB) and at the same time it also helps 'SHAKTI' classes to be delivered out of the state-of-the-art management development center (MDC) of UPES-Dehradun. Some of the faculty members are drawn from the industry (top/senior leaders). The combination of SOB faculty pool and industry leaders helps us to have a very formidable faculty team for the program.
Q. The involvement of key HR professionals from various energy sector organisations in selecting participants shows strong industry support. How has this support shaped the program, and how do you see this collaboration growing in the future?
A. Once again, 'SHAKTI' has got overwhelming support from the energy sector as well as other verticals of the industry. The collaboration at many fronts has helped make our flagship product 'SHAKTI', a very robust product offering. The format is highly industry friendly which makes it a popular choice of industry.
Q. With the inaugural cohort already reflecting strong participation from different energy sector organisations, do you have any plans to expand the program to include other industries or geographical regions?
A. We have already expanded to other sectors as the response from the inaugural cohort from several power corporations was overwhelming. By the end of the calendar year 2025, we target to cover over 200 women leaders in India holding senior to top positions in the public and private sectors - in various geographies within India.
Q. Leadership often goes beyond technical skills. Could you elaborate on how the Shakti Program helps participants develop behavioural competencies that are essential for becoming transformative leaders?
A. As I mentioned earlier 'SHAKTI' focuses on leadership skills at behavioural, functional/technical, and strategic levels. Specifically talking of behavioural skills, the program has 3 out of 7 modules completely dedicated to sharpening the behavioural (personal and interpersonal) competencies that include converting your potential into performance and also focuses on communication, presentation, negotiation and adaptive skills.
Q. Beyond this cohort, what are the future goals for the Shakti Women Leadership Program? How do you plan to measure its success and continue to improve the program to meet the evolving needs of women leaders?
A. As the needs of the industry are changing due to fluidity, turbulence, and complexity in the business space, our flagship program 'SHAKTI' will keep pace with these changes. While retaining the core structure of the program, we intend to use new AI-led pedagogical tools for example in honing presentation skills, etc. We also have plans to offer a few optional modules to the industry - so a customer can pick up core modules and some of the optional modules that help make the program very customer and student friendly.
