Strategic Leadership Development Programme for Women Executives: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract: Organizations operating in volatile and technology-driven environments require leaders who can combine strategic analysis, financial understanding, adaptive decision-making, and inclusive people management. Yet women continue to encounter barriers to advancement into senior decision-making roles, including unequal access to sponsorship, high-visibility assignments, and networks. This conceptual paper develops a framework for a strategic leadership development programme for women executives using literature published up to 2022. A structured narrative review was organized around six dimensions: strategic analysis tools, mentorship and sponsorship, uncertainty management, organizational paradoxes, financial acumen, and digital/AI literacy. The synthesis indicates that leadership development is most useful when individual capability-building is combined with organizational changes in access, evaluation, and promotion. The paper proposes a programme architecture and implementation indicators that organizations can adapt to their context. As a conceptual study, the framework requires empirical validation across sectors and organizational levels.

Keywords: Women executives, strategic leadership, leadership development, mentorship, sponsorship, financial acumen, artificial intelligence