LEADERSHIP THAT HEALS:
WOMEN’S CIRCLE
A caring, and candor-embracing environment
for female founders and professionally ambitious women
committed to “Leadership as a Way of Being”.
Held by women choosing each other.
Filled with joy, growth, and healing.
Fueled by somatic leadership principles.
November Update:
Cohort 6 will be a Lisbon - Cascais - Ericeira area-based cohort.
We will meet twice per month. Once in person and once virtually.
The location will be a mix of Lisbon and my home in Ericeira.
We start once the right set of women have come together.
This is a human-fit-first community.
The intention is to kick off in February.
Please reach out to schedule a call if the below speaks to you (take a moment to read it mindfully).
I hold space for women who hold space
for many.
Introducing our Women’s Leadership Circle
The Connection Among Women
If you've found your way here, it's likely that you're a woman of deep commitment and ambition. As women, we have similar conditioning, life events, and desires. Although each of us is in a different chapter of our multifaceted continuum, we are all connected by our commitment, desires, everyday loves and duties, and frustrations.
The Power of Feminine Creative Energy
As women, we have a lot of maternal, creative energy for life and others. We do not just birth babies; we also carry the power of fertility in our center. We can move energy, create from zero, and find resilience from a place of active creating, not just output-ting. When we create from a place of joy, our nervous system is at ease - this may be writing, working, painting, mothering, gathering, building, or cooking using your creative essence. This is not a productive manner; it's expression and our creative essence at play.
Challenges Women Face in Modern Life
The reason we tend to struggle with the demands of a rich and busy everyday life is that we embody patterns from our lineage, patterns from social conditioning, patterns from what traditionally has been the definition of "femininity" in relation to power and leadership, and patterns from our own relationship to ourselves.
The Importance of Embracing Feminine Leadership
Until more of us can identify what holds us hostage in exploring our own feminine and embodied leadership, we will continue to live in the shadows of our lineage, shadows of others' expectations of us.
We won't fuel the generational change we and our children need to consciously relate and be in a relationship with each other while honoring our truth, values, and convictions.
On an even grander scale and specific to our time of political polarization and artificial intelligence taking over, the feminine reminds us of the softness needed to create environments of belonging, safety, and dignity. The feminine reminds us that we need a real human touch to develop technology that serves humanity, not solutions that cost it.
We need to learn how to look back and understand what works for us, what moves us, and what energizes us daily. Instead, we are more commonly asked to look at all the things that are not enough, including ourselves.
Going Off the Beaten Path: Examples of Courageous Choices
And even if we finally feel called to move beyond ourselves and into a new level of truth with ourselves, our gut feeling is to isolate and perceive ourselves as unrelatable. It takes great courage to go off the beaten path. This path may look like:
starting to say what needs to be said within the corporate environment
quitting the job that has been holding you back from bringing your full innovative potential to your field or industry
deciding to retire from work for a few years because you have felt the need and desire to be home with your kids
leaving the "up and right"-trajectory and instead spending a few years standing still and going deep
The Purpose of the Women's Leadership Circle
We come together in the Women's Leadership Circle to support each other in our individually defined versions of going "off the beaten path."
Doing this together strengthens our foundation of co-regulation, co-creation, and healing, and growing new businesses and/or a better daily leadership presence in our world.
As women, we are meant:
to remember each other's words and wisdom, when we face a similar situation like those we lean on. It gives us a sense of groundedness and faith and inspires us to keep going, knowing others are cheering for us.
to be held when our ground feels unstable and turn fear into collective knowing.
to come together, even nurture small talk at times, as the bed of deeper trust potential.
to find relation and relatability with others experiencing the same duality—the good and bad, the messy and creative, the loving and fearing, the feminine and the masculine.
The Dangers of "Rugged Individualism"
In the absence of good people and leaders influencing each other, we perpetuate "rugged individualism."
We learn to get so good at doing "it all on our own" and "getting through it" that we lose the ability to be joyful about doing it together. This is where most psychosomatic illnesses are born and also right where we can heal them.
The Women's Leadership Circle at Leadership That Heals offers a space where you don't have to do it alone. It provides a space where you can be nurtured, supported, and seen by other women in leadership.
This group calls on all of our powers, skills, intentions, creativity, and deeply committed care to rewrite that story—whatever that story is for you individually.
And yet, eventually, we will grow ourselves - together.
An Invitation to Join and Grow Together
If any of this resonates, step inside yourself for a moment and journal about your relationship to be seen in the most significant ambitions that you have, to be truly witnessed in your desire to make a difference, but also be reminded that it's okay for everything to feel messy.
Journaling about this may help you to understand whether you want to join us and grow together.
How does the space co-create and co-regulate?
This group:
practices leadership as a way of being, not as a job title: Who am I, why am I here, where am I going, how do I serve, how am I getting in my own way.
shows up for each other knowing that every act of giving will turn into an act of abundant receiving.
learns to receive, not just give. (I see you!)
nurtures a somatic connection to decision-making to avoid overthinking and burnout. The body keeps the score and we need to know how, and when it keeps you away from the work, relationships and commitments you’re meant to do.
practices a repertoire of tools and prompts to nurture leadership presence. Efficiency = relational intelligence > transactional mastery
is a brave and safe space to express our deepest fears and most exhilarating dreams and turn them into actionable steps forward
offers the sacredness to be heard and seen and peel through layers of new and old trauma
encourages unconditional celebration of participants; we find joy together in collaborating and offering help outside of group sessions
is a springboard of new friendships among like-minded and like-hearted women for years to come
doesn't define progress through hard metrics, but through our participants’ ability to coherently show up, make sense, and (re-)gain perspective. Think nervous system capacity over performance.
grows through and honors conflict as an opportunity to re-establish harmony and systemically understand the patterns that keep us stuck. The new paradigm of leadership is system-based, not individiual contributor-based.
leads life, teams and themselves from a place of understanding the collective capacity, not only performance. Think embracing seasonality over year-round hustle.
dives deep into the science of nervous system health and how to lead from a place of emotional fluidity, nervous system awareness and somatic intelligence to avoid burnout and improve clarity, decision-making, boundary setting, and harmonious relationships
A space where you can be you.
Consider this an environment that complements your daily life, not as an additional commitment that takes up more time.
This space offers a bi-weekly moment of grounding and reflection so that you can keep steering your ship in the most intentional and "right" direction.
My hope is that all of this lands in your own context, that you take a moment to feel how this applies to you right now and understand what some of the gates of growth are that you want to walk through with this group.
For those that work with me in a 1:1 capacity, this will supercharge our weekly work in new ways and I am excited to see you influence folks in this group based on the work we have done together.
This is for you.
If the below speaks to you and the way you feel and think about leading, we’d be delighted to talk to you:
Leadership as a Way of Being can be found anywhere and, as a result, is not bound to women with prestigious job titles, but rather women who choose to lean into the continuous commitments life gives them as well as those they choose (even in the lowest moments).
Commitments are a form of liberation — when we know how to use our time, focus, and use our daily energy intentionally creating impact comes more seamlessly from a place of love, service, duty, and purpose.
This type of leadership is always a work in progress and not a job to be done. You can't submit leadership as a final product, paper, or service; it is an endless undertaking and a way of being. Becoming comfortable to live in the continuous grey, and stepping away from the shame we feel when we can’t fulfill the conditioned black and white of immediate gratification and progress is a massive step towards leading with more skillful action.
There is also a quieting that happens when we understand our commitments:
a quieting in our bodies
a quieting in our minds
a quieting of others questioning our choices
a quieting of our chronic stress responses
This quieting does not mean there is no tension or hard times, but it means we don't question ourselves whether this is our hardship to move through. We get better at standing in the humility of acceptance.
Leading life gets easier. There is less good or bad, and more "What am I being asked to do in this moment?".
Leadership - the good kind - enriches life, the life of the leader, and the lives of those around them.
It is also a vulnerable act of constantly shedding, understanding what works and what doesn't, assessing the effects of our actions, apologizing where needed to converge with what feels most aligned with us.
Alignment ultimately is when inner knowing and reflection meets outer expression. This is what I want for you — to live in alignment with your inner knowing and the way you bring it alive.
Recent groups included women of all ages, backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and intentions. We have senior leaders from corporate, solopreneurs, founders, VCs, new and seasoned mothers, women in transition, women leaving prestigious roles to step into “their own thing”, women who have recently gone through a major rite of passage (mariage, divorce, children, death and grief, empty nesters, living in a new country etc), and women seeking a tribe to which they can relate.
How do we gather?
You’ll join 7-9 other amazing women for this 6-month container.
After 6 months, we will decide together whether to continue. This group is ultimately yours—not mine. I am the guide, and we all get to create its culture and experience by showing up consistently, compassionately, authentically, lovingly, and honestly.
During these 6 months, we’ll meet bi-weekly over Zoom.
Sessions design:
You will join our Slack community and WhatsApp Group where we share resources, support one another, and exist together as women.
Further, you will also receive life-long access to the Leadership That Heals portal, that includes many, many goodies such as more practices, team exercises, playlists, practice videos. journaling challenges, book recommendations, podcasts, and more.
During our time together as a group, we explore topics or exercises such as:
Radical self-inquiry: Together, we will journal and take time fo you to get to know yourself in a different way and through the somatic lense. This means we will take advantage of neuroscience and our understanding how the nervous system works to answer questions such as: Who are you? Why are you here? Where are you going? (Sounds easy… but trust me… It’ll have you in for a beautiful spin)
Befriending fears, anxieties, and old conditionings physically — not just cognitively and rationally — that are standing in the way of… well… you.
Exploring goals and how they limit — somatically and mentally — your potential for legacy and creative expression.
Understanding how embodied leadership can heal past and the intergenerational traumas keeping you and your family stuck in decades-long freeze responses. It’s time to become a cycle breaker: not just aspirationally, but grounded in everyday practices.
Practicing harmonious conflict resolution and embracing conflict at work and home as a gate of growth. We will use ancient practices to lean into conscious witnessing and understand how it changes how we relate to ourselves and others at work and home.
Learning about how your nervous system works for you, not against you and how to increase daily capacity through structured pockets of pause and nervous system regulation.
Making connections between your nervous system and how it affects the collective nervous system
Diving deep into how to hold space for others, and become a source of trust with yourself, among other leaders in your team, team members, or colleagues.
Understand leadership as a way of unfolding and providing belonging, safety, and dignity to improve organizational nervous system and team-wide culture and morale.
Finding a still point in your body that regulates your most irritable responses and facilitates visioning and clear decision-making.
This is just a small list of things that we have embraced in previous groups and will embrace together.
While I provide a structural theme or practice in every session, this group thrives because we are able to show up for each other when most needed. This can mean many things, but above all it means that we will always prioritize the human connection, healing, and depth over content.
This is a human-first container. We learn through practice with each other, not through hand-outs and presentations. I am bringing this up, because it highlights the sacredness and also intentionality every member of this group brings.
“I started working with Franzi, and the women’s group because I wanted to evolve into the best and most integrated version of myself both at work and in my personal life.
Her support helped me to ground my every-day experiences in the body, and begin to observe and understand what my nervous system needs to feel at its most regulated, calm and connected.
Thanks to her, now my sense of self, (both in professional leadership settings and interpersonal settings) is far more somatically grounded and intentional. Thanks to her, I am a much stronger leader -- I am more skilled at listening, really knowing what questions need to be asked, and saying what needs to be said. She has taught me so much about self and team leadership. As Franzi so eloquently says, "we are all here to walk each other home."
— Emma Leiken, Head of Trust and Safety, TikTok
If you're looking for leadership coaching that will get to the core of why you might not be showing up as effectively or aligned across your life, I would urge you to hop on a discovery call with Franzi.
If you're looking for a quick fix, this work isn't for you. But if you're looking to engage in deep, beautiful (and messy) work that will unlock capacity, alignment, and skillful action across your life, this is most definitely the work for you.
I am confident in saying that I show up more effectively in my many roles - solopreneur, father, partner, friend, and more - as a result of the work I do with Franzi.
— Founder, Product leader
“Working with Franzi has been a transformative journey. Franzi's emphasis on somatic interoception became a cornerstone of my healing process. Through her guidance, I re-learned to reconnect with my inner self during a time of challenging circumstances, to listen deeply to the wisdom that resides within.
As part of our work together, I participated in group coaching sessions with other female leaders. This collective sharing of wisdom in a nurturing environment was instrumental in my transformation. Franzi's ability to cultivate a culture of support and empowerment is truly exceptional, and provides us with the ever increasingly important reminder that we are not alone.
I emerged from this experience not only with a renewed sense of self but also with a deep appreciation for the power of community and the importance of staying true to oneself. To say Franzi has made a significant impact on my life is an understatement. She provided me with the tools to navigate through and rise above the challenges I faced, transforming my perspective and approach.
— Renee Cassard, Founder, former Chief Science Officer
The women’s group has become a pillar of my growth and evolution. Franzi has a magical way of creating safe space for each of us to show up authentically and work with whatever is present for each of us. In this space I’m able to learn a new way of being - letting go of old patterns of pleasing and overworking and moving towards a calm confident leadership presence. Highly recommend working with Franzi and this group! If you do, make sure you can commit to showing up fully. You get what you put in.
— Amie Vaccaro, Senior Director Global Marketing, Dimagi
Highly recommend working with Franziska Gonder - I just did 4 months of individual coaching with her and now I'm asking her to do coaching for my company and also for my coalition of nonprofit data & tech consultants. I just can't let her go - so get some time with her ASAP!!
— Emily Hicks-Rotella, Founder, Data For Good
What’s the investment?
I base my business on the pillars of a sacred economy.
As such, you’re invited to choose a monthly amount between $290 - $600/month for your place on the program.
When booking, you just select the amount that feels right in your system.
This is a transparent process, so please reach out to me at any point if you have questions after our first chat.
Please schedule a call with me before so we can get to know each other. If we know each other, or have talked about the group before, please email me with what investment feels most comfortable.
Let me highlight:
Please choose an amount that respects your and/or your family's personal economy. Then, balance it with what feels like a solid commitment to you that also supports your accountability to yourself and the group.
It is important to me that money is an exchange of trust, not something that stands between us and the work we can do together.
or email: team@franziskagonder.com.
Who Is Franzi?
Well, I am just as human as you.
I’ve been in the boardrooms with billionaires, at the fancy political fundraisers, and featured in the media. But I’ve also been pulled in by a VC client to turn around a startup weeks after giving birth to my first child, breastfeeding in between meetings in a foreign country.
I’ve advised Fortune 100 clients and raised millions. But I’ve also dug myself out of financial ruin more than once (once while pregnant, driving myself to near-burnout).
I’m consciously raising three beautiful young boys and love my family to the moon and back. But I also faced postpartum depression, which led me to embark on a journey to heal from deep-rooted childhood trauma.
I’m here to give people back to themselves, and I believe we’re all just here to walk each other home.
You can learn more about my work in the most recent interview with Forbes.
#© FRANZISKA GONDER 2024