By Alison Maitland and Liz Walker, Becoming

Shaping the future

In her recent blog, Sarah Harrison, CEO of the Building Societies Association, spoke about the next chapter for building societies and credit unions as “a pivotal moment, a time of opportunity”.  And she touched on the challenges and opportunities that the sector faces:

“We are living in a complex world environment: economically, politically, socially and technologically. Customer expectations are evolving rapidly, as is the technology to meet them”

The alumni of the Becoming Journey hold significant responsibility for shaping that next chapter.  These women are stepping into CEO roles.  They are leading innovation and carving new paths for their societies. They have responsibility for transforming cultures, modernising services and navigating regulatory and legislative complexities. 

They contribute fundamentally to a sector where, as Sarah says, “success is measured not just in numbers, but in lives improved and futures built.”

Challenges

And yet, as women in this sector, they face common challenges and barriers.  The conversation in the room touched on problems that you may recognise:

• Some are age-old, such as being excluded from places and conversations where decisions are made
• Some are a continual paradox, such as the desire to speak with authority and authenticity or to set boundaries that meet the needs of work and home life.  
• And some challenges are about moments of opportunity, such as reshaping their organisation or innovating in response to customer, market and economic demands.

The truth is that the issue for the women we meet is never a lack of skill.  They are highly skilled, professional, intelligent women.  And so the solution is not to ‘teach’ them how to lead.  It is to equip them with the psychological flexibility to unstick from these challenges, and take action towards who and how they want to be, as leaders of the future of their society.

Support

Living its commitment to the Women in Finance Charter, the BSA chose a programme that does just that.  The Becoming Journey is a ‘vertical’ leadership development programme.

Most leadership development is ‘horizontal’ development – aiming to add skills and knowledge and help the individual master the competencies that are expected of a leader.

In contrast, The Becoming Journey® is about ‘vertical’ development – developing deeper, more comprehensive and complex ways of making sense of the world.  It focuses on equipping women with tools that create new perspectives on challenges, that open up space for complexity, and that enable these women to live their values and lead in a way that is authentic to them.  

This is a leadership journey that:

• Does not focus on teaching women what to ‘do’ in the workplace.  Rather it explores who they are and how they think about themselves and their impact on their organisations, the sector and beyond.   
• Does not ‘tell’” women how to lead.  It walks alongside women on a journey to discover who they are and how they wish to be as a leader.
• Does not make women responsible for the larger, cultural issues that hinder their progress.  It focuses on the things they can control and the ripples of change they can create.
• Does not encourage women to change or fit in.  It empowers women to have choice and freedom to become the leader they were born to be.

Impact

Some of the impact of this programme is tangible and quantifiable. Two women have been promoted to CEO roles since attending, others have stepped up into senior leadership roles or carved out new roles for themselves leading new parts of their business. 

Some of the impact is less tangible but no less meaningful.  Think of the woman who arrived wanting to work on “being heard” and now speaks with visible ease about the power of her quiet leadership voice.  Or the woman who spoke with passion about “no longer contorting to fit in”.

And some of the impact is still to be felt.  In the second half of our day, we asked the women to complete the sentence “My Society would be a better place for women if…”.  And, with the generosity that is unlocked by psychological flexibility, they discussed the ways in which they can create ripples of impact.  In a range of different ways, they each committed to reaching a hand of support out to other women, in their own societies and across the sector.

Watch this space for the “uprising of inconvenient women”.
  
Find out more

The next running of the BSA Becoming Journey will start in September 2026.  If you, or someone in your Society or Credit Union may be interested, please click here to find out more and register.