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This article analyzes women’s only leadership development training to determine how leadership roles are conceptualized and implemented, how women independently and collectively construct new leadership role identities, and how leadership identities are retained post training. Themes of nested validation, accepting the belonging narrative, identity emergence, leadership as multiverse, and reflective/reflexive leadership development were discovered. Leadership validation was needed by participants to own their new leadership identity. Through accepting a new narrative, participants confirmed that they belonged in their new leadership role. Identity work occurred on personal and social levels, allowing participants to assume a strengths-based approach to leadership development. Women’s only leadership programs, which acknowledge new leadership narratives and identities, allowed emergent leaders an improved opportunity to assume and retain their new role.

Women’s leadership training programs provide organizations opportunities to value women leaders as organizational resources. This qualitative research utilized phenomenological methodology to examine lived experiences of seven alumni of a women’s-only leadership program. We conducted semi-structured interviews to clarify what learning elements were most beneficial in furthering an individuals’ leadership role. Emerging research themes included perceptional and personal agency changes within participants. Women’s leadership programs provided an opportunity for cognitive, affective, and behavioral growth; engaging learning activities, social capital development, and relational model methodologies were perceived as most helpful in leadership development. Action learning techniques, fostering interconnectedness, and philosophical leadership development activities were critical elements in leadership development. Insights gained from this study provided perspective on the unique experiences of women in a leadership training program.