THE FEMALE SHIFT JOURNAL
A career and leadership journal for women in corporate careers who want clarity, visibility, energy and sustainable success.
Welcome to The Female Shift Journal! An editorial space for women in corporate careers who want more than external success.
Here, I write about career fit, visibility, leadership, strengths, energy and the systems that still shape women’s careers. The articles combine personal essays, thought leadership and practical coaching reflections for women who want to move from performing to leading in a way that feels clear, sustainable and true to who they are.
This is not about becoming louder, harder or more optimised.
It is about understanding your value, shaping your next career chapter and creating success that holds up over time and still feels good.
For women asking: What still fits me and what no longer does? Articles about career clarity, midlife shifts, leadership transitions, optionality and the next professional chapter.
For women asking: How do I become seen, heard and taken seriously? Articles about value communication, sponsorship, leadership presence, difficult conversations and visibility without performance theatre.
For women asking: How do I stay ambitious without losing myself?
Articles about energy, boundaries, overdelivery, availability, care work and success that holds up over time.
For women asking: What is my real value and how do I build from it? Articles about strengths, CliftonStrengths, skills, AI, future careers, value creation and career capital.
What you will find here
Personal Essays:
Stories and reflections from corporate life, leadership, motherhood, reinvention and the shift from old success logic to a more fitting career design.
Thought Leadership
Articles on the bigger systems shaping women’s careers — from sponsorship gaps and glass cliffs to invisible work, care bias and outdated leadership models.
Practical Coaching Reflections
Tools, questions and perspectives to help you apply the ideas to your own career, leadership and life.
Ready to explore your own shift?
If one of these articles speaks directly to where you are right now, a discovery call can help you understand what is really going on and what your next professional step could look like.
Read the blog articles below in chronological order.
If you want to focus on one area click on the buttons above.
How do your values influence your role as a leader?
Our own set of values, our character, is the central basis for our actions. It has a direct influence on how our employees perceive and value us. Only employees who (can) trust their leaders will follow them, even in difficult phases.
Therefore, it is important to become aware of one's own values and to review them regularly. This allows us to recognize the effects of our values on the current use of our skills and on our character traits. This provides concrete opportunities to set up targeted measures for the successful further development of leadership competences.
Identifying your values and Self-reflection in leadership if the first steps of my 4- Steps Guide To Becoming the Leader you want to be.
Follow my proven program. We start on the 10th of October. This is a program that I developed when training to be an even better leadership coach. More details in the blog.
The Mentor _ Find One • Learn from Them • Become One
In this blog, you're going to be introduced to the world of mentors. We'll start with the basics, where you'll learn exactly what mentors are – and what they are not. You'll find out why you should have a mentor and even touch on the subject of why you might want to consider mentoring someone else.
From there, we’re going to dig deeper into the topic by exploring how you can go about finding a mentor, along with several tips on how to make the most of your mentorship experience once you have one.
Finally, we’ll go back to the idea of becoming a mentor yourself, exploring what you have to offer and how you can get started in reaching out to someone else in a vital and life-changing way.
Mentorship is an exciting idea. Imagine building a relationship with someone else for the sole purpose of realizing your dreams. Let’s get started!
In my mentoring and coaching most of the time we come back to one of these points. In my coaching MOVE UP! I focus on leadership: the soft skills, the mindset and the practical techniques to lead with ease, confidence and fun. Click here if you want to join the course to get the most recent information.
EASY NETWORKING – PREPARE YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH
Networking is exciting once you get the why and the how. You never know who you’re going to meet, or how each person will become important in your life. Think of it as a treasure hunt of a net of opportunities. Remember to prepare and know what to say, practice your elevator pitch to introduce yourself. Your elevator pitch should answer the following questions: Who are you? What do you do? What do you want?
In her course SHOW UP! Katharina Engelhardt starts exactly with this topic.
5 reasons to start a career journal / book of success
Journaling is an adventure that can help you succeed in so many ways!
From getting organized to realizing your dreams, a journal can be a powerful tool. It’s amazing to think how much power lies in something so simple as the written word.
Career journaling focuses on your career and will help you to Stick to Your Goals, Track Your Progress and Growth for career confidence, Improve your memory, track your ideas and Reflect.
Of course, journals take time, so be prepared to make a time commitment to this endeavor to own your career.
Start to write your own story!
5-STEP-PLAN to start your Self-Promotion
We all want our work and our potential to be seen. We want what we do to be seen and that the ideas we have on how to move forward in the future are noticed. Katharinas 5 steps to self-marketing according to the motto: get noticed to get promoted, will show you which actions you need to take to be seen.
Career Plans – are they still making sense?
Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense to create a career plan. The career plan helps you to define and visualize your professional goals. It gives you an overview of the goals and intermediate goals and can ensure that you don't lose sight of them.
From this plan you can then crystallize the next 90-day plan quite well. In this way, you can check in with the big goal every quarter to see whether it is still up to date and, if necessary, change the tactics.
I am offering a 5 week online course to explore the important areas and to set up a 90 day plan. During black week I am offering an additional 1:1 coaching call so that you start to take action on your 90 day plan.
5 Reasons to Create Your Vision Board
Vision boards have gained popularity over the years. The idea behind vision boards is that you find visual representation of your goals.
What works for you doesn´t work for all so take control over your life and start envisioning your future as you need to trust your gut.
Why Vision Boards Work for Everyone
Bring your goal setting to the next level by creating a vision board. The law of attraction teaches that like attracts like. This has to do with positive thinking.