This module invites participants to move beyond traditional business training and explore the psychological and emotional dimensions of women’s entrepreneurship. Grounded in the LifeComp framework, addresses critical barriers young women face when pursuing entrepreneurship, including confidence gaps, limited access to role models, and challenges in navigating emotional complexities of business ownership. Through practical methodologies, culturally relevant case studies, and evidence-based strategies, youth workers will learn to create empowering spaces where young women can develop resilience, self-awareness, and the interpersonal skills necessary for entrepreneurial success. 

Participants will examine how emotional intelligence and mentoring empower women to overcome self-doubt, regulate emotions, and build meaningful professional networks. They will also learn how continuous learning and balanced guidance can sustain motivation and drive innovation in the face of challenges.

By the end of this module, youth workers will be able to:  

• Demonstrate enhanced competencies in mentoring, emotional intelligence, and empowerment.

• Design and implement culturally responsive mentoring programs that address gender-specific barriers and leverage strengths unique to women entrepreneurs. 

• Utilise practical methodologies for building resilience, growth mindsets, and confidence in young women facing entrepreneurial challenges. 

• Create safe, empowering spaces where young women can explore their entrepreneurial identities, process setbacks, and celebrate achievements.  

• Integrate reflective practices that enable continuous improvement in mentoring relationships and emotional intelligence development strategies.

By the end of the training, learners will be able to:

• Analyse how psychological, social, cultural, and gender-related factors shape young women’s entrepreneurial mindsets across different socioeconomic contexts.
• Apply the core components of emotional intelligence in entrepreneurial, coaching, and mentoring settings.
• Identify and integrate relevant LifeComp competences to strengthen young women’s self-efficacy, resilience, and entrepreneurial preparedness.
• Facilitate individual and group mentoring through structured, reflective, and gender-responsive approaches that support self-discovery and goal setting.
• Design interventions that address imposter feelings, fear of failure, and confidence-related barriers in entrepreneurship.
• Demonstrate culturally sensitive, strength-based practice by modelling emotional intelligence and fostering inclusive mentoring relationships.

The Psychology of Empowerment

An empowering mindset is a belief system that nurtures growth, resilience, and self-determination. For women entrepreneurs, it forms the psychological foundation that turns challenges into opportunities. Empowerment goes beyond access to resources, it means owning one’s story, making confident decisions, and believing in one’s ability to act.

According to LifeComp, empowerment emerges from three interrelated areas:

• Personal: cultivating self-awareness, confidence, and emotional balance.
• Social: building empathy, communication, and collaboration.
• Learning to Learn: developing curiosity, critical thinking, and openness to growth.

Understanding the Mindset Gap

Empowering women’s mindsets it’s about dismantling the systemic and internalised barriers that have constrained their entrepreneurial potential. Studies across Europe show that young women often report lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy than men, even when they possess equal or greater skills.

This “confidence gap” stems from overlapping influences of cultural stereotypes about women’s roles, lack of visible role models, limited access to networks and funding, and persistent microaggressions that question competence and ambition.

Gender-Specific Barriers to Address

Young women face distinctive obstacles that mindset work must tackle:

• Stereotype Threat: Awareness of negative stereotypes can reduce performance and confidence.
• Imposter Syndrome: Persistent self-doubt despite evidence of success, especially in male-dominated sectors.
• Perfectionism and Fear of Failure: Hesitation to act until conditions feel “perfect,” unlike peers who embrace experimentation.
• Role Ambiguity: Balancing expectations of care and assertive leadership can create internal conflict.
• Limited Networks and Role Models: With women comprising only about 30% of European entrepreneurs, access to relatable success stories remains scarce.

Why Mindset Work Creates Ripple Effects

Empowering mindsets generate impact far beyond the individual. When women gain confidence and self-belief, they build businesses that prioritise community, sustainability, and inclusion. Empowered women often employ and mentor others, creating cycles of opportunity and representation.

From a LifeComp perspective, mindset development strengthens transferable competences (confidence, resilience, and adaptability) that enhance success not only in entrepreneurship but also in education, civic life, and personal relationships. Empowerment thus contributes to both well-being and economic resilience.

The Role of Youth Workers

Youth workers play a transformative role in shaping women’s entrepreneurial mindsets. Unlike family members or technical advisors, they can offer holistic support that addresses both practical and emotional dimensions. Through consistent mentoring, youth workers help young women:

• Recognize and challenge limiting beliefs.
• Celebrate strengths and progress.
• Reframe setbacks as learning opportunities.
• Build authentic entrepreneurial identities rooted in personal values.

Generic encouragement (“You can do it!”) is less effective than targeted interventions that build competence, provide role models, regulate emotional responses, and reduce stress linked to uncertainty.

Key Mindset Competences to Develop

Drawing on LifeComp, youth workers should focus on strengthening:

• Self-awareness: Understanding one’s values, strengths, and areas for growth.
• Self-regulation: Managing emotions and behaviours in pursuit of goals.
• Flexibility: Adapting effectively to changing circumstances.
• Well-being: Sustaining mental and physical health under pressure.
• Growth mindset: Believing in the capacity to develop through learning.

These competences provide the psychological foundation upon which entrepreneurial skills are built. Without them, women may acquire business knowledge but lack confidence to apply it. By acquiring them, they become adaptive learners who view entrepreneurship as an ongoing journey of discovery.

From Inner Strength to Collective Empowerment

Empowerment begins internally but expands outward. Once women cultivate self-awareness, resilience, and emotional balance, they are better equipped to connect with others, share experiences, and contribute to collective growth. Mentoring groups, peer circles, and networking communities allow women to exchange insights, normalise challenges, and build social capital. This sense of belonging transforms personal growth into shared empowerment, reinforcing motivation and accountability within supportive networks.

Cultural Context and Inclusive Practice

True empowerment also depends on understanding the cultural and social environment in which women live and work. In many communities, traditional gender roles shape how leadership and entrepreneurship are perceived. Youth workers must develop cultural sensitivity and recognise local realities while helping women maintain autonomy and agency.

Case Study 1: Reshma Saujani - Founder of Girls Who Code

As a young attorney, Reshma Saujani seemed to have it all: degrees from Harvard and Yale, a high-powered career, and a passion for public service. But inside, she was struggling with deep-rooted insecurity and fear of failure. Watching her female friends and colleagues battle the same issues, Reshma realised the problem was systemic. 

She recalls: "I would watch my male colleagues take risk after risk. But I and many of the women I worked with weren't raised to take risks. We were raised to be perfect."

In 2010, Reshma made a bold move, when she quit her job, ran for US Congress in New York, and lost. But that experience transformed her confidence by teaching her to embrace risk and failure. 

She explains: "The worst thing that happens when you lose an election is that you lose an election. The best thing that happens is that you get to go pursue your dreams."

Emboldened, Reshma launched Girls Who Code in 2012 to close the gender gap in technology and build girls' confidence and bravery. The non-profit has since grown to reach 90,000 girls of all backgrounds in all 50 states.

Reshma attributes her success to:

• Embracing a growth mindset, "I had to get rid of this notion of perfectionism, this notion that I couldn't fail."
• Surrounding herself with supportive mentors and peers.
• Focusing on her mission rather than herself, "It's not about me, it's about this movement."

By reframing failure as learning and focusing on purpose over ego, Reshma was able to break through her doubt and accomplish something she had never dreamed possible. 

She reflects:  "Girls Who Code has given me back my courage. I'm no longer afraid to fail because I know that the worst thing that happens is I get up, and I try again."

Case Study 2: Transforming Self-Doubt into Self-Efficacy

The story of Zanele, a young woman who internalised traditional gender roles, vividly illustrates the necessity of mindset empowerment. Throughout her upbringing, Zanele was conditioned to believe she lacked the ability to lead or make decisions, frequently being told: "Zanele let your brothers lead you". These pervasive societal expectations and gender stereotypes created significant internal barriers, manifesting as low self-confidence and scepticism about her own potential. 

Mentoring served as a vital intervention, establishing an environment where Zanele felt valued and heard, gradually eroding her self-doubt. By engaging in personalised goal setting and self-discovery, she identified her organisational skills and innate capacity for leadership, enabling her to make confident decisions about her personal and academic life. Zanele's journey, from believing she was only capable of being led to developing the self-belief required to successfully open and manage her own restaurant, highlights that overcoming psychological constraints is a crucial pathway for young women to transcend societal expectations and confidently pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. Empowering her mind was the foundational step that allowed her to attain independence and fulfil her potential.

Empowerment Mapping: Support mentees in visualising their personal and professional landscape by identifying strengths, opportunities, and perceived challenges. This process encourages a clearer understanding of internal and external resources. Creative tools such as the Empowerment Canvas or the Wheel of Growth help participants articulate aspirations, recognise patterns, and set focused development priorities. These visual methods make abstract ideas more tangible, enabling women to track progress over time and refine their goals with greater precision.

Reflective Storytelling: Invite participants to narrate key moments in their personal or entrepreneurial journeys, with particular attention to instances of change or insight. Through storytelling, women explore how past experiences inform their present motivations and choices. This technique strengthens a sense of identity, supports meaning-making, and reinforces personal agency. Sharing stories in a guided setting also fosters connection, as participants hear how others navigate similar dilemmas or opportunities.

Resilience Training Exercises: Use scenario-based activities where learners analyse real or hypothetical challenges, such as financial setbacks, team conflicts, or stalled projects. Participants examine emotional reactions, consider their underlying causes, and identify constructive ways to recover or adapt. These exercises build practical resilience by helping women distinguish between controllable and uncontrollable factors, assess risks more calmly, and rehearse effective coping strategies.

Group Mentoring Circles: Organise small, focused groups where women share learning goals, exchange insights, and provide mutual encouragement. This collective format promotes empathy, active listening, and shared responsibility for progress. Group dynamics can help participants broaden their perspectives, test ideas in a supportive environment, and benefit from diverse viewpoints that strengthen decision-making.

Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation Techniques: Integrate brief breathing exercises, grounding techniques, or moments of guided reflection into mentoring sessions. These practices help participants develop awareness of their emotional states and cultivate steadier responses to stress. Regular use of such techniques enhances concentration, clarity, and emotional control, contributing to more confident entrepreneurial decision-making.

Mini-Workshop Task (for practice): Design a short 30-minute activity in which participants identify one limiting belief that affects their confidence or decision-making. Guide them in examining the belief’s origin, assessing its validity, and reframing it into a constructive alternative. Learners then share their session plan in the course forum to receive peer feedback, allowing them to refine facilitation skills and learn from others’ approaches.

Reflective Journaling Protocols: Introduce structured journaling routines that encourage ongoing self-observation and mindset development. Provide prompts such as, “What limiting belief challenged me this week, and what evidence contradicts it?” or, “When did I demonstrate resilience today?” Journaling helps participants identify patterns, track emotional shifts, and document progress, strengthening long-term self-awareness and personal growth.

The Distinctive Nature of Mentoring 

Mentoring is a structured yet human-centred relationship that fosters growth through trust, dialogue, and shared learning. For youth workers supporting young women in entrepreneurship, mentoring is more than skill transfer, it’s an act of empowerment. It helps mentees clarify goals, navigate social and emotional challenges, and cultivate autonomy. 

Mentoring differs fundamentally from teaching or advising. While teaching transmits knowledge and advising offers solutions, mentoring creates a developmental relationship where a more experienced person (mentor) supports the holistic growth of a less experienced person (mentee). 

Effective mentoring for women entrepreneurs encompasses multiple dimensions: 

• Career Guidance: Navigating entrepreneurial pathways
• Psychosocial Support: Building confidence and identity
• Role Modelling: Demonstrating possibilities
• Advocacy: Connecting to opportunities

Research consistently shows that women entrepreneurs with mentors demonstrate higher business survival rates, faster revenue growth, greater innovation, and improved wellbeing compared to those without mentoring support. 

Gender-Responsive Mentoring Principles 

Generic mentoring approaches often fail to address women's specific needs. Gender-responsive mentoring recognises that young women navigate entrepreneurship within contexts shaped by systemic gender inequalities, stereotype bias, and often conflicting role expectations. This approach requires: 

• Intersectional Awareness: How gender intersects with race, class, and other identities to shape experiences.
• Strength-based Orientation: Deficit narratives about women entrepreneurs.
• Relational Depth: Vulnerable discussions about gender-specific challenges.
• Structural Acknowledgment: Validation of gender barriers as real rather than minimising them as individual problems.
• Empowerment Focus: Building agency rather than dependency. 

Stages of Mentoring Relationships 

Effective mentoring relationships typically progress through distinct phases requiring different approaches. 

1. Initiation (months 1-2): Building rapport, establishing trust, and clarifying expectations. Youth workers should invest time understanding the woman's entrepreneurial vision, personal context, fears, and aspirations. 
2. Cultivation (months 3-12): The deepest work phase, characterised by regular engagement, skill development, challenge navigation, and mutual learning. 
3. Closure (eventual): Mentee preparation for independence while transitioning to a peer relationship or alumni network. Many youth workers struggle with this phase, but research shows mentees who experience healthy separation develop stronger autonomous capabilities. 

Core Mentoring Competences from LifeComp 

Effective youth worker mentors must embody specific competences themselves. 

• Empathy enables mentors to understand women's experiences without imposing their own interpretations. 
• Communication skills facilitate active listening, powerful questioning, and constructive feedback. 
• Collaboration helps mentors position themselves as partners in the woman's journey rather than authorities. 
• Critical thinking allows mentors to analyse complex situations women face and help generate contextually appropriate solutions. 
• Flexibility enables adaptation to each mentee's unique needs and learning styles. 

Youth workers should regularly self-assess these competences and seek professional development to strengthen them. 

Common Mentoring Challenges with Young Women 

Several challenges commonly arise in mentoring relationships with young women entrepreneurs. Dependency development can occur when mentors provide too many answers rather than facilitating the mentee's problem-solving capabilities. 

• Projection happens when mentors unconsciously push their own entrepreneurial paths or values onto mentees. 
• Boundary ambiguity emerges when personal and professional elements of relationships become confused. 
• Power dynamics require careful navigation, as young women may defer excessively to mentors or struggle to express disagreement. 
• Cultural mismatches between mentor and mentee can create misunderstandings without explicit cultural humility and curiosity. 

Awareness of these pitfalls enables proactive prevention through clear contracting, regular relationship check-ins, and reflective practice. 

Measuring Mentoring Effectiveness 

High-quality mentoring requires ongoing assessment and adaptation. Youth workers should collaboratively establish goals with mentees at the relationship's outset, reviewing progress quarterly. 

Effectiveness indicators include mentee's entrepreneurial self-efficacy growth (measured through validated scales), concrete progress toward business milestones, expansion of professional networks, demonstration of specific competences, and subjective satisfaction with the relationship. 

Beyond individual outcomes, youth workers should reflect on their own development as mentors: 

• Are you becoming more skilled at asking powerful questions rather than giving advice?
• Do you increasingly recognise and address their own biases? 
• Are you creating space for mentee voice and leadership? 

Creating Culturally Safe Mentoring Spaces 

For many women, particularly those from marginalised communities, entrepreneurship represents navigation of spaces where they experience othering or exclusion. Youth worker mentors must actively create culturally safe spaces where young women can bring their full identities without code-switching or masking aspects of themselves. This requires explicit acknowledgment of power and privilege, validation of experiences with discrimination, celebration of cultural strengths and values that may differ from dominant business norms, and commitment to advocacy when young women face systemic barriers. Cultural safety also means recognising when to connect young women with mentors who share specific identity dimensions that enable deeper understanding.

Case Study 1: Psychological Empowerment, Confidence Building, and Resilience

Mentoring provides critical intervention necessary to dismantle the deep-seated psychological barriers that often constrain young women. Youth workers focus on cultivating core psychological aspects like self-belief and self-efficacy. Consider Zanele, who grew up internalising societal expectations that she lacked the ability to lead, frequently hearing phrases like, "Zanele let your brothers lead you". 

Her mentor, Imani, initiated a sustained, trusting relationship built on active listening and valuing Zanele's voice, leading Zanele to feel valued and confident. Imani utilised the mentoring relationship to help Zanele actively discover her intrinsic potential, such as her natural organisational skills and leadership capacity, encouraging her to set and achieve goals in her personal and academic life. Crucially, when Zanele later encountered a failure, Imani provided psychological support, framing the setback not as a catastrophic event but as a normal learning opportunity. This intervention transforms initial self-doubt into the necessary resilience and persistence required for young women to confidently pursue their entrepreneurial objectives, contributing directly to their independence and professional realization.

Case Study 2: Mentoring a Woman Setting Up Her Business 

When her idea for a handmade design venture was gaining traction, a young entrepreneur joined Femme Palette’s mentoring programme and was paired with seasoned mentor Eva Knirschová. Together they covered all the essential steps for launch, from registering the business and mastering tax basics, to defining a unique product portfolio, performing market research and setting competitive pricing. 

Eva supported the mentee with her prior experience in a similar business, helping her compare online store models, evaluate product presentation, and strategise marketing via social media and design-markets (in cities like Prague and Brno). The mentee arrived at sessions well-prepared with questions about the practical problems she faced, and their 12-session mentoring plan moved fast thanks to clear collaboration and enthusiasm. 

By the end of the mentoring period, the mentee was regularly participating in design markets and growing her social media following. Eva emphasised the importance of mentor–mentee chemistry and matching projects and industry experience carefully: “Good chemistry…you have to choose a mentee with a project that you’re super-confident you can help them with.”

Mentoring Agreements: Create a short-written agreement outlining frequency of meetings, confidentiality, and mutual responsibilities, building structure and commitment.

Empathic Communication Exercises: Use role-play to help youth workers practice non-judgmental listening and body language (e.g., in pairs, one person shares a recent challenge; the other practices reflective listening and summarising emotions, not just facts).

Mentoring Journals: Encourage both mentors and mentees to document reflections after each meeting, promoting metacognition, a LifeComp skill linked to ‘learning to learn’.

Peer Supervision Groups: Youth workers can form supervision circles to discuss dilemmas, share feedback, and prevent burnout. This mirrors LifeComp’s social and emotional balance dimensions.

Mini Workshop Task (for practice): Design a “first mentoring meeting” plan, including icebreakers, reflection questions, and closing activities. Share it in the forum and give feedback to a peer’s design.

The GROW Model for Mentoring Conversations: Structure mentoring sessions using the GROW framework.

• Goal: What do you want to achieve?
• Reality: What's happening now?
• Options: What could you do?
• Will: What will you do?

This model ensures mentee-directed conversations while providing useful structure. 

Constructive Feedback Framework: Provide feedback using the SBI model.

• Situation: Describe specific context
• Behaviour: Detail observable actions without interpretation
• Impact: Explain effects on self and others

For example, "During your practice pitch yesterday (S), I noticed you apologised three times before presenting your business idea (B). This might lead investors to question your confidence in the venture (I)".

Goal Co-Creation and Accountability: Collaborate with mentees to establish SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) for both entrepreneurial progress and personal development. Document goals and review them regularly, celebrating achievements and adjusting as needed. 

Entrepreneurial Identity Development: Use identity-focused interventions that help young women see themselves as entrepreneurs. Conduct "future self" exercises where mentees write letters from their five-year-ahead entrepreneur selves to their present selves, articulating values, achievements, and advice. These activities strengthen entrepreneurial identity, which research links to persistence and wellbeing.

Understanding Emotional Intelligence in Entrepreneurship 

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the capacity to recognise, understand, manage, and effectively use emotions in oneself and others and represents a critical, yet often overlooked, entrepreneurial competence. 

Research increasingly demonstrates that EI predicts entrepreneurial success beyond technical skills or general intelligence. 

For women entrepreneurs specifically, EI development addresses multiple challenges: 

1. Managing the emotional roller-coaster of building a business 
2. Navigating gender-based microaggressions without internalizing negativity
3. Building authentic professional relationships
4. Leading teams with empathy 
5. Maintaining wellbeing during stress

Unlike IQ, which remains relatively stable, Emotional Intelligence can be systematically developed through intentional practice and supportive relationships, precisely what effective youth work provides. 

The Five Core Components of Emotional Intelligence 

Most comprehensive EI frameworks identify five interconnected competences. 

1. Self-awareness: Recognising one's emotions as they occur, understanding emotional triggers, and comprehending how feelings influence thoughts and behaviours. For entrepreneurs, this means noticing when fear drives procrastination or recognising that irritability signals burnout. 
2. Self-regulation: Managing disruptive emotions and impulses, maintaining standards of honesty and integrity, adapting to changing circumstances, and staying comfortable with ambiguity. Entrepreneurial contexts constantly trigger strong emotions (rejection from investors, customer complaints, competitor threats) making self-regulation essential for rational decision-making. 
3. Motivation: Intrinsic drive beyond external rewards (passion for work, commitment to goals despite obstacles, optimism when facing setbacks, and organisational commitment). Women entrepreneurs often demonstrate strong intrinsic motivation tied to purpose and values, which youth workers can leverage and strengthen. 
4. Empathy: Perceiving and understanding others' emotions, taking active interest in their concerns, and recognising emotional currents in groups. For entrepreneurs, empathy enables customer understanding, team leadership, investor relationship building, and collaboration. 
5. Social Skills: Integration of the previous components into effective relationship management (clear communication, influence and persuasion, conflict management, collaboration, and team building). These skills prove particularly important for women entrepreneurs who often build businesses emphasizing relationships and social impact. 

Why Emotional Intelligence Matters Specifically for Women Entrepreneurs? 

While EI benefits all entrepreneurs, several factors make it especially relevant for young women:

1. Research shows women receive more emotion-focused feedback ("too aggressive," "not warm enough") than competence-focused feedback, making self-awareness and self-regulation crucial for filtering unhelpful critique while extracting useful insights. 
2. Women entrepreneurs frequently navigate what researchers call "double binds". These are contradictory expectations that assertiveness is read as aggression while collaboration is read as weakness. High EI enables women to navigate these dynamics strategically without compromising authenticity. 
3. Women entrepreneurs report higher rates of emotional labour in business contexts (managing others' emotions, smoothing conflicts, and performing caring roles) which can lead to burnout without strong self-regulation and boundary-setting. 
4. Stereotype threat and microaggressions create emotional taxation. EI skills help women process these experiences without internalising them. 
5. Women-led businesses often emphasize social missions and stakeholder relationships, requiring advanced empathy and social skills. 

Common Emotional Intelligence Challenges for Young Women Entrepreneurs 

• Emotional Suppression: When young women believe professional contexts require hiding emotions, leading to inauthenticity and stress accumulation. The antidote isn't emotional explosion but appropriate expression and processing. 
• Perfectionism-driven Failure: Happens when fear of imperfection creates paralysis rather than productive action management. 
• Empathy Overflow: When women over-prioritise, others' needs while neglecting their own, leading to blurred boundaries and exhaustion. 
• Imposter Syndrome: Prevents young women from accurately recognising their achievements, distorting self-awareness. 
• People-pleasing Patterns: Behavioural pattern where one consistently prioritises others over their own well-being, undermining authentic communication and social effectiveness.

Several EI-related challenges like the mentioned above commonly emerge. Youth workers must recognise these patterns and provide targeted interventions. 

Developing EI as an Ongoing Practice 

Emotional Intelligence isn't acquired through single workshops or theoretical learning. It is developed through consistent practice, reflection, and feedback over time. Youth workers serve as "EI coaches", helping young women build awareness through guided reflection, providing frameworks for understanding emotional experiences, creating safe spaces for practicing new behaviours, offering feedback on emotional patterns, and modelling healthy emotional functioning themselves. 

Research suggests EI development requires approximately six months of sustained practice for meaningful behaviour change, with ongoing reinforcement preventing regression. This timeline aligns well with typical youth work mentoring relationships, positioning youth workers as ideal facilitators of EI growth. 

Measuring and Tracking Emotional Intelligence Development 

Unlike technical skills with clear demonstration points, EI growth can feel ambiguous without intentional tracking. Youth workers should help young women establish EI development goals and monitor progress through multiple methods: 

1. Regular self-assessment using validated EI tools.
2. Reflective journaling analysing emotional experiences and responses.
3. Feedback from trusted others about observed changes.
4. Concrete behavioural indicators (e.g., "I recovered from investor rejection in two days rather than two weeks").
5. Critical incident analysis examining how specific situations were handled differently over time. 

This tracking serves dual purposes: 

1. Documenting actual growth.
2. Strengthening metacognitive awareness, which itself enhances EI.

Case Study 1: How Emotional Intelligence Makes Leaders More Impactful

Gemma Garcia Godall’s in her TEDx talk at TEDxIESEBarcelona titled “How Emotional Intelligence Makes Leaders More Impactful,” offers a compelling story of her personal transformation from a hyper-rational entrepreneur to an emotional intelligent woman. A personal experience marked a turning point that reassessed her definition of entrepreneurial success. She used to measure success purely through KPIs, but she began to understand that success is also about emotional connection, empathy, and authenticity. This realisation led her to founding a company dedicated to cultivating emotional intelligence within organisations. The speaker argues that managing emotions is vital for modern leadership, as it enables the creation of strong relationships and better handling of goals and challenges.

In her speech, Gemma proposes three practical tools for applying emotional intelligence:

1. Connecting with one’s own emotions 
2. Connecting with the emotions of the team
3. Creating an environment of improvement and growth 

Her transformation highlights the profound influence of emotional intelligence, rather than control or perfectionism, defining the very essence of modern leadership.

Case Study 2: Marina Ofloudi-Yavroglou’s Successful and Sustainable Leadership using Emotional Intelligence Practices  

The story of Marina Ofloudi-Yavroglou is a powerful example of how women with high emotional intelligence drive success. Marina holds the title of the CEO of Soya Mills S.A., a Greek agrifood company with operations across Greece and the broader Mediterranean region. Her success in this male dominated field in Greece demonstrates that empathy, integrity, and active listening are not soft traits but essential leadership tools. When she first entered the business sector, Ofloudi-Yavroglou focused on understanding people rather than asserting authority, emphasizing that she “listened a lot” to earn trust and build genuine relationships. This capacity to tune into others’ perspectives fostered collaboration and loyalty across her teams. Her insistence that “our word is our contract, even if it costs us money” reflects emotional self-regulation and ethical awareness, which are core components of emotional intelligence that reinforce credibility and long-term partnerships. Moreover, her commitment to mentoring and empowering more women in business reveals high social awareness and a desire to create emotionally intelligent organisational cultures rooted in fairness and shared growth. Through authenticity, empathy, and relational trust, Marina Ofloudi-Yavroglou illustrates how emotionally intelligent leadership can sustain both personal fulfillment and enduring corporate success.

Emotional Mapping Exercises: Invite participants to reflect on emotions experienced during recent entrepreneurial activities such as pitching ideas, managing budgets, or negotiating with partners. By mapping these emotions, learners examine the situations that triggered them and the outcomes that followed. This process helps clarify how emotional patterns influence behaviour, allowing mentees to recognise moments where regulation, preparation, or support might have improved results. Emotional mapping creates a structured space for discussing challenges that are often overlooked yet central to effective decision-making.

Journaling for Self-Awareness: Encourage the use of regular writing prompts to help participants track emotional tendencies and explore their sources. Prompts such as “What emotion dominated my week?”, “What contributed to it?”, or “What can I learn from this experience?” guide women in identifying recurring themes, unhelpful reactions, and opportunities for personal growth. Journaling becomes a reflective routine that strengthens emotional clarity and supports more intentional choices in entrepreneurial contexts.

Mindfulness and Breathing Techniques: Begin mentoring sessions with brief grounding practices, such as slow breathing or short guided pauses. Although simple, these techniques generate noticeable improvements in focus, calmness, and emotional balance. Consistent use of mindfulness helps participants regulate stress during demanding tasks, evaluate situations with greater objectivity, and navigate uncertainty with steadier judgement.

Empathy Role-Play: Use structured scenarios that allow mentees to examine situations through different viewpoints—whether those of clients, investors, team members, or potential collaborators. Role-play encourages learners to recognise diverse expectations and communication styles. This strengthens empathy, broadens interpersonal skills, and enhances the capacity to resolve conflicts constructively.

Emotion–Action Connection Tool: Introduce a chart that links common emotions—such as anxiety, motivation, frustration, or enthusiasm—to constructive responses. These may include preparation strategies, gratitude exercises, assertive communication, or reframing techniques. The tool supports emotional literacy by showing how emotions can guide meaningful action rather than hinder progress. Participants learn to interpret emotional cues accurately and respond with intention rather than impulse.

Feedback as a Growth Tool: Teach the use of the SBI Model (Situation–Behaviour–Impact) to give and receive feedback in a structured and respectful manner. For example: “During the meeting yesterday (situation), you interrupted your colleague (behaviour), which made it difficult for others to contribute (impact).” Practising this method encourages more thoughtful communication, strengthens emotional regulation, and fosters empathy within entrepreneurial teams.

Mini Workshop Task (for practice): Ask learners to design a short activity that helps participants identify one negative self-belief and replace it with a constructive emotional response. This could involve guided reflection, peer discussion, or simple reframing exercises. Learners then share their activity design in the course forum to exchange ideas and receive feedback from peers.

• Reflect on your own mindset
  • What limiting beliefs did you hold about your capabilities when you were younger? 
  • How did you overcome them, or how do they still influence you? 
  • How might your experience inform your work with young women entrepreneurs?

• What’s one piece of advice you would give your younger self, and how might it empower others?
• Think about the best mentor you ever had. What specific behaviours made them effective?
• What mentoring behaviours do you naturally gravitate toward, and which require intentional development?
• Describe a recent situation where you experienced strong emotion in your work. How did you handle it? 
• Looking at the five EI components, which do you personally need to strengthen to better support others' emotional intelligence development?

Mentoring Scenario: Handling Professional Rejection

Context: Alice is a young digital marketing entrepreneur based in Oslo. She recently lost a major client due to “lack of experience,” which led her to feel that her achievements were accidental.

Characters

• Sofia (Mentor): Experienced professional and member of a leading network for women entrepreneurs in Norway. 
• Alice (Mentee): New entrepreneur, technically skilled but with low self-confidence.

Task: You are Sophia, mentoring Alice, who is struggling with imposter syndrome. Based on what you learned in this module about mentoring tactics and Emotional Intelligence tools, how would you guide her to reframe failure, build resilience, strengthen self-awareness, and use techniques like SBI feedback, cognitive reframing, and mindfulness?

Share reflections on questions such as: "What mentoring behaviours do you naturally gravitate toward, and which require intentional development?". Also, analyse which of the five Emotional Intelligence components you personally need to strengthen to better support young women.

• Women’s confidence challenges in entrepreneurship stem largely from structural barriers and internalised assumptions rather than a lack of competence. Recognising this shifts attention from “fixing” individuals to addressing unequal conditions while supporting women in reframing limiting beliefs.
• A solid psychological base built on growth mindset, self-efficacy and resilience underpins entrepreneurial progress. These elements help women manage uncertainty, persist through setbacks and view challenges as opportunities for capability development.
• Youth workers need to combine practical entrepreneurial guidance with sustained attention to mindset, emotional intelligence and culturally safe support. This dual focus equips young women with technical skills while strengthening the personal resources required to navigate complex environments.
• Gender-responsive mentoring that relies on relational trust, active listening and purposeful questioning strengthens independent decision-making. Such approaches move beyond advice-giving, helping women articulate goals, analyse options and build confidence in their own judgement.
• Strengths-based and emotionally intelligent methods help address gendered pressures such as stereotype threat, emotional labour and double binds. By focusing on existing capabilities and emotional awareness, youth workers support women in managing stressors and making grounded choices.
• Long-term investment in mindset and emotional intelligence development generates benefits that extend beyond individual participants. Enhanced confidence, empathy and social skills contribute to stronger peer networks, collective resilience and visible role models for future entrepreneurs.