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Women make better Inclusive Leaders
Business News daily came up with 30 different ways to
define leadership by asking 30 leaders in business to define what leadership
means to them. I wish to quote a few of those which I found striking
"Leadership is stepping out of your comfort zone and taking risk to create
reward." – Katie Easley, founder, Kate Ryan Design.
"Leadership means using one's influence to help
guide others in successfully achieving a goal without desire for recognition,
without worry of what others think and with awareness of issues, internal or
external, that might change the results sought." – Marie Hansen, dean of
the college of business, Husson University. (www.businessnewsdaily.com, 2015)
In Sri Lanka one of the striking young entrepreneurs
we have is Otara Gunawardena, the CEO of ODEL warehouses. One of her strongest
believes on leadership in her words is : “To be successful one has to achieve a
balance between business sensibility and social responsibility “
What is
Inclusive Leadership?
A sensible reader of this blog would perhaps notice
that all these quotes are by women entrepreneurs. This is because I strongly
believe that women make good leaders especially when you put female leaders in
to an inclusive leadership prism. This
would make you ask the question what is Inclusive leadership?
Inclusive leadership is the ability for a leader to
include people with the most difficult of personality types in to working in a
team. This also covers extreme introverts and others marginalized from society
or not included in peer groups. For example: women with body image issues, a
person with a lisp afraid of public speaking, or even someone with a social
phobia. It is all about inspiring even the weakest of people to change positively
for their development and to achieve a collective goal.
Why
women?
Women in my opinion would make great inclusive leaders
because of their ability to empathize, their sensitivity to the environment and
intuition. A Business Insider Article I read recently on ‘’Why women are more
effective leaders than men’’ set the record straight. A study done on the
subject matter proved statistically that women actively take initiatives and
are more competent at it. This was a study done on women’s leadership
effectiveness : ‘representation in corporate America, and solutions for
increasing their ranks’ (www.businessinsider.com, 2014)
The study, by way of a standard 360
degree feedback instrument which measures 16 competencies, had proved that
women scored higher than men in 12 of the 16 competencies. Nurturing competencies such as developing,
inspiring and motivating others are statistically significant. Reading this
Business Insider article made me reflect on the National Leadership Development
Seminar 2015 conducted by AIESEC Sri Lanka recently. AIESEC is the world’s
largest student run organization focussed on empowering Youth for leadership
development through cross-cultural volunteer exchanges and internships.
The Chair of the conference was a
Vietnamese young lady called Milena Nguyen who had served at AIESEC
International as a Global Partnership Development Manager. Through transformational power of Yoga and excellent inter-personal skills she engaged with over 300
delegates from the AIESEC in Sri Lanka working body. She inspired and motivated
the delegation who had many positive comments about her leadership.
In Sri Lanka, there are many females at lower level
positions in organizations. In the streets there are more advertisements with a
female figure, all focused on attracting customers which is very superficial. Such
a superficial image on women could lead to a negative understanding of the
female persona. Women are more than mere attractive figures because they can be
leaders, change agents, and role models for both men and women. Education for
females has never been more crucial. Free primary and tertiary education in Sri
Lanka has enabled access to females to discover their potentials. Although this
is so, only a few women pursue a greater ambition and work with vision. This
has to CHANGE.
This blog is not intended at all to evoke female
chauvinism on any grounds. Female representation in strategic levels of both
public and private sector institutions in Sri Lanka is vital given that recent
incidents concerning the impeachment of the Chief Justice has discouraged
females from pursuing higher positions. The procedure of impeachment by the
hands of ousted President Rajapaksa was incorrect. Our country needs women
representing all ethnic groups to be more engaged in these matters especially
when the country is undergoing major changes internally and also in
international relations. We need more women leaders!
Disclaimer- AIESEC is a non-political organization that does not represent or endorse the political views represented in this blog. The views expressed are only the personal views of Miss Natasha Fernando (blog author).
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