News & Media

 

Leading In Extraordinary Times – A Call To Action For Women Leaders

December 12, 2002
Boston Biz for Women, Rebecca Shambaugh

The ongoing events that have shaken our nation and our world have created unprecedented challenges for leaders in every sector – pubic, private, and non-profit. Now, more that ever before in human history, there is a universal need for mature and strong leadership. As the aftershocks of September 11 ripple across America, and through different parts of the world, leaders are struggling with a new reality – sheer uncertainty and discontinuity in our personal and professional lives.

Women In Leadership and Learning, a premier leadership development organization, has been working closely with a number of leaders over the last several weeks, conducting numerous executive forums across the country to address the new changes and challenges with which leaders have been faced.

Overwhelmingly, these leaders agree that we are in the process of redefining our sense of “normalcy”. This has led to a new set of dilemmas that reinforce certain leadership attributes essential for today's leaders. Observations shared were:

  • The need for more connected thinking and interdependent relationships calls for more courageous collaborations.
  • Increased empathy and compassion for employees.
  • The broader definition of security, which now includes the physical and emotional well-being of others.
  • The need for less bureaucratic and flatter, more responsive and fluid organizational structures for responding to unpredictable and unprecedented change.
  • Finding a new balance between a results-driven and values-driven culture – mission, purpose, and values have become key anchors for employee's security and reason for being. The corporate culture serves as a key navigation system for stabilizing and refocusing the organization and its people.
  • Re-thinking the re-structuring model – the traditional lean and mean/bottom-line model is no longer the ultimate restructuring model for organizations. To remain competitive when the economy improves, companies will need to retain their institutional knowledge, creative neurons, trust in their leadership, and customer loyalty – elements that are critical for future organizational success.
  • The notion of conversation has shifted – Employees have a deeply rooted need for the immediacy and clarity of consistent and congruent communications, especially during times of ambiguity and great change. Employees need to understand and have leadership reinforce the purpose and true values of the organization – what it stands for and how people will get things done. These conversations serve as a key instrument for developing deeper levels of trust, focus, and stability for employees.

A time of unprecedented change, unpredictability, and discontinuity breeds opportunity. An opportunity for our leadership to rise to the occasion and shape the future and our new reality. However, with every significant or transformational event, we also begin to redefine the meaning of leadership. New ways for rethinking our structures, developing, nurturing and motivating our employees, providing the right value for our customers, cultivating the right relationships, and developing and sustaining the right culture, are just a few of the new challenges that today's organizations will be faced with in the years ahead. Today's leaders will be called upon to rethink the future and recognize their role in reinventing it.

Now more than ever before, women are poised to take on significant leadership roles and will be major centers of influence in our organizations, communities, and across the world. As we enter the 21st century, women comprise 60% of the US workforce, which represents a large part of the future leadership pool. Women adapt to change and are initiators of the social revolution that has allowed for transformation to begin taking place in the larger society. Research indicates that women rarely fit into the traditional corporate model of leadership. Consequently, they have pioneered new strategies and ways of approaching issues that are well suited for the unprecedented conditions that face us now and in the future.

A number of comprehensive studies, including studies by Catalyst and the Management Research Group, indicate that women leaders possess the natural leadership strengths and attributes that will enable organizations to navigate through the new demands faced by our organizations and our world. This type of leadership creates the opportunity for people to build lives that reinforce a sense of connected meaning, stability, purpose, creativity, and fulfillment in their lives.

Some of these attributes include:

  • Humanizing leadership - compassion and empathy for others
  • Big picture oriented – a view that encompasses a broader vision which includes social, environment, world peace, role of family, and education
  • Motivating, nurturing, and inspiring others during times of change and ambiguity
  • Non-liner thinking - creation of new ideas and acting upon them
  • Collaborative leadership - high levels of inclusion and the ability to build bridges among others
  • Resiliency and adaptability to change
  • Passionate – committed and driven by a sense of purpose and what they care about

Women have gradually transitioned into leadership roles, however, not at a pace that one would expect given the demand for leadership talent. Now more than ever before there is a call for the types of leadership attributes possessed by women. To reinforce and perpetuate these attributes within our women leaders, WILL is pleased to announce the launch of its Leadership Excellence program in the Boston area for Spring, 2002. WILL's flagship program immerses a select group of women from a variety of organizations and disciplines in an intensive leadership development curriculum. The unique and powerful distinction of this program includes executive coaching, which accelerates on-the-job application of learnings, and personal and professional breakthroughs for those selected to participate. They have the opportunity to share experiences with other women leaders while further developing their leadership potential to become highly effective leaders. WILL works with such premier clients including AOL Time Warner, Marriott International, IBM, Pfizer, Department of Interior, SAIC, and TRW.

May all of you realize and actualize the greatness in yourself and others, and rise to the challenges of leaderships presented to you in the days ahead.

For more information regarding this dynamic one-of-a-kind program, call the WILL Boston office at (987) 263-2886.