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Feminine Leadership Today

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Feminine Leadership Today

Category Archives: transformational leadership

The Paradox of Women’s lingering Inequality and the Power they hold in their hands for a New Future

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by ginalazenby in feminine leadership, transformational leadership

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#LindaCrompton #TheLeadersClub

watch Linda’s talk recorded on Facebook Live 

The Leaders Club co-hosted a special event on transformational leadership with the University of Kent Business School in Canterbury in May. The second speaker was Linda Crompton from Dallas, Texas, an alumni of the Business School’s first MBA program.  Linda was the first woman to head a bank in North America and also to lead a bank that  pioneered responsible investment principles.   Now she is a leader in gender equality as the CEO and President of Leadership Women, the largest of its kind in the USA.

The Decisions you make have Consequences that Ripple Out

Key achievements for Linda were her initiatives in banking.  She started working for Van City Credit Union in Canada, the largest credit union in the world, an extremely progressive organisation. Van City’s particular focus was to help employees to connect their decision making to the community who would be impacted. This was highly novel at the time. They key was to fully realise the impact of your decision. 

Once you Connect the Dots .. Your Eyes are Opened and there is no Going Back

The bank encouraged her to return to the UK and study her MBA in Kent. This is where she came across the notion that business and finance and sustainability were all connected. It is arrogant to think that humans are the organising force when in reality, nature is the organising force. The MBA at Kent helped her to realise that it is an illusion to separate your banking decisions from the downstream impact. You cannot pretend those downstream impacts will not happen. This became a watershed moment in her career … she connected the dots to see the bigger picture and was instrumental in directing the rest of her career. She never took up a mainstream job after that … once you know what you know and see how things are put together  .. you cannot not know again!   

Asking Different Questions leads to Better Outcomes

When she returned to Van City she started to ask different questions, like why were the approval rates for women much lower than they were for men? The answer .. the women don’t just meet the criteria. Then you find out on looking that the criteria are all based on male criteria, which include higher levels of pay for longer periods of time, which of course do not include the interruptions of maternity leave. She could also see what it was costing the organisation when they let go of trained women who left to start a family. There was no provision for that. She set up a new program, copied from Europe, called Return to Work, to provide flexible support for women.  The rate of loss was cut down from 70% down to 20%. It was life-changing for so many women.

In 1996, within two years of taking her MBA at Kent she was inspired to create the first electronic bank, and the first one with a social mandate in Canada.  There were many obstacles and much resistance but she could see the ways the future would happen.  She was on the first Board of Directors for Ethical Investing, where mutual funds were ethically screened.  She could see this was the future. They started training people about money itself. When they surveyed their customers they found that people had no idea what happened to their money once it was in the bank …. these were the early days of impact investing. Founding the bank became a vehicle to put into practice the new ideas she learned in her Kent MBA.

Strong Ethics Emerging in Banking and Investing 

Linda was headhunted to run the Investor Responsibility Research Centre in Washington, DC. This had been a leader and influential in the anti-apartheid movement, and they continued to do ground-breaking research in climate change and human trafficking.  

Linda’s next move was to the oldest and most successful leadership organisation for women in the USA.  Latest World Economic Forum report says it will take another 118 years to achieve full gender parity around the world. She is preparing more women to take on leadership roles.

Massive Push for Change now happening in the USA

The hidden blessing of President Trump is that his election has been a catalyst for so many women running for public office. Perhaps Hillary Clinton may have been less of a catalyst in getting women forward!  She Should Run, a partner organisation in Washington DC reports a 150% increase in the number of women putting themselves forward for political office. This is a real moment for women in the USA. There is a renewed push for change.

In Canada, so very different to the USA, President Justin Trudeau appointed a 50/50 gender balanced cabinet and brushed off media questions about this with .. this is the way it should be in 2016. 

Women Still Lagging Behind

With regard to wage parity, the Financial Times recently reported that in the UK there is a median wage gap of 19.4%, two thirds of of the highest paid staff are men.. the trends are the same in the USA where for every dollar earned by a man, a caucasian woman earns 78 cents, an African American woman makes  64 cents and a Latina earns just 54 cents. 

The Workforce in Leading Edge Fields is Unbalanced 

The USA Bureau of Labour Statistics latest report shows that women now make up 51.4% of management and professional roles yet only 5% of CEOs are female and hold 16.9% of Board seats across the country. In Silicon Valley 86% of the engineers and 74% of the computer professionals who work there are men. Facebook, Google and Apple workforces are 70% male with no female board members. Wall Street is similarly unbalanced. Women of colour are statistically  invisible. 

A Crisis Point: Has Progress Stalled? 

The World Economic Forum says the world is going backwards, the parity gap in wealth, politics, education and the workplace has widened for the first time since records began in 2006. At this rate of progress the gender gap will not close for another 217 years.  Aside from human rights, continuing to omit women from the top ranks is the single most important factor in determining a country’s competitiveness in the market.  Women must be integrated, as an important force into their talent pool. In the UK, it is suggested that gender parity could add £250 billion to GDP. And closing the gender gap of economic participation by 25% by 2025 would increase  global GDP by $5.3 trillion. Social change is glacially slow.

A fourth wave is coming … progress will happen over the next decade.

Countries that have previously excluded women, like Saudi Arabia are starting to make major changes.  Generation X and Millennials are visibly energised around this issue. New generations will drive faster change.

The biggest transfer of wealth in history is happening over the next decade

Change will also be driven by women acquiring significant financial muscle. 45% of USA millionaires are women, 48% of estates worth more than $5 million are controlled by women and in 2013 60% of high net worth women made their own fortunes, rather than inherited. Projections show that by 2030 as much as two thirds of all wealth in the USA will be controlled by women. How will this shift in gender wealth influence philanthropy? Significant changes could take place …women’s funds are already working to address inequality with more women seeking to drive change by working at the legislative level and public policy as well as impact investing.  

Massive growth in Impact investing 

The field of impact investing has the power to bring about a lot of change including making faster progress on gender and race equality. Investment instruments that employ ESG (environment, social and governance factors) have grown 135% in assets under management since 2012, and it has now surpassed $9 trillion in the USA. It continues to grow exponentially, with rapid growth attracting more attention. 

Meeting Social Needs Ahead of Profits

She was on the Board of the World Business Academy based in Southern California, which had as its mission to help business to assume responsibility for the whole … recognising that business  is the most important force on earth. Nothing else works like business does and the drive for profit. Willis Harman,  founder of Institute of Noetic Sciences, was convinced that business needed to return to its roots and provide a public service or to meet a public need.  Business charters used to be granted on the basis that you would improve society or individual’s lives. Subsequently profit became the organising principle and that is where things really changed. Profit is good but profit maximisation can do real harm.

New Alliances are Emerging

Hybrid organisations where you not only make profit but achieve social impact goals are on the rise and are exciting.  It is in the interest of business to take on societal change because if nothing else, they need to protect their markets.

The way that all these factors are converging .. the rise and power of women, the changing nature of investment, the interest of younger generations in addressing global issues like refugees, extreme polarisation of wealth, the proliferation of drugs … all of which contribute to societal instability, which make the business environment more difficult. 

Different values will inform a new kind of leadership 

All of these things call for new era leadership meaning more human value systems than the current GDP which are meaningless. In a system that looks more profitable as more people get ill is crazy.  There are real limitations to this measurement.

New Era Leadership: Women have an Opportunity to Drive Change 

Just simply moving more women into leadership roles to continue to perpetuate all the problematic systems we have now, will not be the answer. Unless women move in there with a better sense of what change needs to be made, it is a huge missed opportunity. 

We can’t blame the men .. it is the system we have created. There are many men who are supportive and involved in redressing the gender balance.

The financial system is flawed and nobody has been held accountable for the crash of 2008. Many people are unhappy about this.

 There is an opportunity when women move into these positions of power to bring about some change. Women have an obligation to help other women when they have the power and the means. 

Linda’s Pearl of Wisdom: remind yourself of any blindspot you have. It is not what you don’t know, it is what you absolutely know with certainty that trips you up. What are the blindspots in your worldview.

Ask a different question

Rather than asking “How much money can I make when I have an MBA?” a better question “What kind of world do I want and what role can I play in making that world happen?”

watch the recording of Linda on Facebook Live

https://www.theleadersclub.org

https://www.kent.ac.uk/kbs/

https://leadership-women.org

People Want Companies to do Good – that requires Transformational Leadership

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by ginalazenby in feminine leadership, transformational leadership

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#LindaMinnis #TheLeadersClub

Speaking at the Leaders Club event at Kent Business School, Linda Minnis, seen here (right) with Gina Lazenby, talked about how business is shifting with more organisations taking on responsibility for social change and using their global reach for good. Drawing on the long legacy of the chocolate barons’ foundations, todays’ younger generations are pushing their employers to take on and do more to close the global wealth gap.

Linda’s talk was captured on Facebook Live. Click here to watch

The Leaders Club co-hosted a special event on transformational leadership with the University of Kent Business School in Canterbury in May. The first of two speakers was Linda Minnis, Chief Executive of the Charities Trust, and a founder member of The Leaders Club.

The event was recorded on Facebook Live and is available to view at this link.

The World Needs Responsible Business

Linda started by highlighting the need for responsible business and said that this was not something that could simply be bolted on to an organisation, almost like an extra department but it had to be at the very heart of the operation for it to have any real meaning and impact. She gave examples of the inspiration and vision that many companies were bringing to their giving programs by leveraging their resources and creating alliances that were having real impact in the world. Big business has a big capacity to make big change in the world.

Global Goals Provide a Ready Template for Visionary Businesses

Linda talked about the Sustainable Development Goals otherwise known as the Global Goals, which are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.  These 17 goals were launched by the United Nations in January 2016.  Adopted by 170 countries, they contain 169 individual goals inside the 17 categories and represent one of the most ambitious programs in human history to create massive change. For companies and organisations seeking to make a difference in the world, there are plenty of opportunities for them to align their resources and vision. 

People Want Companies to do Good

Linda said there is a definite business case for doing this. A Nielsen study in 60 countries showed that 55% of online customers would pay more for goods and services supplied by organisations who demonstrated a commitment to positive social change and environmental impact.

71% of the world’s population live on less than $10 per day and the only way to make a significant increase in people’s prosperity, globally, would be for civil society, government and corporations to make alliances and use their combined powers to create change. One such initiative, the Global Vaccine Alliance has managed to prevent 9 million deaths though immunisation. Acting with other agencies, the private sector has enormous power that can be harnessed with the right vision.

Good Business has a Long History in the UK

The question is how to engage fully and provide the necessary leadership for projects of real transformation? Linda pointed out that in the UK we have a long history of business leaders doing good things. Joseph Rowntree established a foundation over 100 years to provide housing for employees, and this continues today to seek to understand the root cause of social problems.  The Cadbury Foundation also supported their employees and communities with housing. Today, Comic Relief is an example of successfully influencing the face of fundraising by making things fun to do while the organisation focusses on how to spend the money. 

UK private giving is an incredible £20 billion per annum, £12 billion of which still comes from individual giving and Trusts like the Wellcome Foundation, with money continuing to come in from foundation investments set up decades ago.  

How do we engage the business community of today?

Linda was involved in research five years ago that showed 4 key predictions about companies and giving. We can see now much of this starting to happen:

1 Commercialisation – Giving and Doing Good will be Woven into Business Planning

Companies will seek long term profits from their corporate giving. Community programs will be set up to deliver commercial value as well as meeting social needs. Their activities will be aligned with something meaningful. Corporate giving will continue but perhaps within the framework of for-profit ventures. The future is more Win-Win-Win-Win. HSBC is an example of a company investing tens of millions into social investment because they see it pays a greater return.

The social investment market is quite new but it is now worth about £2 billion across 4000 investments. Doing good is not just right it is profitable too.

2 Innovation Unleashed – Make it Easy, Fast and Painless for People to Give

New technology, innovative channels and interactive media, will cause an explosion in ground-breaking new practices. Digital technology will allow for real time tracking of impact and will allow giving to fit around busy lives. online volunteering by employees supporting digital causes will become more prominent. Look at JustGiving who raise half a billion a year. Make it easy for people to swipe their card at an event and give quickly.

3 Collaborative Coalitions – Rise Above Competition for the Greater Good

Large scale multi stakeholder coalitions will harness collective skills and drive transformational change. Corporate giving  will build loyal and effective working relationships between customers, suppliers, not-for-profit and government agencies. Collaborations including those with competitors will amplify impact and a philosophy of social action will emerge. Bigger businesses are going to be bigger stakeholders in fixing the world. The setting aside of competitive differences will benefit all organisations in terms of enhanced reputation. An example is a £25 million alliance of Tesco and the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK to tackle major health issues.

4 Cause Related Movements – Campaigns become Exciting and Energised into Movements

Billions of customers will be mobilised to give up their time, second hand items and their fresh ideas for social campaigning.  Companies will facilitate large scale donations through movement fund-raising, and will create a truly engaging consumer experience around causes.  

Take on Causes that Excite the Employees

The Charities Trust, started from Littlewoods, is now 30 years old and administers £100 million of giving for 1000 clients, an amount that has trebled in the last eight years, a big achievement for the charitable sector.  Many of her clients lead the way in employee engagement to support communities that are dear to the staff, and not just the organisation itself.  Previously it was all about what the company was going to do … now, it is about the employees deciding and the company supporting that. It helps employee retainment and turns staff into good leaders. 

The Charities Trust works with the Costa Foundation which has supported 72 schools in nine countries, and not all in places where they trade. The Trust has also worked with Big Issue Invest who raised £50 million in the last five years to support the homeless agenda, attracting institutional investors and philanthropists.  Clients like Nandos might just sell chicken but they also really care about people dying where they source their chicken, particularly of malaria.

A New Philanthropy is Emerging

The next generation of philanthropists will emerge from these young companies and their younger demographic. 

For more details of other events hosted by the Leaders Club visit the site here.

See the next post for …… the second speaker was Linda Crompton, an alumni of the Business School’s first MBA program.  Linda was the first woman to head a bank in North America and also to lead a bank that  pioneered responsible investment principles.   Now she is a leader in gender equality as the CEO and President of Leadership Women, the largest of its kind in the USA………

Wise Leadership Dinner in San Francisco

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by ginalazenby in feminine leadership, transformational leadership

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#runamagnus #ginalazenby #moniqueblokzyl #shayallie #brookscole #benjaminmaurice, #wiseleadership #wisdom2.0

 

Wise Leadership will come from a joint venture of the sexes to transform leadership in the 2020s

A special event in San Francisco brought together consultants and entrepreneurs from three continents during the international Wisdom 2.0 Summit in February. The dialogue was about “Wise Leadership in the 21st Century and the contribution of women and men in an era shifting towards the feminine.”  Thirty five leaders attended the event which was hosted by a delegation of four women from Europe, all founding members from ‘The Network for Transformational Leaders’. Their work connects them with leaders around the globe and each had come from countries where their Prime Ministers are women: Iceland, Germany and the UK.  That link led to the enquiry on how leadership styles might be shifting in a changing world.

Round table discussions were set up over dinner with one question about leadership on each table. There was an animated dialogue throughout the evening culminating in each  table sharing insights gleaned.  The questions provoked discussion on what made leaders wise,  how values are shifting in leadership and the kind of leadership that will be required to lead humanity into the future and navigate the massive waves of change that are affecting every aspect of society over the next decade.

When the group looked at what kind of future we wanted and what the world needs as it transitions over the next decade, the discussion pulled together a list of characteristics and qualities which were mostly deemed to represent the feminine aspect of human nature.  Even if women are not the leaders, these qualities are what men and women will need to exhibit.

  • The ability to be open, receptive and listen, particularly paying attention to all voices so that everyone feels heard was high on all lists.
  • The need to show genuine fairness and bring people together, being adept at growing relationships and building community.
  • There is a sense that the future holds even greater complexity so a shared and diverse approach to problem solving will be our only chance of finding our way into potential solutions.
  • That complexity is going to require an ability to think holistically and to really create an integrated approach so that we avoid many of the unintended consequences we see happening today as a bi-product of the advances made in technology.
  • Emotional intelligence will be what sustains successful leaders and will therefore have a much higher priority than the task achievements accumulated on a cv. Character over curriculum.
  • Gone will be the action hero archetype to be replaced by an individual whose strength is measured by their ability to be vulnerable, admit their mistakes and be open to learning new approaches.
  • Ability to slow down: Being able to adjust speeds and valuing the need for pacing and slowing down. Fast-pacing is a highly prized modality but it not only risks mistakes, it can lead to burn-out. Being more measured and understanding the power of pausing will be the sign of a sustainable leader.
  • Keeping back the ego .. the new mantra is less about “me” and more about “we”.
  • More heart-centred: Learning to think and operate from the heart as well as the head.

During the discussion somebody quipped that it was going to be difficult to find individuals who have all of these qualities and who would be prepared to take on leadership in critical times. Co-host Gina Lazenby responded  “The idea that people are waiting for rare and capable individuals to step into high-ranking positions is in itself an old paradigm idea. 

Yes we will always need great leaders who lead teams, groups and movements but the nature of leadership itself is changing. What is emerging now is the need for everyone to step into their own leadership capacities and find these qualities within so they can bring them to the fore. More and more of us will have our leadership moment.”

Runa Magnus, the co-host from Iceland said that “The cross cultural discussions from this evening show a universal desire for a leadership with very different values to what has been normal practice but they are still all human values. In the future will need to draw on different capacities that may have been dormant and in this respect, perhaps women will be leading the way”.

Both Runa and co-host Gina Lazenby from the UK gave insights into the leadership styles of the high profile European female leaders. Gina spoke of the challenges facing the British prime minister Theresa May who swept into the vacuum left after the Brexit vote debacle with a massive mandate for massive change. Although she had many good ideas for decreasing the inequality in the country, somewhere along the line she listened to the wrong advice and called a snap general election which unexpectedly removed her majority.  Now she finds herself in the difficult position of being a negotiator and less of a visionary.  It is difficult too judge how well she is doing in the job since nobody wants to take on this poisoned chalice of Brexit.

On the other hand, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is a rare leader who is revered by her peers across the world and held in high esteem in her own country. She has also shown a pragmatic ability to change, setting aside her own personal beliefs, in the case of marriage equality, and allowing legislation through as she felt it served the greater good.  Despite her conservative stance and approach, she has also kept the Left and Right happy. Few leaders in history manage that. Runa spoke of the newly elected Prime Minster of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, a mother of three who, even though she is a champion of left green politics managed to create a coalition with the far right party. Says Runa, “These kind of convening skills of bringing differing groups together are going to be a necessary leadership skill as we move away from either/or polarised politics of the left and right. There are more voices that need to be heard and brought together and these women leaders are showing great listening skills in finding common ground.”

There is no argument that a new type of leader is needed if humanity is to evolve, move forward and reach our true potential.  Few employees would want to spend more time at work and even fewer want to work longer hours.  Despite our advances in technology, medicine, education and communication; unhappiness, internal discontent and psychological exhaustion is the norm.

Our work, our research, our workshops have uncovered the need for a revolutionary kind of leadership.  We welcome you to join us in an adventure of courage.  A call to transform our old paradigm.  Women and men have done it in the past.  What can we do as “one” and “together?”

The event was co-hosted by Gina Lazenby, Runa Magnus, Shay Allie and Monique Blokyl, and supported by Benjamin Maurice and Brooks Cole, also from the Network for Transformational Leaders.

Wise Leadership Dinner

Each table gave feedback on their discussions

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