Leadership, Work and Family

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Leadership, Work and Family

• Lessons from Experience

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Lesson 1 Draw on Your Heritage and Your
Background

• Family
• Religion and Values
• Personal History

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Lesson 2 Have a Vision and a Goal Its OK
(and Necessary) for a Woman to Plan

• Leadership is a process by which a person
  influences others to accomplish an objective and
  directs an organization in a way that makes it
  more cohesive and coherent.
• Nelson Rockefeller Idealism alone, however, is
  not enough. The ability to translate ideals into
  action is key to leadership
• Need a support group and a mentor
• Figure out different paths to your career
  goalmost womens paths are not linear

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Lesson 3 Take Advantage of Every Learning
Opportunity Formal Degrees, Leadership
Training, Campaign Schools

• Go to all leadership and womens empowerment
  programs that you can
• Start young go often
• Get as much education as you can while youre
  single and/or used to being broke

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Lesson 4 Women Can Have it All, Just Not at
the Same Time

• Our lives often follow a non-linear path, and a
  sequential model, not an all at once model
• Women can have it all, just not the same way as
  men
• Women often take time off from their careers for
  family responsibilities or go on to part-time
  work fortunately, the wage penalty for doing
  this is less in the public policy field than in
  most others
• Network, plan, practice time management

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Lesson 5 Be Flexible in the Ways You Combine
Work and Family May Vary from Stage to Stage in
Your Life

• Marriage is workable with a womans career, but
  adding children when most countries and
  organizations provide very little help to
  families is hard
• Went straight through from college to graduate
  school got a Ph.D married another Ph.D student,
  and had a child marriage fell apart at that
  point
• Combined work and family as a single mother had
  to adapt my lifestyle and career involvement
  accordingly
• took my son everywhere
• great asset in my campaigns
• local government appealed to me because it was
  flexible and could be part-time
• We all need help from friends, government and/or
  family
• Many women try to change government family policy
  once theyre in office

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Lesson 6 Bloom Where You Are!

• You dont have to wait for the ideal textbook
  situation.
• If youre interested in combining work and
  family, there are many paths to do this and to
  make a difference (many of these paths are
  non-linear, part-time, or in the evening)
• membership in advocacy or issue organizations
• committee work
• blogging, etc
• join boards of directors
• volunteer for a candidate you believe in
• write letters to the editor
• run for office yourselflocal, provincial or
  national
• work for an NGOknown to be more family-friendly
  
• appointed office

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Lesson 7 Make a Difference While Learning to
be a Leader

• Volunteer for womens and community organizations
  
• Accept invitations to serve on their Boards of
  Directors
• Be willing to be an officer or leader of the NGO
• Record of NGO experience means that you could
  choose either NGO leadership as a path or
  political leadership
• Equally important, you will become a much more
  empathetic and knowledgeable person about your
  community and your country

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Lesson 8 Let Technology and Social Networking
Give You a Hand

• Computers, the Internet, cell phones, SKYPE, etc.
  can help you work from home and telecommute
• Social media networks such as blogs, Twitter,
  YouTube, Facebook and Wikis are giving people,
  particularly young people in the Middle East,
  cheap tools to communicate horizontally, to
  mobilize politically and to criticize their
  leaders acerbically, outside of state control.
  (Thomas Friedman)
• Technology can also help you network and have an
  impact (e.g. web site for YWLA)
• You can organize political movements--called
  cyberactivism (e.g. iKNOWPolitics)

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Lesson 9 Let Stereotypes Work For You

• Dont let stereotypes hold you backI did
• Listened to discouraging words from my mentor,
  the Mayor
• Reluctant to put myself forward at first for
  major political office (just school board)
• Sometimes stereotypes can work FOR you e.g. you
  all look alike or let people underestimate you
  at their peril

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Lesson 10 Develop Your Own Leadership Style

• Had to develop my own leadership style, including
  risk-taking, following through, learning male
  and female styles of leadership, leading to my
  capacity since others expected me to do so
  following my own instincts as a consensus builder
• No single leadership style works for all of us
• Need to match the leadership equation to your
  personality and your goals

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Lesson 11 Essential Components of Leadership
Style

• Certain components belong in everyones equation
  
• Risk-takingand we all define risk differently
• Find allies and toeholds in cultures not usually
  supportive of women leaders (Albany and the
  Middle East)
• Interpersonal skillslistening very important,
  and women excel at it
• Setting out a vision
• Negotiation
• Communication
• Self-monitoring and stress outlets manage your
  energy
• Resiliencebig 2009 concept
• Win and be gracious dont be a sore loser, dont
  be a sore winner!

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Lesson 12 Learn To Take Risks

• Risk-takers are ready when the window of
  opportunity opens
• Each of us defines risk differently
• Its OK to lose!
• Try, try again
• Importance of refrigerator quotes (Eleanor
  Roosevelt for me)
• Glass ceiling vs. glass cliff
• Regret vs. timing
• Every choice we make is either a growth choice or
  a fear choice
• Importance of resilience

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Lesson 13 Network With And Involve Women At
Every Level

• Join relevant organizations
• Save every membership list and business card
• Lend your talents to other women
• Let other women help you (as in my campaigns)

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Lesson 14 Great Time To Be A Woman Leader

• We can all stand on the shoulders of giantsNancy
  Pelosi, first woman speaker of the US House of
  Representatives first 4 women to get elected to
  the Kuwaiti Parliament the inspiring example of
  Neda Agha Soltan, the music student killed in
  last months Iranian uprising the recent changes
  in Egyptian election law to give women a quota of
  64 seats in parliament the Palestinian women
  leaders the fact that the majority of all women
  who have ever served as Presidents or Prime
  Ministers (50) have come to office since the
  1990s

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Lesson 15 Every Woman Is A Change Agent
Every Woman Is A Pioneer

• Each of us can lift as we climb
  
• I may have been the first woman City Council
  President in the 311-year history of my city, but
  I helped another woman get elected when I left.
  Now thereve been two of us!

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Lesson 16 Add Women, Change Everything!

• Source The White House Project

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