Join The Conversation: Women In Leadership

Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, the first woman to have won office at an election, and former member of the Council of Women World Leaders, is well-known for saying on the day of submitting her nomination as New Zealand’s candidate for the 2016 UN Secretary-General selection, that she was running as the best possible candidate, and not necessarily because she is a woman. 

As a woman in leadership, Clark calls for gender equality, but also for a significant emphasis on the fact that women are still being underrepresented in leadership on a global scale, which calls for something more than just having the same human rights.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of We Should All Be Feminists wrote in The Guardian:¹

“Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression ‘human rights’ is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that.”

Women like Clark and Adichie are calling for all to join the conversation on the topic of #WomenInLeadership. Female leaders are finally starting to become a reality, and most are making full use of their positions to give powerful advice on topics like developing your own leadership identity, or on embracing opportunities amidst fear.

If you have a look at your social media news feeds, it’s evident many of these determined women are keen to add their voice from various fields and industries, like:

Medicine

Parliament and Politics

Science

Religion

Education

Leadership Development

Financial Services

Venture Investing

Communications

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