Heartfeldt Leadership: What’s the #1 Leadership Attribute?

LeadershipKeyboardI know I said this column would explore what we can learn about leadership from the presidential candidates’ endless mud-wrestling on our television screens these days. That’s a fascinating analysis I’ll get to eventually—we’ll have plenty of time since the election is still fourteen months away!

But when I realized I’d be writing this column on September 14, the birthday of a significant mentor in my life, I chose instead to focus on the most important leadership lesson I learned from her…

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Friday Round Up on Saturday: Women’s Equality Day Edition

“Men, their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.” ~ Susan B. Anthony, 19th Century Women’s Rights and Suffrage Leader

In celebration and in reflection of Women’s Equality Day, this week’s Round Up collects some wonderful reading about it. Not only about the time when women achieved the right to vote via the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26th, 1920 but also frank and honest discussions about where women are today in this journey and about the work ahead. Here’s a great timeline from the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership, headed until her untimely death last week by my friend and dedicated leader for women’s equality, Nora Bredes.

PANELPanel at the University of Rochester’s Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership. With Susan B. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton pictured in the background, and the late Nora Bredes at the podium moderating panelists Jennifer Lawless (Director of the American University Women and Politics Institute), Allida Black (Founder of the Eleanor Roosevelt Project) and me (in my Susan B Anthony costume–she always wore black with a red scarf) in October, 2010.

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Make History With Your Media Activism on Women’s Equality Day

NOW Womens Equality Day invitationNote: This is posted today as a Women’s Media Center Exclusive

The invitation to today’s Phoenix-Scottsdale National Organization for Women (NOW) “Equality Day Feminist Convergence” depicts a quaint sepia photo of suffragists picketing the White House. It telegraphs “old.” After all, the event celebrates the 91st anniversary of the date in 1920 when women’s right to vote entered the U.S. Constitution.

But, remember, in the decades at the beginning of the 20th century those purple and white sashes and those picket signs wielded by (purposefully) demurely dressed women were new media in action.

Fittingly, attendees at the Arizona event will have a contemporary victory to celebrate, one involving media activism squarely in the suffragist tradition. But this one is powered by e-mail and concerns itself with very modern day attire. Tight jeans to be exact…

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Women's History Roundup: Create a Movement

Throughout history, men with leadership proclivities have tended to start businesses to create wealth or/and to go into politics. They take the direct path to power for its own sake. Women, on the other hand, tend to start social movements. Susan B. Anthony and women’s rights, Jane Addams and the Settlement House movement, Margaret Sanger and birth control, Candy Lightner and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and today’s Emily May and Hollaback just to name a few.

The 9 Ways Women’s History Month posts this week are all examples of women starting social movements large and small:
Burning Women: Triangle Fire 100th Anniversary Illuminates Wisconsin Union-Busting
Alice Paul’s Equal Right Amendment Back at the Plow
Violence Against Women: Not in My Backyard – Er, Subway Car
Inspiration from Sin City

What are some other examples of woman-initiated social movements that inspire you?
What new social movement would you start if you could?

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The Stanton-Anthony Lecture Series


I had the great honor of keynoting the Susan B Anthony/Elizabeth Cady Stanton Lecture at the University of Rochester’s Meliora weekend, October 15, 2010. As you can see, I got into the spirit by wearing my Susan B. Anthony outfit, black clothing with a red shawl. The 19th century women’s civil rights leader always wore black and her red shawl became her identifying trademark.
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When Did You First Know You Had Power?

Do keep on posting those wonderful stories of women in history who deserve greater recognition than they get.

Today, I also have an extra question to ask. I’m delivering the keynote address at an event that recognizes two very important women in history: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I’ll be at the University of Rochester’s Stanton/Anthony Conversations, speaking on “How Women Use Power: Transforming Leadership.”

My question is: Was there a moment when you knew you had the power to….(you fill in the blank)? If so, what was it? If not, was there some other process that occurred to give you a sense of your own power to…(your words here)?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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