Incremental v Transformational Leadership Exemplified in the Stimulus Package
President Obama’s 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package is an important step forward. It shores up, pumps us, cheers up. It’s going to give relief to many low-and moderate-income families and help states avert drastic shortfalls in their budgets while saving major institutions. These are not small matters.
But courageous leadership isn’t just incremental. The New Deal was transformational. It changed government structure while building national infrastructure. Barack Obama was swept into office in large part because voters saw him as a visionary who could transform and take the nation to qualitatively greater heights. Read more thoughts on why good enough is on for now, but not transformational leadership.
Read MoreThe Shoulders We Stand On
Leadership is about action. A leader is someone who gets things done. But no one does it alone. This touching video reflects on some of the most courageous leaders in American history and how each stood on the shoulders of those who went before them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-0NvkuPHZI[/youtube]
Read MoreThe Importance of Being Hillary
A former mentor used to tell me this about teaching: “You have to start where they are, not where you wish they were.” She was speaking of students of course, but the principle applies to politics too. Here’s the dime version of women’s political history in U.S. politics. Reminding ourselves of this long, still under construction, road to gender parity is essential to understanding the boulders of fundamental social change Hillary Clinton had to push uphill in her quest for the presidency. Read the full article :The Importance of Being Hillary” for applications to leadership and women in all fields of endeavor.
Read MoreThe Glass Ceiling in Media
Pink Magazine, which covers career and lifestyle issues for women had an interesting article on why there is still a glass ceiling in media by Tekla Szymanski. An excerpt:
According to Catalyst, women make up about 38 percent of journalists in the United States; however, they often feel that they need to work twice as hard to get ahead. “One reason the glass ceiling remains strong in broadcast and newspapers is media consolidation, which squeezes out positions at the top and in mid-management, where women might have been in the pipeline to advance,” explains Gloria Feldt, an author and activist for women’s rights. “When resources are scarce, the old boys’ network closes ranks and chooses leaders it feels most comfortable with – those most like themselves.”
Read MoreSpeech: “Sister Courage: What it will take for women to make it to the top in radio once and for all”
It was a real treat to speak at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show in Charlotte NC on one of my favorite topics, “Sister Courage.” Women’s advancement to the executive offices in radio has stalled. There are many women and men who want to change that, so they asked me to address how women can make it to the top once and for all. We had a spirited conversation about fresh solutions for getting ahead personally while breaking glass ceilings for all women using principles of movement building.
Read More“This was not a speech, it was a conversation, a story-telling, a wake-up call and an inspiration. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me afterward and said ‘she should be our keynote speaker to several thousand broadcasters!'”
–Joan Gerberding, President, Local Focus; Founder, Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio
Leadership Lessons From Send Yourself Roses
Our best selling book, Send Yourself Roses, contains lessons Kathleen Turner learned from her own life, and she shares them in hopes they will be of practical value to readers, especially other women. To name a few: See your moment and seize it, Honey. If you feel sexy, so you are. Don’t repeat your successes. The…
Read MoreIs a Good Enough Stimulus Good Enough?
Seems like the 787 billion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus package Congress has passed and sent to the President’s desk is just good enough. Though notable for its size, it doesn’t advance bold initiatives that could define Obama’s presidency, nor does it grapple with big, confounding issues like universal health care. It’s incremental rather than transformational. But it’s good enough to mind-shift us into a more optimistic view of the short term economy and to offer real help to many hurt by the downturn.
(If you want a quick look at how we’re going to spend 787 billion, see this chart. That sounds like “real money“, but it’s amazing how quickly it goes when you break it down–well, incrementally. For a more detailed summary, the Center for Law and Social Policy provides descriptions and tables with estimated state-by-state impacts of key provisions. Read that full report here.)
Though many economists say the package isn’t big enough, and feminists wonder whether it does enough to build the human infrastructure, Republicans are predictably squealing it’s too big and too diffuse. This despite all the effort Obama went to to engage and appease his Republican colleagues. I thought by now he would have learned the hooker principle (get paid first) and not have expended so much political capital trying to win over those who want only to create campaign issues with which to wrest back Congressional seats in 2010 and take the White House away from him in 2012. (Remember Newt and the Contract on America in 1994?)
Read MoreTAKE THE LEAD, LADY! Practical Leadership Skills
If I’m lucky, there is at least one magic moment during a speech when I see people nodding in unison. Sometimes they smile knowingly; sometimes they look pensive, even pained, as though a raw nerve has been exposed. It’s not necessarily that they are agreeing with my brilliantly persuasive arguments, but rather that something resonates…
Read MoreWarped Priorities
The headline and precis on the e-mail I received just now punches me in the face:
FY09 STATE BUDGET CUTS FORCE ASU TO CAP ENROLLMENT,
FRESHMAN APPLICATIONS CLOSE MARCH 1, FIVE MONTHS EARLYBudget cuts scale Poly and West campuses down to one college each;
Four dozen academic programs to be closedAdditional state budget cuts in FY10 could result in closing two entire campuses
I’m in Arizona for a few weeks, teaching a short course in “Women, Power, and Politics” at Arizona State University. Though this is not a regular gig for me and I have joked that I’m earning almost enough after taxes to pay for our car rental while we are here, I feel intimately involved–actually sick at my stomach–over the short-sighted budget priorities of the right-wing dominated state legislature and the new Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who took over after the state’s popular Democratic Governor and chief resister of such retrograde policies, Janet Napolitano, flew the coop to Washington to become Secretary of Homeland Security.
These cuts come on top of the university announcing last week that they would furlough all staff, top to bottom, for two weeks. I have to show I’m working nine fewer hours than my original commitment, and my princessly salary will be cut accordingly. This is not going to change my lifestyle much. But I think of what it means to people dependent on the university for their fulltime compensation–those who still have jobs that is. More than 550 positions, including 200 faculty, have been eliminated. Further, the state’s whacking back of educational funding extends to K-12 public schools also–and Arizona was already near the bottom of the 50-state heap in education funding.
Read MoreToday’s Power Point: Where Were the Women at Davos?
Check out this info from the Aurora Monthly Newsletter put out by wheretowork.com:
Following recent headlines about the lack of women at Davos again this year, women question the role of such a forum if it doesn’t comprise diverse leadership. The World Economic Forum’s own leadership structure that sets the agenda and decides who attends is not gender diverse. 4 / 22 foundation board members are women. There are 0 women on the managing board responsible for WEF’s operations and running. 2 / 10 senior directors responsible for subject areas within WEF are female. It ‘d be quite insightful to know which corporations and Governments in attendance at Davos sent mixed gender delegations.
In chaos is opportunity. Mark my words, despite the many real dangers that women (being often the last hired) might face heightened vulnerability to losing jobs during an economic downturn, the current economic chaos is great opportunity for women to advance.