Women on the Move in Leadership
Women are tuned in to partnerships, sharing, and creating communities where the group is in charge, not a particular person. As Janet says in her blog, The Abundant Alliance Blog, “Forget China – Women are the new driving force.”
How does that work? Can there be a leaderless organization? Can it be successful? How is your organization set up? Is the “leader” in charge – with ultimate veto power? How is that working for you?
Tom will tell you I am the fearless leader here but that’s just Tom supporting me. Yes, the company is in my name. Yes, I have final veto power. Yes, when people think of Windsor Media Enterprises or Lip-sticking, they think “Yvonne DiVita.” But, the truth is a much different story.
Yes, I am the “head” of this organization. The IRS and NYS need someone to bother and blame and demand $$ from. That’s me. If clients have issues that don’t get resolved, they call me. When they want attention for their clients, PR firms and agencies contact me.
But, I am merely a face for the companies I run. I am a part of a group that, together, is stronger than I could ever be alone. And, in case you were interested, many of the people in my community (these are the people who visit Lip-sticking on a regular basis and work with us in Windsor Media Enteprises), are men. Because in this great big world we operate in, men are not to be ignored or neglected. Men, I have discovered, have much to share. And so, many of the women who are the driving force today, are being supported by the men in their lives. Which, IMHO, is a good thing; for them, for the world, and for the economy.
And so, back to leadership. I saw the kind of leadership we’re used to (mostly 20th century thinking) at Blogher. There were leaders (the good women who created Blogher, and the sponsors and the on deck panelists), and there were followers (everyone else). And yet, you can learn, if you read Lee Thayer’s Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing that good leaders are made by good followers, and Blogher does have some of the best followers on the net. They are taking leadership to a new level, slowly moving away from the 20th century model.
The part that I wondered about was the lack of focus on business needs. The women at Blogher, from the conversations I listened to, want to be noticed (and if the word “mommy blogger” describes you, you got noticed) but they also want to learn how to be business leaders. They like all the swag brands throw at them, but in the end, when they get back home, they need information on how to lead – how to turn their little blog into a real business. A business that people besides one or two brand managers will take seriously.
There is no choice, if you choose to be in business, but to be a leader – leading a team, leading a group, leading yourself (?), leading the company.To be effective leaders, women need to study and learn from the masters. Yes, some of them are ancient white men – long passed on to their maker. But, there are hundreds of strong, talented, and approachable women who will also teach you how to be a good, effective, successful leader. Look at the Blogher ladies, but go beyond and look at some of the powerhouse women on the net. We’ll talk about them in another post, but I suspect you know many of them, already.
Being a good leader means standing tall, speaking out, understanding that the people you work with are more valuable than you are, and that if you have not created an environment where the company can run without you, you have created something that will not last.
With that in mind, I ask you:
Do we still need large conferences to learn leadership? Do we still need large conferences to learn anything? Micro-blogging, micro-businesses, micro-growth – anyone interested in micro-conferencing?
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