Welcome to my blog, this is my first post!
Women and Leadership and me!
My goal as a woman leader is to help support and empower all of the students that I work with. I find it especially important because women are not traditionally viewed as good leaders. We are viewed systematically as the weaker sex without what it takes to be a leader. In the dominant paradigm leadership is something that is a personality trait. Leaders are young, charismatic, outspoken and respected by others simply for their position and generally male. If you ask someone to identify a woman leader, they will generally become stumped or identify only a few very famous women. Generally good leaders are thought of as male.
Women have a different set of skills, talents and traits; all women do. However, generally we are seen to be relationship focused, collaborative and consensus driven. I share this value, and truly believe that all people can be leaders. Since I began advising student organizations my junior year of college I started to see how much traditional leadership alienated people simply because they did not fit the mold. I quickly began to feel for the students that ran for positions and were not elected, they just didn't have the A-type personality to win the election. Often times, students felt burned and undervalued. In my line of work, we hold fast to the idea that in order for students to be successful they need to find a place to fit. As a leader in various roles I identify strengths in people and help them to cultivate those strengths in order to find a place to fit on a collaborative team. These collaborative teams become "leaderful" organizations in which students are mutually learning and growing because they are doing something that they love, something that motivates them and something that fits all of their strengths. I find that this is especially helpful for women, as we value this collective culture of leadership, we grow to be leaders in our own way.
I hold onto this mission because I have seen the impact that it has on the growth of the students that I work with. And besides, who doesn't want to feel good about leadership?
Together, women leaders are strong and invincible. We start movements, we shake things up, we love deeply and we empower and nurture others and most importantly, we do it together.
I hope you have enjoyed my first post, I am looking forward to any comments and looking forward to posting more!
Lots of Love,
Heather Nicole
