Introduction

Part I: Women's Leadership in the Millennium

Part II: Transformative Leadership toward Success and Significance

References

Part II: Transformative Leadership toward Success and Significance

SUCCESS:  Measurable Improvements in Academic Quality

My own institution, as I mentioned earlier, has embarked on a collective process utilizing Appreciative Inquiry. There are four Ds in this process—Discovery, Dreams, Design, and Destiny.

At the two-day Strategic Planning with a Difference this January, we collectively discovered the PWU’s strengths and best practices, as well as the inner giftedness and multiple talents of each member of the PWU Community. Our process of collective Discovery has affirmed our institutional strengths.  The PWU is a university that has pioneered in women’s education and various modes of instructional delivery. It is a university steeped in cultural history and traditions without being irrelevant to the changing times. It is a community that has dedicated itself to service. It is a community that has a strong faith in God and in each other.

Through our workshops and discussions, we put together our wish lists to represent our collective dreams. In the February echo sessions with the staff under each administrator’s responsibility, we started to concretize these dreams, to collectively Design them into action plans. Through this innovative approach, we are gradually breathing energy into our plans. 

In this way, we shall collectively create the PWU’s new collective Destiny in the 21^st century. The Philippines today is becoming a major producer of the world’s human resources requirements—doctors, nurses, teachers, caregivers, etc. This means that our graduates may find employment not only here in the Philippines but also in many countries abroad.

How can we be certain that our PWU products will survive in a globally competitive environment? What are the best features and uniqueness of the PWU’s educational programs that give credence to the University’s claim of producing women leaders and useful citizenry? I posed these questions to both the faculty and administrators.

To the alumni who have made significant contributions in their respective fields, I have also requested answers to these questions: What features of the PWU education made you successful and thereby create a significant impact on the lives of others. What will be the University’s market brand today; what kind of educational product are we producing? How can we ensure that the University’s tradition of academic excellence and leadership can be sustained in the changing environment of a global world?

Recent pronouncements by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in the Philippines have focused on quality assurance based more on EXPECTED STUDENT LEARNING RESULTS  (ESLR) than on “input indicators”. What should students know and be able to do upon exit from the University?  What are the expected school-wide learning outcomes?  What are the global knowledge, skills and understanding that students should possess upon exit from the school, or by the time the students complete their degrees?

All these questions are now being monitored, to be incorporated in the course syllabi of ALL faculty members, whether part-time or full-time, and are used as the basis for merit performance evaluation. We have instructed the deans and department heads that their respective teachers should ensure that PWU graduates will have the ability to manage change, be a critical and independent learner so as to know where to locate information and knowledge.  PWU students should learn to weigh and evaluate information for bias and advocacy and know how to synthesize and apply the information to solve problems in the work place, family, and community. 

In addition, PWU graduates should have a strong academic foundation of basic skills like reading, writing and mathematical abilities; be proficient in oral and written communication; as well as have the skills in the application of technology. 

PWU graduates should have a set of values that will motivate them as emerging leaders to engage and participate in the larger society.  To try to make a positive influence, or to improve the life conditions of others as well as themselves, PWU graduates are encouraged to become a life-long learner with a disposition for learning and achievement.

All these pose a challenge to the University administrators and faculty to create a learning environment that is conducive to individual growth and responsive to global challenges, that keeps motivating the PWU community to discover ourselves and our potentials. Through prayer and GOD’S guidance, we are beginning to reap the dividends of our collective efforts: “Am I doing what I do best and receiving a good return from the organization?”

Our measurable success through academic indicators: CHED’s Quality Assurance System is measured in five areas: governance and management; student formation, information and transformation; human resource development program; management of university resources; and relations with the community.

• All tertiary level full-time faculty with master’s degrees; masteral and doctoral faculty with doctoral degrees, as required by CHED. Those without masteral degrees who are tenured have not been given teaching assignments.

• Vertical articulation of the Graduate Programs as the university moves deregulated to autonomous status, as prescribed by CHED

• Review and enhancement of curricular content and teaching methodologies from basic education, to tertiary and doctoral levels

• Online teaching–learning of graduate and undergraduate courses

• Regular faculty development seminars/workshops every week (Fridays)

• Enhanced MSCED, Religion and Women Studies courses together with NSTP Strengthening of classroom management, with emphasis on values integration with professional subjects

• Moving towards level III accreditation of two departments and others at different accreditation levels

• Use of DYNED and APTECH for enhanced English competencies for both basic education and tertiary levels

• Ongoing student-outcome-focused evaluation by both students and faculty

• New educational partnerships—a sign that industry, agencies and institutions believe in the work we do and are willing to invest in us or go into partnership with us

• Partnership with Enable for E-review courses for the Nursing Board Exam, CGFNS, NCLEX, including computer-aided English review for TOEFL and IELTS certification

• Partnership arrangements with APTEC to provide basic computer learning to students in elementary and secondary levels

• DynED English Language Learning Proficiency, in representation with the American Chamber  of Commerce, for all levels in coordination with all English teachers

• Physical facilities improvement to provide better learning and working conditions for students, faculty and staff

• New Scholarships grants—a sign of confidence in the PWU quality of instruction. For example, we are partners with the Philippine government in the Student Financial Assistance Program (STUFAP) for P500,000; P2M from the Iskolar ni Magsaysay program (P500,000.00 this school year and P2.5M next SY). We also have Colombo Plan Scholarship grants and ten (10) faculty graduate scholarships from the QC government.

• New Scholarships grants—a sign of confidence in the PWU quality of instruction. For example, we are partners with the Philippine government in the Student Financial Assistance Program (STUFAP) for P500,000; P2M from the Iskolar ni Magsaysay program (P500,000.00 this school year and P2.5M next SY). We also have Colombo Plan Scholarship grants and ten (10) faculty graduate scholarships from the QC government.

• A P2M research grant from the Asian Development Bank, indicating that ADB, DSWD and CHED believe that our research team could handle a nationwide Cost-effectiveness Study of Early Childhood Interventions and Services

• Updated the publication of several volumes of the Compendium of University Researches,  the Compendium of Theses and Dissertations, The Philippine Educational Forum, and The PWU Research Journal.

SIGNIFICANCE:  A Journey Towards the Best You Can Become

Although success is sweet in itself, we must regard it primarily as a prelude to significance, which is a journey beyond ourselves in service to others.

I am taking this opportunity to share some insights from John Maxwell, who impressed me very much when I listened to him at a National Prayer breakfast meeting.

• It is not enough to achieve success either at the institutional or at the personal level. True, we    have achieved some measurable success. But according to Maxwell, this personal or institutional success is not sufficient. We need to create an impact on the lives of others.

• Success is when I add value to Myself. Significance is when I add value to Others.

• Any ordinary person can make a positive impact on the lives of others. The value we add to ourselves remains insignificant when we fail to offer ourselves at the service of God and fellowmen.

• What does it mean to have a Servant’s Heart, or to embody the quality of servanthood?

The first mark of servanthood is the ability to put others ahead of yourself and your personal desires. It means intentionally being aware of other people’s needs, being available to help them, and learning to accept their desires as important.

The real heart of servanthood is security. How we treat others is really a reflection of how we think about ourselves. Servants do not focus on rank or position because service does not diminish but rather enhances your personhood. Great leaders see the need, seize the opportunity, and serve without expecting anything in return. Service is motivated by nothing else but love and concern for others.

In our journey from success to significance, let us begin today by performing small acts of kindness for others, starting with those closest to you: your spouse, children, parents, colleagues, students.

Some people live their lives from day to day, allowing others to dictate what to do, how to do it. They never discover that the purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. Others know their purpose, yet never act on it. They are waiting for inspiration or permission or invitation to get started. But if they wait much longer, they’ll never get going. Yet, one human being can affect a lot of other people and touch their lives in a very special way.

• Our focus must be beyond ourselves. By giving, loving, serving, helping, encouraging, and adding value to others, we are living a useful life. That is significance.

• We truly value our gift of life by taking the “journey from success to significance”. Too often we learn too late what is really important.

Requirements for the journey to significance:

1. Vision and Direction – Knowing How to See and How to Begin

Vision with a heart.  Leadership always requires courage. A leader must have the heart to communicate his/her vision no matter how absurd it may sound to others and to risk defeat in the face of bitter odds.  Reach out to others in order to take them along on the journey.

Vision is “seeing things as God wants them to be.” Vince Abner observed, “Vision isn’t enough – it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.” To move from desire to action, plan your first steps. Then get going. 

2. Attitude – Knowing How to Feel

Believing that you can grow to your potential opens the door to continual self-improvement. You will never find out what you can do until you do all you can to find out.

Leadership is often easy during the good times. It is when everything seems to be against you—when you are out of energy and you don’t want to lead—that a leader faces the crucial moment when she must choose between gearing up or giving up. One irony of leadership is that sharing power, not saving it all to yourself, makes a better leader.

3. Priorities—Knowing How to Choose

You cannot develop to your highest potential in every area of life nor in all areas at the same time. The petty and the mundane steal much of our time; too many people live for the wrong things.  Make choices about where you will grow.

Priorities continually shift and demand attention. Focus on your strengths more than on your weaknesses. Cultivate the strength in your students’ capacities rather than keep pinpointing their human weaknesses.

4. Creativity – Knowing How to Think

Growth is a journey, and in any journey you will encounter unforeseen obstacles. Your ability to overcome these barriers will determine whether you succeed or fail.

Every year, we require the different units to prepare their strategic and action plans to provide direction and meaning to our policies, programs and activities. Given our limited physical resources, enormity and variety of our concerns, we are forced to think “out of the box” to come up with more proactive and creative approaches to reach our objectives. We have actively sought help from experts, forged linkages with industry and other institutions, built partnerships and invited all our stakeholders to get involved.

5. Responsibility – Knowing How to Finish

Growth does not come easily. It takes complete dedication and the determination to give your    very best effort. Give it your all, and you will get all that you can out of it. Success in your work will be greatly increased if the 3 Rs are similar: Requirements / Return / Reward. 

Requirements of my job are the same as my strengths to give me the highest return, and doing those things brings me satisfaction as my reward

Collectively Creating the University’s Future Today

Under my presidency, this VISION WITH A HEART to build a faith community aims to reach the kind of spirituality that empowers the human potentials to be the best we can become.  We should acquire the necessary virtues to make our ordinary life of service an opportunity for increasing personal sanctification. This has always been my battle cry.

This should be evident in our everyday world of teaching and working on the curriculum revision and innovations, instructional and promotional materials, so that our students and stakeholders become self-motivated to maximize their human potentials.

Through our combined efforts and the power of prayer, we are moving the University to institute a learning environment towards harnessing the best we can become! This University’s motto of empowering the human potentials for spiritual renewal and meeting national and global challenges has been the main focus of my presidency.

We are now articulating this slogan into an ongoing process of making the University A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WHEREIN YOU CAN BE THE BEST YOU CAN BECOME.

Can we claim that our institutional successes have made a significant impact on the lives of others?

With GOD’s assistance and the steadfast support of the university community, the PWU continues to develop, improve, and upgrade both instructional facilities and human resources. Reassessing our institutional strengths and weaknesses is an ongoing process to concretize our desire to keep abreast of international standards for educating world-class Filipino professionals. This School Year’s thrust is focused on instituting more effective monitoring mechanisms and evaluation procedures.

Because we consider the PWU a living legacy, we try to inculcate the Philwomenian spirit so that working at the PWU goes beyond an ordinary commitment to a job.  Our daily work should help us grow in our spirituality.  We may have succeeded to build a sense of a growing faith community but is this kind of spirituality rooted in our day-to-day relationship with others?

As teachers, are we able to ensure that the PWU’s core values and virtues are integrated in our subject matter, in daily teaching and work ethics? Are we making a difference in the lives of our students?

Is this faith in people bringing out the best of their potentials so that they are able to emerge and be empowered as leaders, who can bring about change and transformation in the lives of others?  This is the greater challenge in the task of building a faith community.

The mere desire to grow and reach our potential isn’t enough to empower us to make a significant contribution to the world. Just remember: Success is a journey; Service is the Significance you have in your life.

“Success is….knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and   sowing   seeds   that   benefit   others.”

- John Maxwell

You can see by this definition why success is a journey rather than a destination. No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential or run out of opportunities to help others.

I have learned that our ordinary life of service and scholarship is rich with holiness where our daily trials and difficulties can become sources of our own purification and a means for personal sanctification. Everything we do in our daily chores and everyday relations with others can be an occasion for meeting our LORD in actuality.

We need to pay the price today to assure the organization’s success tomorrow. There is no success without sacrifice. Each organization is unique and that dictates what the price will be.  All you who are leaders who want to help must be willing to pay the price to ensure lasting success for your organization to emerge and become significant in the global world.

• No one ever achieved anything significant without becoming better as an individual. We need to get out of our comfort zone. We can constantly improve if we make use of the potentials God has implanted in us. People change when we get hurt enough so that we have to learn enough to grow and become better. People cannot do something of significance unless we take risks.

• To value one’s self means to learn, train and grow for community participation and leadership. We shall help our students, each other and ourselves to journey from success to significance, to develop our human potential to the fullest and be the best that we can become at the service of others.

   

• A person who has moved from success to significance typically has the right attitude toward money.  If you love money or possessions more than you love people, you will have a hard time achieving significance.

   

• Going from ordinary to extraordinary can be achieved. To make a significant impact we need to make a little extra effort—doing our best is more than being the best. A little extra time can get you far. 

   

• Successful people don’t easily give up; how much more important it is for people who desire significance. A little extra help can help your quest for significance but it must come from within. A little extra change. Leaders must be ready, willing, and able to change before anyone else. And the first change they must be ready to make is in themselves. One also needs extra time for thinking. “YOU ARE, AND YOU BECOME, WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT”

   

• Leaders who leave a legacy of succession create a leadership culture. This is the challenge that confronts each educational institution today to move from institutional success to creating its significance in the global world.  The most stable organizations have strong leaders at every level of the organization. The only way to develop such widespread leadership is to make developing leaders a part of the organization’s culture.

   

• Value team leadership above individual success. Success in any organization does not depend on leadership alone no matter how great the leadership is—for “one is too small a number to achieve greatness”. As much as we admire solo achievement, the truth is no lone individual has done anything of value.       Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone. All seemingly solo acts are really team efforts. Teamwork is at the heart of great achievement.

Individuals play the game, but teams win championships. Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas and energy than would an individual. Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal. “Working together precedes winning together.”

Let me ask you this: Are you a good team player? Do you work at improving yourself to add value to your team? If the answer is “Yes”, then I assure you that your team will keep winning the trophies. Developing a better team always begins with oneself. To improve the team, improve the individuals on the team.

The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow—a person others can trust to take them where they want to go.

Vision: Creating a Worldwide Network of Universities for Women

In this first decade of the third millennium, women dare dream that the 21^st century might mean a significant rebirth and renewal in the role of women. Through the Universities, particularly through the Women Studies Programs, it is our hope to secure change in attitudes about gender, mainly by increasing understanding and awareness of gender differences and their implications for policy considerations.

A.  Building Networks           

We need to build linkages with other institutions, share best practices to strengthen our advocacy for women empowerment. We have to partner with industry to provide global competencies and on the job experience to enhance employability, advance professional and career development.

Over the past decades, the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), which is the Philippines national machinery for the advancement of women, has had active interaction with the academe, specifically the Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP), the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) and its affiliate Development Institute for Women in Asia-Pacific (DIWA), University of the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies, TESDA Women’s Center, and Miriam College Gender and Development Institute.  Their common concern is the promotion of women’s leadership and advancement.

In the first week of January this year, at an international meeting of presidents and officials of women’s colleges/universities titled Women’s Education Worldwide 2006: Hopes and Dreams held at Dubai Women’s College, we sounded a call for networking and affiliation with other women’s colleges/universities, associations and alternative organizational strategies for the WEW:

-       Possible tie-ups with Women’s Studies Programs for the substantive issues about women’s education, mainstreaming women’s concerns and women empowerment paradigms.

-       Promoting HERSTORIES and organizing a global conference on HERSTORIES as a methodology to promote women’s education

B.     Training for Transformative Leadership

The multitude of gender issues in education and training has been the focus of gender and development policies and programs in the education sector. Let us individually and collectively renew our commitment to provide training and education for transformative leadership. Let us ensure gender mainstreaming for women's empowerment by providing gender fair education for women and men.

C.  Becoming Transformative Leaders

Achievement comes to a community or an institution when we are able to do great things for ourselves.

• Success comes when we have learned to empower others to be the best they can become and  emerge as leaders.

• Significance comes when we are able to develop leaders to do great things for others. But our  impact or legacy is created when we are able to put our institution in a position of value to others.

When all is said and done, our abilities as a leader will not be judged by what we have achieved personally or even by what our teamwork has accomplished during our incumbency.     Rather, we will be judged by how well we have empowered the people to do the things we want       done after we are gone.

• Transformative leaders actively nurture their spiritual life. It is their passionate and compassionate spirituality that makes possible their journey from success to significance because they are able to practice servant leadership that transforms themselves and others.

My dear friends, let us grow to our maximum potential and nurture the kind of spirituality that is self-affirming, empowering, and liberating, so that we can be the best we can become.  Let us start with ourselves. Have faith in yourself and in others. We have to believe we can all become leaders who can bring about the change we wish to see in the world.  

We need to have faith that we can overcome, to lead tomorrow, and learn today to become TRANSFORMATIVE leaders.  We can make a difference in the lives of others through our growing spirituality. Only then can our personal or institutional success contribute to SIGNIFICANCE. 

Let us start today. Let us do something everyday to make ourselves better able to give, and take the journey of SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE! 

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