Introduction

Part I: Women's Leadership in the Millennium

Part II: Transformative Leadership toward Success and Significance

References

Part I: Women's Leadership in the Millennium

One of the tenets guiding my presidential commitment is: New women’s leadership in the millennium is called for to transform society toward a culture of peace and sustainable development…. We enter a new phase that calls for spirituality in education—a feminine spirituality that represents the emergence of a new paradigm to integrate the academic, sociological and cultural world of the PWU community as the University strives for academic excellence and competitiveness in a borderless world.

“Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decision-making process and access to power, are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace.”

- Beijing Declaration

“The world is also starting to grasp that there is no policy for progress more effective than the empowerment of women and girls. Study after study has taught us that no other policy   is as likely to raise economic productivity or to reduce infant and maternal mortality. No other policy is as sure to improve nutrition and promote health—including the prevention  of HIV/AIDS.  No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances for education for the next generation.  And I would also venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict or in achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended.”

- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

At the 2005 World Summit, the Outcome Document declared that “progress for women is progress for all.”  Women’s rights are human rights.

Women’s colleges and universities, by improving access to education, directly contribute to the advancement of women. It is assumed that such women’s colleges and universities also make a difference to the empowerment of women.  But this is not necessarily true.

The question is: Are these colleges doing anything at all for the empowerment of women to usher in greater gender equality? 

I, therefore, pose this challenge to the educational institutions present here: Mainstream gender into every dimension of your work, as the noble work of education itself calls for developing women and men without discrimination.

A Leading Role for Women’s Educational Institutions

Educational Institutions can play a leading and proactive role towards gender equity:

1. Promote gender-fair language.

2. Conduct “Gender Audit” in our respective institutions.

3. Review curricula to ensure that content materials, and teaching strategies do not reinforce gender bias nor gender tracking in our schools.

4. Integrate gender-fair policies.

5. Use HERSTORY to make women visible in historical documentation and in the development process.

6. Develop Women’s Studies courses, programs and research.

7. Build networks with other academic institutions, government agencies business and industry.

8. Join the Women Leaders’ Network, which meets every year during the APEC Leaders’ meetings.

Academic institutions, particularly women’s universities, “act as a catalyst to bring attitudinal changes among men and women towards the goal of gender mainstreaming”.

• The goal of gender mainstreaming is gender equality. The mainstreaming strategy can ensure that the gender equality objective influences other policy areas (i.e., poverty alleviation, food security, social reform, resource allocation, etc.).

• Empowerment of women is a prerequisite to gender equality. Empowering and gender equity measures for women mean building women’s capacities and responding to strategic interests and practical needs of women, particularly those in poverty and extremely difficult situations. Women need to gain access to training, technology, credit, information and markets as means for empowerment.

1. Promoting gender-fair language

Essential to the efforts to erase all forms of discrimination against women is the elimination of sexist language in textbooks and educational materials, and the promotion of gender–fair language in everyday communication. 

Sexism in language is defined as the use of words and of discourse which discriminate against women by rendering them invisible or trivializing them, at the same time that it perpetuates the notion of male supremacy. Sexist language devalues members of one sex, almost invariably women, and thus fosters gender inequity.  Social inequity reflected in language can powerfully affect a child’s later behavior and beliefs.

2. Promoting gender audit

The first step that our women’s institutions should take in strengthening our advocacy for gender mainstreaming and women empowerment is to conduct a gender audit in our respective institutions.

1. Look at hiring and promotion policies

   • Do our job advertisements reflect “men wanted” or “women wanted”?

   • How many men and how many women are being hired?

   • How many men and how many women are at every rank and position?
      

   2.      Look at our training policies; Have we integrated gender-fair policies?

   • How many men and women are being trained for management positions?
      

   3.      Where are vital business decisions being made?

   • Are decisions being made during cocktails and during games of golf?

   • Are women and men in our company participating equally in those decision-making events?

   • Are women strongly represented in our Board of Trustees?
      

   4.      Are our universities women–friendly?

   • Are there dark nooks and corners where women can be propositioned?

   • Do we have recourse for complaints against harassment?

   • Do we have a women's desk?

   • Have we evaluated the technologies and machines that we use? Are they usable by women also?

   • Do we have career structures for part-time employees?

   • Do we provide emergency leaves for emergency “care-giving”?

   • Do we support your communities' day care centers?
      

   5.      Are our establishments family-friendly?

   • Have we adopted flexi-time?

   • Do we have activities that promote family participation?

3. Promoting curricular reforms to advocate for women’s empowerment as equal partners of men.

1. Do our programs reinforce gender tracking? Do we encourage and prepare our women for   math, science and technology?  Do we prepare women for leadership roles?

2. Do program content, materials and teaching strategies reinforce gender bias and stereotypical roles for women?

3. Do we offer women's studies courses, programs? Is there gender integration across all subjects?

4. Do we conduct research using sex-disaggregated data?

5. Do we document best practices?

6. Do we have mixed modes of instruction delivery to accommodate working women and those who live far from centers of education?

Transformative Leadership for Success

The PWU vision and mission is to develop leaders—agents of change, people for transformative leadership. To do this, each of us needs to grow as a leader.

We can increase our influence and leadership potential if we understand Transformative Leadership:

1. Levels of leadership; What describes your kind of leadership?

Position-oriented; Rights—People follow because they have to; your influence will not extend beyond the lines of your job description. The longer you stay here, the higher the turnover and the lower the morale.

Permission-dictated; Relationships—People follow because they want to; they will follow beyond your stated authority.

Production-directed; Results—People follow because of what you have done for the University. This is where success is sensed by most people. They like you and what you are doing.

People development; Reproduction-centered—People follow because of what you have done for them. This is where long-range growth occurs.  Your commitment to developing leaders will insure ongoing growth for the University and for the people.

Personhood; Respect—People follow because of who you are and what you represent.

2. Trust is the foundation of leadership. Three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection and character. Character makes trust possible and trust makes leadership possible. Character communicates many things to followers--consistency, potentials, and respect.

Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow. A real leader knows the difference between being the boss and being a leader.

3. Empowering leadership is sometimes the only real advantage one organization has over another in our competitive society. As you empower others, you will find that most aspects of your life will change for the better.  You can make an incredibly positive impact on the lives of the people you empower.
   
   I believe that success is within the reach of just about everyone. But I also believe that personal success without leadership ability brings only limited effectiveness.

"Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others."

- John Maxwell

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? How does one empower others to their full potential? You need to believe in others enough to give them all you can, and in yourself enough to know that it won’t hurt you. Just remember that as long as you continue to grow and develop yourself, you’ll always have something to give, and you won’t need to worry about being displaced.

      We take responsibility for our actions, our growth, and our journey towards significance. Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves. We need to break our own records to do more than what we have done today.

4. Development of Leadership Qualities. Did you know that each of us influences at least ten thousand other people during our lifetime? So, the question is not whether you will influence someone, but how you will use your influence.

• Leadership is developed daily, not in a day – that is reality. The good news is that your leadership ability is not static. To lead tomorrow, learn today, and the first person you lead is you. It would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead.
   

• The right to lead can only be earned.

The Boss drives her staff; the leader coaches them.

The Boss depends upon authority; the leader on goodwill.

The Boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.

The Boss says I; the leader says We.

The Boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.

Spirituality is Essential to Transformative Leadership

Emerging spirituality is discovering our potentials and the meaning of our life. According to Sr. Mary John Mananzan, this means ‘the best that we can become’ by developing and nurturing a kind of spirituality—a kind of “passionate and compassionate spirituality” to arrive at our full humanity.  Doing what’s right earns you the right to lead, and a good leader exudes “passionate and compassionate spirituality.” 

Through these key elements of spirituality, we can assist ourselves to be the best we can become through faith in ourselves to become leaders of significance.

• It is self-affirming, in contrast to self-denying. It is exuberant, active, joyful, hopeful and a glorious celebration of life!  We will strip away false consciousness and useless guilt feelings and allow ourselves to bloom.  We recognize the achievements of those who came before us but we shall not rest on their laurels.  We shall also affirm ourselves, value our strengths, and nourish our self-esteem. We shall strive for self-fulfillment as the only genuine basis of helping others.
   

• It is empowering. We must realize that we need to tap our inner source of power and strength. Our renewed self-esteem will allow us to become agents of change capable of empowering others to bring about societal changes towards a more humane world.
   

• It is integral. This spirituality allows us to transcend the dichotomies and dualism such as matter and spirit, sacred and profane, contemplation and action, which are all necessary elements of life. We cannot separate work from self, or make tough business decisions by compromising our personal values.

We cannot, for example, educate and train our nurses and caregivers for employment abroad without strengthening their self worth, sense of history and culture, loyalty to family and family values. We must flow with our positive and negative experiences, living life to the full with vibrant intensity.

• It is liberating. By gaining self-knowledge and acceptance, we experience our inner liberation. We eliminate poisonous emotions from our hearts to set ourselves free for creative actions.

Sometimes, we keep on blaming others and ourselves for the situation we are in. We blame our meager salaries for the debts we incur, our lack of time to pursue learning for our mediocrity, the lack of available facilities for our lack of initiatives. Let us free ourselves of excuses to allow us to become proactive, creative and useful.

• It is contemplative. We see the importance of moments of silence, reflection and contemplation to give ourselves a better perspective to see what is happening, to keep in touch with our inner source of life, to maintain our balance, thus acquiring an attitude of “committed carefreeness”.
   

• It is healing. When we live self-affirming, empowering, liberating, integral lives, we are healed of our psychic wounds and regain our spiritual health and vigor. Like wounded healers, we are able to heal others with compassion and empathy.
   

• It is a continuous process. This spirituality is alive, with its agonies and ecstasies. It is open to the great possibilities of life and freedom and to more opportunities to be truly and wholly alive.

A TRANSFORMATIVE WOMAN LEADER

INTEGRAL & CONTEMPLATIVE

COMMITTED BUT CAREFREE

Relationship to God: Complete surrender

God is her inexhaustible source of strength,            

love and joy within one’s being;

Knows she is important but not indispensable

Relationship to neighbor: Mutually empowering

PROPHETIC: Announces good news and bad news;

Has a passion for justice;

Advocates respect for human rights;

Promotes development   

of full humanity 

COMPASSIONATE: Passionate empathy

Readiness to learn from others

Readiness to share what is

of personal value

Relationship to oneself:  Self-affirming

LIFE-AFFIRMING: Celebrates life

Works toward conscious mind-body-spirit integration

Cultivates inner freedom, self-knowledge, self-acceptance

Relationship to Mother Earth:  Interconnected

LIVES IN THE PRESENT: constant wakefulness and awareness

Consciously takes responsibility for the present

In exercising their prophetic role, women leaders are advised to take the positive approach. A noted Filipino woman CEO, now executive director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Emily Abrera, asked media practitioners: “What does it cost to seek out the ennobling aspect on a regular basis and give it a place of prominence? ... By recognizing the positive you create it.”

Gender equity and women’s empowerment should go in tandem to form a foundation for success and significance among individual women leaders. Now, let us turn our attention to the four key concepts in the context of the role of educational institutions, particularly women’s universities wishing to play a leading and proactive role towards developing and mainstreaming gender equity in today’s globalizing world:  Success, Significance, Faith and Transformative Leadership.

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