On Leadership In a Time of Challenge

Do you need to be a man to be a leader? Nope. In fact, that might be what gets in the way.

With thanks to my Illumination fellow writer Paul Myers MBA, I’m going to do my best to respond to the challenge concerning leadership. Right now I’m in the middle of a huge life transition, selling a house, living in a hostel in Eugene, and hanging between trapezes.

I like that. I prefer leaders who can do that as well. Not because that makes them like me, but being able to manage effectively through a crisis teaches others how to do it as well, as opposed to dangerous denial and dithering, which is what we have here in America.

I recognize that many of us prefer male models of leadership, and that is what society has long taught us. The best model is a male one.

God made men to lead.

Um. No. She didn’t. Men have too often led us down a terrible and destructive path as world leaders, as religious leaders.

As I’ve had time I have read a few other articles related to the topic, I am a little surprised in my fellow writers for referring almost exclusively to the male models, male examples. Most, if not all quotes, are in reference to He rather than She, as a leader.

This isn’t a criticism. It’s an observation.

To that, I kindly defer to my Medium peep Rosennab, who as usual, says this better than I can:

With respect to us all, as someone who trains leadership skills, who has been a military leader, who has worked at very high levels in corporate America with women leaders, I guess it surprises me that so many remarkable women leaders and great heads of state of history are both ignored and left unquoted as though they didn’t existed.

The world has a long and storied history of denying and suppressing female talent:

and then there are writers:

Many may not realize why J.K. Rowling didn’t use her first name. From the article:

In fact even her publisher supported this decision as it was felt that the young male readers of “Harry Potter” would be unable to connect to the plot if the author’s name was feminine.

I could go through every major career area throughout the course of history and list plenty of the same examples. It is a breathtaking cost to society to not only deny half the population the right to an education (which is still widespread) but to deny women basic human rights, including the right to contribute to society that which she alone is able to give us. Her medical skills, her creativity, her unique leadership skills, the list is endless.

Instead, still today, society rips the hearts out of women in nearly all cultures by continuing to treat them solely as chattel, sexual property, and much less than because she doesn’t possess the almighty penis.

Accusing her of “hysteria” when she rages about sexual abuse.

Calling her “crazy” when she calls out the crimes against herself and her sisters, perpetrated by men, men who are supported by her sick sisters who benefit from supporting those men. Women who don’t support other women out of fear and the lies that they absolutely have to have protection in human society. Here’s another powerful article by Dr. Bakari on that topic:

To say that we suffer and will continue to suffer as a species because we so universally hate, demean, despise and disrespect women is a massive understatement. Not all of us, not at all. But too many. For to truly empower women we have to restructure to be able to share. How we treat minority women is far, far worse, but that is not the purpose of this article. This is about leadership only.

I read some many years ago that a society could be judged, fairly, on how it treats its women and its animals. Interesting that the two are lumped together. Both are widely still considered possessions, without agency, without true rights, and in service to men.

Such ludicrous assumptions are hardly a thing of the past.

You need only travel where I’ve traveled to see how religion and patriarchy operate to punish women for being women, relegating them to the very edges of humanity. The crime of being old and female? Shame on you. The ultimate crime of being old and BLACK and female? Death sentence is too kind.

The arguments about women’s competence and intelligent weren’t helped by peabrains and arrogant asses like this one whose work is still affecting us today:

Are women good leaders? Don’t get me started. I keep reading Medium articles that largely only list male leaders as examples and quotes from male leaders as our guidance. The reason is the incredibly effective brainwashing job that society has done to teach us to largely ignore those exceptional Humans Who Happen to Possess a Vagina when we think about leadership.

In a perfect example of this, South African President Nelson Mandela is given credit for a quote that was not his at all, but which was written by American author and once-Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson:

Why do we hijack greatness from women? Why do we eviscerate their power and give credit for their words to men? Why do we assume that men are better leaders when the state of the world today is absolute proof of their folly, and the folly of what happens when we suppress women?

Why on earth do we fear women so much that we punish them for being female? Despite men’s best efforts, many women have risen anyway, including a few that men did their best to execute for the crime of wanting an education, like Malala, below.

This article lists a few of my favorites, including Queen Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, both of whom were extraordinary leaders and strategists. Why does history ignore them in favor of male leaders? Why are these women leaders not quoted and referred to as often as male leaders?

Why are we not discussing the brilliant Madeleine Albright, first female Secretary of State, who famously said (and I wholeheartedly agree) that “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women?”

Why aren’t we discussing Condoleezza Rice?

If ever there was a time to acknowledge that this model needs to be rethought, it’s now. Leaders come in a great many forms and types, genders and backgrounds. Plenty of military leaders were gay, whether or not current society wishes either to acknowledge or validate that fact. We tend to ignore extraordinary female military leaders:

Before the patriarchal religions ripped women off the throne, denied them their agency and subjugated them, many if not most of the world’s societies worshiped the female deity, the Earth Mother (Please see When God Was a Woman, Merlin Stone). Tamping down and controlling the great gifts of women has cost the human race its humanity. That we in America struggle so terribly with the idea of seeing a woman at the helm of our country brought us Donald Trump, who is in every way an offense to every single decent standard of humanity, but also has rushed our country backwards at speed. More woman-hating laws passed, more woman-bashing behavior, more hate, more anger, more fear. I hardly consider this leadership.

As for these Conditions right now? The best leaders in the world have all been women. Women. Not men. Women who have demonstrated exceptional judgement, swift decision-making and intense compassion for those for whom they are responsible. As a result death rates have been very low in those countries, and they are safely reopening without having been brought to their knees.

Men will write books that extol male leaders because it validates a world view that men make the best leaders. Some do. Many don’t. It depends. Leadership, to my mind, is a changing, moving thing, highly situational, and demanding that those who happen to lead be adaptive, receptive and responsive.

By definition, that also doesn’t define the world’s dictators. Male or female.

Dictators make the coronavirus much worse.

Adaptive, receptive, responsive leaders- male and female- care about their countries and their communities.

By definition, that doesn’t define far too many of our patriarchal religious leaders, whose wholesale engagement in sex trafficking, sexual misconduct-as-sanctioned-by-the-male-led-church, whose resistance to female leadership speaks to their terror of female power indicate a far greater interest in their penises and power than their dedication to God. Who, of course, is a white male.

Of course God is a white male. Don’t fucking get me started. Seeing God as a woman shrivels the Almighty Penis just a bit.

Those who buy into and believe wholeheartedly in the dominant, aggressive, dictatorial male model voted for Trump after the more intellectual, collaborative style of his predecessor. By preferring a dominant male, we got a bully, a liar, a rapist, an abuser, and a whole lot more most of us didn’t bargain for.All too many of these are the kinds of male traits which have led us to the world that we have today. An earth raped of her resources, strip-mined, her air and water polluted, her animals decimated.

America is hardly alone. Other countries such as Indonesia and Brazil are racing down that same road, ripping out the lungs of the earth, wiping out species like orangutans and killing off the Indigenous tribes of the Amazon for what, gold? Oil? Palm oil for fucking FRITOS? We wipe out entire forests and species for

FRITOS?

Well of course we do. It’s called profits and power.

Before you bark at me that the CEO of Pepsi was until recently a woman, Indra Nooyi, I’m well aware. However, during her tenure she took a massive risk and moved to the company towards healthier products. Earnings took a hit, analysts doubted her, and now those analysts are eating crow-flavored Lays. Nooyi is now seeking ways to develop women leaders.

While personally I’d prefer that such companies shut down forest-killing operations, women have to work within the existing systems and change from within. That takes brains and time. That’s what Nooyi did, to her credit.

Too many other CEOs (with Jeff Bezos as American Robber Baron exhibit #1) rip off their employees and everyone else and just keep getting richer, as opposed to investing in employee safety, health, welfare and benefits.

He as a leader is admired…why? Because he’s fucking RICH.

At all costs. Health, safety, welfare be damned. Profits above people.

Well of course. Money. Not harmony. Power, not people finding a way to collaborate with what surrounds us. That is the male model. Or more specifically, the white male model. Plenty of indigenous tribes have deeply connected relationships with the Goddess Mother. Being male (or white, kindly) isn’t the problem. Being twisted by the compulsion to dominate and control is the problem.

The authoritative male version of winning equals rape. Of the earth, of her people. Wholesale rapine.

And of course there’s this:

One male moron American political leader commented that “a woman doesn’t need healthcare below the waist after she turns fifty.” He clearly hasn’t had any healthcare above the neck since he was born.

Speaking of healthcare, there’s this about mortality rates:

While there are women who buy into the male model (because of the promise of protection), the disrespect for and domination of Nature rather than the desire to live in harmony with Her has brought our species to its knees.

Truth is, women are not only completely capable but ready to lead. Many other countries have elected female leaders…

…long before we have. We still haven’t. This cycle we went back to an old white man. There were several female/Black female candidates that I felt strongly would have been far better. I am completely unapologetic about my preferences, and while Hilary troubled me greatly in some ways, the fact that she wasn’t likeable didn’t get in the way of her immense competence.

I realize that statement will lay me open for severe criticism. Before you write me the same old shit that I have heard for years about the Evil Hilary, I would point out that I have worked on several Presidential campaigns, known very high level senators and congressmen, known several Presidential candidates, worked at the highest levels of government and probably have a slightly better working knowledge of politics- especially at the top levels-than the average American. We want perfection of our leaders, we want to like if not love them, and we want them unsullied. Politics sullies all who engage in it, for it demands a price most of us won’t pay: massive compromise.

Plenty of people pilloried Hillary for getting paid huge amounts of money for her speeches. This is evil, why? Men have done this for decades. Why on earth is it not fair that she, or I, or any other woman, get paid the same high fees for speeches, given that that’s just one way to pay the millions it takes to win a campaign? It’s just one more way we as a society slap down a woman who DARES to do what men do. And yes, to me it is that simple. We don’t like uppity women in America and we punish them. Make that uppity woman Black or Hispanic or Asian and the how DARE you is far more bitter.

I wrote a prize-winning article about Christine Gregoire shortly before she became governor of Washington. I’ve had my share of chances to meet remarkable, talented and immensely capable women in whom I would have complete confidence. People who understood the beauty of collaboration and compromise, the concept of fairness, equal opportunity and the sacred birthright of all humans for decent treatment and a chance to make a contribution. Not just to their campaigns.

Yet we want perfection, women we can like, whose clothing and hairstyles we approve of. How childish. How ridiculous. We want a virgin candidate. We’ll smear a woman candidate if her lipstick smears, not if she can take on Wall Street and win for the little guy. We had candidates that I believed would have done one hell of a job for us. When Elizabeth Warren dropped out I wanted to weep. I did weep. Now we have an aging white man. Again.

If we want female leaders, and I most certainly do, we women will need to support each other. Why that seems so hard is another article but it is an infection of a patriarchal system that we continue to accept and prop up, assuming that only men can lead. Works when men are the ones telling us this, brainwashing us with the bullshit that women can’t…(fill in the blank.)

Over the centuries, we’ve been told utter bullshit like: women can’t run marathons because their uterus will fall out. OH FOR CHRISSAKES. Women can’t fly because they can’t handle the airplane. OH FOR CHRISSAKES. Women can’t women can’t women can’t. Not only can I tell you from personal experience that all this is utter nonsense, I can point with great pride to all the women before me, today and ahead of me who broke and will break a billion male-created, fear-backed barriers. Those barriers existed because fearful men knew damned fucking well women might not only do as well but better at some.

Including, leading.

When we buy the lies so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of our male colleagues, the world is bereft of music, writing, medical discoveries, inventions, the list is endless. As we have been since the beginning of patriarchal religions.

My esteemed Illumination colleagues who wrote articles about leadership, do you have girl children? Do you have high hopes for them?

For if we do, do we understand that if we do not see women as leaders, which is indicated by our choice of quotes and examples (Lincoln, Churchill, etc) then we have set the ceiling so low for our girl children that they are doomed to keep right on being less than? Most of us have no idea we do this.

My fellow Illumination writer Kathryn wrote this in response to Paul’s challenge:

I love Dr. LeRoy’s articles, and I also respect her along with all my other fellow writers, as well as their opinions and preferences. I note here, without any judgement, that Dr. LeRoy’s list of leaders contains only men. That’s not a criticism but an observation. Not long ago, had I been asked about leaders, I might have listed the same names, or similar. We are habituated to think of men first. I was too, a child of the Sixties, not raised to think of myself as a potential leader nor of women as having a rightful claim to that role.

As a fan of Dr. LeRoy’s, I’d have loved to have read far more about what she has done as a woman leader, rather than what others write about the topic. What male leaders have to say about it. Her personal experience is to me far more relevant and powerful. But that’s just me.

In the last three decades, my feelings about leadership, and who makes good leaders, have changed substantially.

The two women noted in Dr. LeRoy’s article are authors and speakers who interviewed leaders. I wasn’t able to find a list of the leaders that Brené Brown interviewed for her book. In all fairness to both Dr. LeRoy and Ms. Brown, they could well have interviewed women, and I haven’t read either of their books. My guess is that they did but I don’t know.

I sure hope so. For I sure think Oprah Winfrey qualifies as one hell of a leader. So do an awful lot of other women.

And then there’s this list:

This is a challenge, not a critique. In no way am I calling anyone out as wrong. I am noticing who we keep leaving out of the conversation. I’ve done it myself, more times than I care to admit. I have changed over the years, as I have watched the price the world has had to pay for either downplaying or ignoring women in general and women leaders in particular.

You might think that Margaret Thatcher was a hatchet woman and a fool for waging a hugely popular war in the Falklands, but she was one hell of a leader. Likeable? Probably not. But she could lead.

My father, who raised me as an equal to my brother on the farm, was deeply disappointed when I had my tubes tied. He raged at me when his sweet little girl grew into a leader, which didn’t fit his version of the world. My father’s primacy by way of having a penis was threatened. He denied me access to my mother, threw me out of the house and wrote me out of the family will, then handed the keys to the checking account to my big brother who robbed them blind. After my father’s death I had to wrest that control back or my mother would have been left a ward of the state. I had to take the lead in my family.

Dr. LeRoy is right, that we communicate to our kids about leaders, and about women’s roles and potentials all the time. My impressions were solidified early on by my mother’s prejudices.

My mother told me when I was barely twelve that “men like women with their legs open and their mouths shut.” Not exactly a leadership lesson, is it? What beliefs are we imprisoning our girl children with, fellow writers, parents, influencers?

When I take on the much larger issues of gender inequality I get, as they say where I’m from, “all het up.”

These are Paul’s questions:

1.How do you prioritize your emotional function? It depends. Sometimes logic is best, sometimes emotions are wiser. The smart leaders understand when to use what skill set.

2. How do you thrive in a crisis? Probably when I operate the absolute best.Crises demand intuitive wisdom, a willingness to fuck up royally and no time to weep over what I did wrong. You. Move. On.

3. How about radical innovation? Because of the rather radical way I live I have to innovate almost daily. It’s not an option. I cannot live in a rut. The rut becomes my grave.

4. Are you equipped for defining moments in conflict? Like many, I hate conflict. But I have the courage to know that conflict avoided is growth avoided. Walking through conflict without forfeiting parts of who I am to get along has made me much stronger.

5. Do you know your followers? In fact, pretty well. I read, listen to and respond to those people who take the time to reach out. What they say matters. What they comment on guides, and how they respond is a lesson in humility. I have great respect for the intelligence and wisdom of those who follow me.

Leadership doesn’t prefer a gender.

However we as a species have largely handed the keys to our heaven here on earth to men, far too many of them very bad men, including right now. The results speak for themselves. By denying his other half, the feminine part of his soul, man has too often become and remains a beast. By seeing vulnerability as a weakness, we value strength disguised as brutality as an advantage. Women can be brutal too, but I would argue that they have been largely because society values male traits over female. To gain power, women have too often have had to sell their feminine souls.

Those great male leaders who had developed and were deeply in touch with their feminine sides were all too often cast aside for those with the appearance of strength and power. I would again point to Trump.

If that is your version of leadership, then god help us all. We get precisely what we deserve when we keep our feet placed squarely on the necks of half of society: women, of all colors, backgrounds, cultures.

If you will forgive my hijacking of this phrase for the purpose of making a point, they cannot breathe. And as a result, humanity can’t either. Which is why our paradise the Earth is choking right now.

We need more women leaders. More women with a voice, a say in their own destiny, and a right to live as they deserved. And we need more male leaders who don’t suffocate the feminine within out of fear.

I heartily agree with Dr. LeRoy. We are messaging to our kids, our students, our mentees right now what we think about who makes a leader. If women aren’t on our radar, if women don’t leap to mind when someone asks us to list leaders we admire, then we are also by example communicating to our kids that women don’t belong there.

Just an observation. Not a criticism. We do not change the world by doing what we’ve always done and coloring inside the lines. Sometimes we have to erase them altogether.