Empowering Women Empowering Cultures

Abstract

Having discussed out some of the systemic dynamics that undermine women’s leadership in the context of business organizations, we now extend our analysis to women’s leadership roles within their communities. In itself, this also provides important perspectives on these individuals’ functioning within their organizational contexts. In a global setting where the most propitious leadership styles are interactive, systemic and complex, one of the challenges is to deal with the cultural and religious backgrounds of various participants in an organization. These various backgrounds create multi-layered variables that account for differences in leadership style and may conflict with a more Western view of leadership. Tedmanson’s study of women from colonized cultures and how they lead both as community leaders and in organizations helps the reader to understand the systemic challenges and contributions that cultural diversity engenders. One of the most important contributions of the paper is that it makes us aware of how community interaction is an important training ground for organizational leadership, and also poses challenges to a reductionist understanding of organizational leadership. In the community realm, women have the freedom to lead on issues they consider important and procure the kind of change that has real effects for those they care about. This should inspire a rethinking of organizational leadership in more relational terms. It also emphasizes these women’s leadership capacities in the various spheres of their lives and thereby helps us to debunk the infamous public-private split that has led to the devaluation of women’s leadership capacities for centuries.