Bringing in the Feminine as a Leadership Principle
As we become more conscious leaders, we must become aware of the gender inequity we are perpetuating or participating in
We live at a time where the world is waking up to the inequity in gender, and very naturally, women around the globe are rising. It began with women’s suffrage movement, then it was about women winning the right over their body, their childbearing, and their sexuality –including the #MeToo movement— and now it's about women claiming their voice and leadership in politics and business. Finally, after hundreds and thousands of years of being second citizens, women want equal voice, share, rights, opportunities, and status.
Just as in the 19th and 20th centuries, humanity was coming out of slavery and colonization, in the 21st century, we must come out of the inequity of the patriarchy, it's just part of human evolution. Even though it’s said that business is based on meritocracy, that “gender does not matter,” as a subset of society, business is conditioned by our patriarchal socialization that we are not even aware of –the so-called unconscious bias—. To overcome this bias, not just women need to rise, but also the feminine as an element or principle in leadership.
Business has been clearly made by men and for men. In the aftermath of World War II, women entered the business world and the workforce, having to learn to play by (biased) rules that are not innate and natural to them. It's an unequal playing field that continues to benefit men and all masculine things.
This is easy to understand if we consider masculine and feminine as languages. Because of their innate nature, women are more fluent in the feminine and men in the masculine. However, men and women have both natures. Due to social conditioning, women have developed their feminine core more, while men have suppressed it.
One of our goals as leaders (and organizations) should be to become gender bilingual. As Avivah Wittenberg-Cox says, we must learn to speak fluently masculine and feminine. This entails raising up all feminine things, so that feminine qualities need to be as valued as masculine qualities. Don't just value strength, decisiveness, and action orientation, but equally value empathy, compassion, kindness, and inclusiveness. Women bring these feminine qualities very quickly, but they have not traditionally been valued or rewarded. We have some great examples of female leaders who have successfully brought gender balance to their leadership, such as Kristin Engvig (WIN), Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), or Ariana Huffington (The Huffpost). I invite the reader to learn about their stories.
What can leaders (men and women) do to become gender bilingual? First, they must learn to discern inside them these two broad archetypes: masculine and feminine behaviors and values. To what extent are they equally developed and in balance with each other determines whether leaders are in their full power. That is what we do with Shakti leadership, a concept that we will share with Mexican women leaders in a one-week executive training in Puerto Vallarta.
Shakti is a Sanskrit word for the strength of power or creative force, associated with the female gods. Shakti is the principle from which all things emerge, the fuel of creation that all things are nurtured and supplied. Leaders come into their full power when they are healthy feminine and healthy masculine. When these two halves come together, they can express their full capacity.
Shakti is an inner power and has nothing to do with an external source. It comes from within when you feel psychologically and spiritually whole. Then you show up as a force of nature: you feel alive and vitalized by your innate sense of self and it's a very joyful, intelligent energy, because you get an understanding of what you need to know. When you are in this energy flow, the right words will come to you at the right time. People will also get present because you are present –it’s difficult for them to be absent if you are present—, and what would take one hour will get done in two minutes because you somehow shifted levels of consciousness.
So, when women and men tap into their Shakti, they not only revive and revitalize their innate nature and bring the juice life back to themselves, but they can also bring that energy and balance to the workplace, building healthier organizations and a more conscious business world.
The author is leadership coach, and instructor of the executive program Women Leading Organizations at EGADE Business School.
Article originally published in Expansión Mujeres.
