Women Emerging Podcast Women Emerging

Here Katrina Webb puts Sarah Henry and I right , the expression she always goes back to is “your body is your barometer” . Katrina tells us that we need to listen to it. Because it is so often right! She says she meets too many leaders who are intellectual and spend too much time in their heads. Our bodies might just tell us to lie down quietly or run up a hill NOW - just at the right moment - before we blow the next meeting or process or thinking.
And Katrina adds that a strong relationship with our bodies is a starting point for having a strong relationship with others, it helps us to judge as leaders  “when to come in and out”.

The spiritual - or rather the sacred as Aparna Uppaluri says - has always been a deeply powerful resource to women. After all in a world where there is little else to rely on it is not a surprise.
In this episode Aparna tells us why the sacred is part of her essence as a leader and how this shapes how she leads in her daily life

‘An accidental leader’ this is how Folawe Omikunle describes herself. Avoiding leadership right through her education, jumping into jobs because she fell in love with their cause and blind to their leadership challenges, leadership was never on her agenda. But Folawe does now accept that even if she still doesn’t think of herself as a leader, the people around her do, so “I have to accept it”.
Looking back this ‘accidental leader’ reflects on how much easier it would have been, how more confident she would have been, how she could have channelled her energies better, if there had been an ‘approach to leadership that resonated for her’ available. Then she could have “taken the blindfolds off”

Music was everywhere in Bellagio. Sung by all, composed by Anna Kuk , played by Katya Guryeva, shared by Hinemoa Elder and Ana Luz Porzecanski and Dr Ayesha Mian, danced to by Aparna Uppaluri.
Why? Surely we were there for the serious business of capturing - as our #expedition drew to a close - an ‘approach to leadership that resonates with women’.
We did. And it called for music to bring us together, lift our eyes, reveal our inferences, land our thoughts, dance to new tunes, combine our ideas and create our poetry.
This hastily put together episode as we leave will give you more of a sense things.

women leaders need female friendships if they are to survive and thrive.

Mothering teenagers is generally considered to be a nightmare. Samia and Saba make it look easier. And show us how it makes us better leaders. Saba even admits to reading many leadership books that persuaded her that she had to change but that it was only when her teenage sons said the same thing to her that she actually did. Of mothering she says “I thought I was there to teach my sons but rapidly realised how much they were teaching me and this translated directly and forcefully to my leadership. “
There is so much learning in this episode for leaders.
I also pull out Samia’s words about communication skills and making sure that you are constantly upskilling them as a leader. Things change, generations are different, how we communicate has to evolve. And if we don't, Samia says we develop “cataracts” and don't see things.