It’s Time for Women’s
Leadership
A few weeks ago I wrote about the business benefits of
hiring and promoting women. Your small business will reap the benefits of doing
so.
Additionally, you will display you sustainable colors by
supporting SDG #5 of the UN
Sustainable Development Goals – Achieve
Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls.
Recently, New Jersey was the sight of the first Metro Women’s
Leadership Summit that was filled with fascinating speakers from the worlds of
business and politics and interesting women leaders who came to listen and
share their observations.
I’d like to introduce to you my wife, Oksana Dlaboha of HR
Tie Breaker, a participant, and share with you her thoughts on this historic
event.
It’s time for women’s
leadership.
An exceptional group of women decided that it’s high time
for the metropolitan area to convene The Metro Women's Leadership Summit – an event that would generate
awareness, an event where women (and a few righteous brothers) would gather to
share the best of the best: ideas, practices, improvements, insights and
concepts that make their businesses unique.
Such an event took place on Friday, June 1, at the Newark
Airport Marriott Hotel.
On the home page of the summit website, the word “climbing”
in the phrase “climbing the ladder” was crossed out with a red pen and replaced
with the phrase “redefining the ladder,” which placed the emphasis on the
ladder and perhaps destination rather than the climb. Interesting, isn’t it?
Carol Gabel,
executive director of the Metro Women’s Leadership Summit and president of
Seven Pearls, a risk management and small business development firm, explained
that today’s women don’t climb the ladder, they are redefining it and
describing their own path to success.
The keynote speakers at the summit were three powerful women
in business and politics: New Jersey First Lady Tammy Snyder Murphy, Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Sandra
Yancey, founder of eWomenNetwork.
They gave us, participants, a lot of food for thought as we set out to redefine
the ladder or our destination.
Oliver said leadership is the only ship that doesn’t return
to port in a storm and described the key to business success is
diversity and inclusion. At the end of her speech, Oliver recited a beautiful
poem by Ruby Dee called “Calling All
Women,” in which every line was more than powerful and had a direct
relation to the event.
Calling all women.
To steal away to our secret place.
Have a meeting face to face.
Look at the facts and determine our pace.
Calling all women.
Come help us start to bridge the gaps
Racial, cultural, or generation
We want some action and veneration.
We got to get together or die.
Now is the time for an evolution
Let’s all search and find a solution
For how we’ll make it to the next revolution.
Oliver set the tone, and in this atmosphere, all 100
speakers in more than 40 breakout sessions delivered a range of ideas and
insights for all participants throughout the day. The Metro Summit was an event
in which every participant had an opportunity to find her interest - from
leadership advice to health topics, from business to personal, hearing new
trends, and networking with interesting people.
It was truly a reunion of powerful women, whose ideas
resounded in one loud and powerful voice.
It was definitely a time to applaud leadership, where
creativity was encouraged, and it was really time when every woman
received her own, just reward.
Can’t wait for the
next summit.
As I had written, none of this means that you have to turn
your company upside down. It means that you run your business in a responsible,
inclusive manner with genuinely equal opportunities for every employee. And you
will reap the benefits. Businesses that participate in the Sustainable
Development Goals stand to experience an unbelievable windfall. The SDGs have
the potential to unleash innovation, economic growth and development at an
unprecedented scale and could be worth at least $12 trillion a year in market
opportunities and generate up to 380 million new jobs by 2030.
Join the conversation in cyberspace about women’s
empowerment, sustainability and boosting your outreach. If you have examples,
let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.
Scroll through my blog to read about more ways to boost your
outreach.
I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership
website:
If you’re looking for advice on recruiting, company
handbooks and other human resources topics, I’d like to suggest to you this
interesting website:
