Issue N° 13 Edited by Claire Carroll (F'90) Dear Fletcher Women: As Chair of the Fletcher Women's Network, I am delighted to introduce our thirteenth newsletter, one that enables us to take yet another step forward by focusing on the concept, needs, examples and goals of "global women's leadership" as they relate to Fletcher women. This newsletter is both about, and grounded in, women's leadership. Three Fletcher alumnae on Fletcher's Board of Overseers have taken the lead in launching the Initiative for Women's International Leadership (IWIL): Lis Tarlow (F'84, 97), Alice Finn (F'86) and Betsy Powell (F'62). You may have read the article about IWIL on page ten of the 2012 spring/summer issue of Fletcher News. Below, you will find interviews with Lis and Alice that explain their motivations and aspirations. Claire Carroll (F'90) spearheaded the development of a "white paper" to guide the group’s initial thinking. Within this newsletter we share key sections of the white paper and we (both the FWN and IWIL) sincerely thank Claire for taking on the project. Leadership has many dimensions, with the most common version recognized as that exercised within political or corporate spheres. Another version conjures images of spearheading action, within the context of sports, military campaigns and citizen demonstrations. Yet one fundamental aspect of leadership is the assertion and use of power that is not necessarily undertaken publicly or visibly. One framework for understanding "power" proposes three types: visible, hidden and invisible.1 We most often think of the first two, suggesting the visible power of a President or CEO, and behind-the-scenes powerbrokers, respectively. The third type of power, however, is often overlooked: Invisible power refers to the power to "shape meaning", i.e. affecting how people think and what they value. Such power may be exercised overtly or subtly by leaders in religious, educational and media institutions, as well as by leaders in families and communities. For this newsletter, we have an example of such leadership from Barbara Geary Truan (F'90), who challenges us to think more clearly about the pervasive and contentious issue of "work-life balance". Finally, with this newsletter we would like to encourage our readers to consider whether leadership necessarily presupposes a public and visible dimension. In February, a group of eight Fletcher women gathered in Geneva to discuss IWIL and develop some input for its direction. One of their primary recommendations, resulting from nearly seven hours of discussion, was that IWIL adopt a broader definition of leadership: 1 See A New Weave of Power, People and Politics by Lisa VeneKlasen and Valerie Miller of Just Associates, www.justassociates.org/ FWN Newsletter: Fletcher Women & Leadership Page 1 November 2012 This definition should go beyond C-suite positions in industry and high-ranking government jobs. It should include women who take initiative, who use their positions to influence events, and who have successfully integrated meaningful professional work with personal goals. Women running their own small businesses, teaching, or shaping community all are very much leaders. Thus when we seek and recognize women leaders, do we expect their leadership to be visible? Is the leadership of Fletcher women always visible? Or, might some be powerful but hidden? Furthermore, to what extent are "accepted" definitions of leadership predicated on where and how men typically take leadership, thereby ignoring or undervaluing different places and ways in which women often lead? With this newsletter (but hopefully also with your responses), we seek to identify Fletcher women leaders who demonstrate a variety of leadership approaches. Regarding the more visible leadership, we as the Fletcher Women's Network aim to transcend networking activities and create purposeful mechanisms to increase our voices and influence. Two such initiatives still in the planning stages are introduced in this newsletter - one relates to the Op-Ed Project (to ensure Fletcher women's perspectives are in the public debate) and the other is a pilot project aimed at getting Fletcher women onto public boards-of-directors (to contribute to planning and policies, and exercise some influence in those realms). Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this issue, but particularly to Claire Carroll, Barbara Geary Truan, Karla Brom (F'89) and Violeta Archer (F’91). Thank you, too, to all Fletcher women who make us proud by their leadership around the world, of all kinds. And thank you to the founders of IWIL for generating this focus and for working with the School to strengthen its contributions to women's leadership. With admiration for Fletcher women as they lead in so many ways, Marcia Greenberg (F'91) Note: If you are interested in any of the topics or initiatives in this issue, please note the links to 'Round the [virtual] Water Cooler for more information and for discussions. If you want to be part of planning and follow-up, be sure to click on "follow" at the bottom of any discussion and note your interest for us! If you have joined us at the Water Cooler, but have forgotten your password, go to the sign-in page, enter the email you used, and click on "Forgot your password?" so the system can send you an opportunity to create a new one. http://fletcherwomensnetwork.ning.com/main/authorization/signIn?target=http://fletcherwomens network.ning.com/ If you have not yet joined more than 575 women on our on-line community, email us at Fletcherwomen@rocketmail to ask to be invited. FWN Newsletter: Fletcher Women & Leadership Page 2 November 2012 1 | Initiative on Women's International Leadership (IWIL) A growing body of research correlates strong organizational performance with the presence of women in top management positions and on boards. Nevertheless, a complex web of deeply embedded institutional barriers and psychological factors prevent women from rising to chief positions at the same rates as their male counterparts. The good news is that significant and encouraging efforts to address this imbalance are underway not only on the global stage, but also in our own backyard at Fletcher with the launch of IWIL. In May 2011, Fletcher's Senior Spotlight on IWIL co-founder Alice Finn Director for Alumni Relations, Jennifer Weingarden Lowery, Q: How do you define leadership? A: I’m in the private sector, in the wealth management industry, where invited Fletcher board member, leadership is defined in traditional terms as being an owner, C-level Alice Finn, to meet with executive, and/or on the board of a company. In the private sector, current Fletcher students unless you are in a traditional leadership position, you don’t get the working on the Gender & same pay, recognition, or opportunities to have as much of an Equality Project (GEP), a impact. Therefore, for example, it’s important for women to get on student organization of men boards. Of course, women take leadership roles in non-traditional and women that has been ways, not necessarily as the titled head of traditional conducting research and organizations. They do more than they get credit for. However, it’s organizing skills-based training much harder for women to achieve their potential if, for complicated for students interested in reasons, traditional positions of leadership are not as available to them. institutional change, using case studies that focus on Q: What factors do you attribute to your own rise to a leadership 2 position? gender. Finn came away from A: I’ve been thinking about work-life balance since I was an the meeting thinking that undergraduate at Harvard/Radcliffe in 1984. With Radcliffe president GEP’s important work was part Matina Horner as my adviser, I organized a roundtable on work-life of a bigger need to increase the balance, which made me aware of the inherent challenges. So I number of Fletcher women in structured my life to do both. For example, I began my career as a leadership positions. Finn lawyer but saw that the hourly billing system would make it difficult to noted that given that one of be the type of parent I wanted to be - and so partly for that reason, I Fletcher’s primary aims is to switched careers. educate professionals from around the world and to Q. What do you hope IWIL will accomplish? A. While, anecdotally, there are examples of progress, not enough has prepare them for positions of changed statistically in 25 years, and this motivates me to try to make a leadership and influence in the difference. Just as women who came before me passed on their national and international knowledge and experience, I want to use mine to help women achieve arenas, Finn concluded that their potential. Women, and men, who come to Fletcher wanting to be clearly more needs to be done global leaders should be given both the academic and pragmatic tools to support women’s attainment they will need to succeed in the long run so they can help improve the in this area. future of national and international leadership for both genders. 2 'Round the Cooler, go to Elisabet Rodriguez’ discussion forum. http://fletcherwomensnetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/how-to-leverage-our- experience?commentId=2085666:Comment:24778 FWN Newsletter: Fletcher Women & Leadership Page 3 November 2012 Finn's meeting with GEP coincided with a larger discussion among several Fletcher board members, including Finn, Lis Tarlow, Betsy Powell, and Farah Pandith, who agreed that Fletcher could be doing more, in service of its mission, to "get aspiring leaders to come to Fletcher and then help keep them on the leadership path.” At the Fall 2011 meeting of the Fletcher Board of Overseers, Finn, Powell, and Tarlow proposed a new initiative, then called the Global Women Leadership at Fletcher: The impetus behind our initiative is the recognition that more than half of the students at Fletcher are women, yet they do not seem to be rising to positions of leadership and influence in the numbers that one would hope for by now.