how four local leaders are effecting change

Women leaders have come a long way since 1916, when Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Now Americans are considering electing a woman to the White House. And Congress, with 23 percent of its members being women, better reflects our national constituency.
 We still have a long way to go, but the ways and values of women’s leadership are slowly becoming more valued and accepted. This month, Natural Awakenings asked four Southwest Florida women leaders about their insights and hopes for this welcome trend.

Sharing the Wealth

Leveraging her college English degree and teaching certification allowed Deborah Shane to effectively interweave dual careers for several years before deciding to concentrate on her passion for entertainment. A performer at heart, through her college years she wrote music and played in several groups, including one she formed. After five years of leading a musician’s life on the road, Shane moved on to work in the business of entertainment management. An ensuing 20-year career in broadcast media succeeded in bringing her to the end of her advancement rope in 2006. She let go without a safety net, wondering, “What else is there out there for me?”

The answer was Train with Shane, her concept for an education and training company that she’d put in her tickle file six years earlier. “Instead of acting on the idea then, I accepted a promotion that gave me an opportunity to develop a nationwide mentoring program for new sales people,” explains Shane. This aspect of her prior career has become integral to her present business of training, mentoring and coaching Southwest Florida community business leaders.

With the support of the Greater Ft. Myers Chamber of Commerce she’d joined, Shane has created a Women’s Empowerment Series of educational events that bring women business leaders together. “The best part,” acknowledges Shane, “is the interactive breakout time, when we all share ideas and solutions for the issues we are looking to influence or change.”

Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian psychologist and author of Urgent Message from Mother, Gather the Women and Save the World, supports Shane’s observation. Bolen emphasizes, “Whenever there is encouragement and practical support to make a significant change, change is more likely to happen. That others believe in us, or have the same perspective we have, has a powerful and invisible effect.”

Balancing Power

Ann Smith, co-founder of Circle Connections, has witnessed these effects in her circle training and YinPowerment workshops. Every gathering demonstrates the integration, cooperation, unity, balance and harmony that can be present when women lead.

Says Smith, “My collaboration with my partner is a good balance of the yin and yang, the male and female qualities so essential to good leadership.” One of Smith’s goals is exposing the demeaning effects of an either/or, good/bad hierarchical management style. She knows the paradigm well from the inside, through her 17-year career as a key decision-maker in the Episcopal Church.

During Smith’s tenure there, she developed five leadership programs based on a circular model of shared leadership. She then trained facilitators and took the workshops to thousands of women around the world.

“Women coming together to share a common dream, listen to one another and act to bring that dream to fruition, becomes a powerful force for change,” advises Smith. “Admittedly, working to bring together individuals with various perspectives can get messy, but the vision of shared leadership keeps them together. The secret is to start small and simple and stay the course.”

One circle of women with which Smith is involved is intent on organizing the Women’s World Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2010. Eventually, it will involve many thousands of women eager to bring peace and prosperity to communities everywhere. The vision of shared leadership must act as the glue holding together such a diverse and widespread group.

“We don’t agree on everything, but we all recognize the importance of our ability to work through our differences and collaborate, and the significance of our work,” explains Smith. “We know in our bones that women’s leadership is important now, and that we are involved in shifting a 12,000-year old patriarchal paradigm of leadership.

“Women have underserved as leaders. Our experience has not been utilized and our feminine values have been devalued. The world can only benefit from tapping into women’s huge potential for creativity and applying the core values of womanhood,” says Smith.

Looking Within

As Vice President of public affairs for Equal Voice and President of Time for What Matters, Cynthia Mitchell sees daily how results unfold when women assume leadership roles. She explains that Equal Voice is a nonprofit organization committed to challenging the stereotypes about women as leaders. “We have a two-pronged approach,” she says. “We raise money to support women running for political office, and we educate voters about what women contribute and why supporting those who chose to run for office matters to the health, safety and prosperity of our nation.”

Mitchell’s previous career as a relationship therapist serves her well as she mentors other owners of small businesses who share her entrepreneurial, can-do spirit. This year her work was recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration, which named Mitchell its Women in Business Champion of the Year for the South Florida district for 2008.

“These days, I’m meeting with more women who are beginning to stop participating in the illusion of hoping to someday make a difference,” advises Mitchell. “An increasing number are coming to understand that life is not a dress rehearsal, that things will change only when they realize that their voice counts, and that they must use that voice and take action to make good things happen.”

Mitchell likes to refer to a line from George Burns’ character of God, which he played in the film, Oh God II: “You already have everything it takes to make it work.” Mitchell’s current labor of love is to help women look within to discover what they already have and then put it to use to make a difference now.

She points to the volume of positive legislation initiated or sponsored by women in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Bills passed so far address child labor laws, pregnancy discrimination, child support recovery, family support, pure food, minimum wages, housing for returning veterans, family and medical leave and women’s business ownership. Here, as elsewhere, grassroots voices can raise expectations.

“We all have a responsibility to encourage and support the women who have a voice in the public sector, because they have a long-term focus,” she advises.

Leaving a Legacy

Judi Woods is another woman with her eye on the future. She founded Footsteps to the Future because she believes that wise and experienced women have a responsibility to become the bridge to the future for today’s younger women. It’s just one of this far-sighted woman’s favorite hands-on causes. Woods began her mentoring organization on a small scale, matching 10 women volunteer mentors with 10 young women who were beyond the age for state-sponsored foster care. Outstanding success has carried it to the next level, benefiting more than 68 young women to date. Some are now Footsteps mentors, serving as positive role models for their own peer group.

“Our mentors encourage young women to have confidence in themselves and teach them that they can be leaders now,” says Woods. “We get them instruction in public speaking and other needed life skills, not only to help them build their self-esteem, but also so that they understand that their voices count. Until we encourage and give them a platform, they don’t know that they can.”

Pondering the future of the women’s leadership that she and others are helping to create, Woods observes, “I think what the emerging feminine face of leadership looks like is a fusion of ideas; a partnership and a collaboration. Society’s obviously flawed hierarchical domination model of leadership is crumbling around us because it’s not serving us anymore.”

Woods quotes an African proverb that she finds inspiring: “If you educate and empower a man financially, you’ve empowered an individual. When you do the same for a woman, you change a nation.”

I think, she states, “It’s time to change a nation.”

For information on Train with Shane, call Deborah Shane at 239-939-1848 or visit www.TrainWithShaneToday.com.

For information on Circle Connections and YinPowerment, call Ann Smith at 239-596-2881 and visit www.CircleConnections.net.

For information on Equal Voice and Time for What Matters, call Cynthia Mitchell at 239-269-2852 or visit www.EqualVoice.org and www.TimeForWhatMatters.com.

For information on Footsteps to the Future, call Judi Woods at 239-275-5834 or visit www.FootstepsToTheFuture.org.